#20190124 News

[mostlysignssomeportents]

This day in history

There are only five more days left in my Kickstarter for the audiobook of The Bezzle, the sequel to Red Team Blues, narrated by @wilwheaton! You can pre-order the audiobook and ebook, DRM free, as well as the hardcover, signed or unsigned. There's also bundles with Red Team Blues in ebook, audio or paperback.

#20yrsago NYT discovers the “Plam Pilot” phenomenon https://memex.craphound.com/2004/01/28/nyt-discovers-the-plam-pilot-phenomenon/

#20yrsago Irish ISP will disconnect Internet users after three unsubstantiated copyright claims https://memex.craphound.com/2009/01/28/irish-isp-will-disconnect-internet-users-after-three-unsubstantiated-copyright-claims/

#15yrsago Ryanair will fine passengers who board with too much carry-on https://gadling.com/2009/01/22/ryanair-to-ticket-passengers-who-try-to-cheat-the-baggage-system/

#15yrsago BBC promises to put 200,000 publicly owned oil paintings online by 2012 https://www.theguardian.com/media/2009/jan/28/bbc-digitalmedia

#10yrsago Gartner Hype Cycle on the Gartner Hype Cycle https://twitter.com/philgyford/status/427840025544650753

#10yrsago Makerspaces and libraries: two great tastes that taste great together https://medium.com/the-magazine/shifting-from-shelves-to-snowflakes-d2a360c7ac7b

#10yrsago Pope Francis on the Internet and communication https://www.hyperorg.com/blogger/2014/01/27/a-gift-from-god/

#10yrsago UK National Museum of Computing trustees publish damning letter about treatment by Bletchley Park trust https://web.archive.org/web/20140130143734/https://www.tnmoc.org/news/news-releases/deciphering-discontent-statement-tnmoc-trustees

#10yrsago What is exposed about you and your friends when you login with Facebook https://twitter.com/TheBakeryLDN/status/427531934294880256

#10yrsago 890 word Daily Mail immigrant panic story contains 13 vile lies https://web.archive.org/web/20140126081130/http://britishinfluence.org/13-reasons-taking-daily-mail-press-complaints-commission/

#5yrsago Bride attains virality by adding pockets to her dress and those of her bridesmaids https://metro.co.uk/2019/01/27/bride-added-pockets-wedding-dress-bridesmaids-dresses-8398183/

#5yrsago Grifter steals dead peoples’ houses in gentrifying Philadelphia by forging deed transfers, then flipping them https://www.inquirer.com/news/a/house-sales-fraud-theft-philadelphia-real-estate-dead-owners-william-johnson-20190124.html

#5yrsago Megathread of Facebook’s terrible, horrible, no-good eternity https://brucesterling.tumblr.com/post/182371861433/all-things-facebook

#5yrsago How Facebook tracks Android users, even those without Facebook accounts https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0vlD7r-kTc

#5yrsago Video and audio from my closing keynote at Friday’s Grand Re-Opening of the Public Domain https://archive.org/details/ClosingKeynoteForGrandReopeningOfThePublicDomainCoryDoctorowAtInternetArchive_201901

Berliners: Otherland has added a second date (Jan 28 - THIS SUNDAY!) for my book-talk after the first one sold out - book now!

Back the Kickstarter for the audiobook of The Bezzle here!

Image: Sam Valadi (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/132084522@N05/17086570218/

CC BY 2.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

[thcscout]

Panukala para gawing legal ang medical marijuana, lusot na sa ikalawang pagbasa ng Kongreso

Panukala para gawing legal ang medical marijuana, lusot na sa ikalawang pagbasa ng Kongreso

Lusot na sa second reading sa Kongreso ang panukala para maging legal ang paggamit ng cannabis o marijuana ng mga pasyenteng nakakaranas ng matinding sakit ng katawan at seizures. Kabilang diyan ang mga may epilepsy, cancer at HIV/AIDS. Pero magiging mahigpit ang regulasyon sa paggamit nito. Hindi naman kumbinsido si Health Secretary Francisco Duque na ligtas at mabisa ang paggamit ng medical…

[samantha-dan564]

定山渓鉄道の野望再び？

[oberstcult]

Bridgers, 24, and Oberst, 38, have a surprise new band, Better Oblivion Community Center, and a full self-titled album to go with it, which was released early this morning on streaming and download platforms (a physical edition is due Feb. 22). Though the two are prolific songwriters, with myriad side projects of their own already, this is something different for both of them.

[yes-ja-o-ui]

‘My body, my choice’ In Japan, transgender people who seek legal gender change must appeal to a family court under Law 111 of 2003. The law requires applicants to “permanently lack functioning gonads” before they can be legally recognized, which amounts to forced sterilization. 

日本の法では、法的な戸籍の性別を変更を求める人に、「生殖腺がないこと又は生殖腺の機能を永続的に欠く状態にあること」を義務付けている。これは強制不妊にあたり、人権侵害だと批判されている。

A transgender man who wants to change the gender listed on his official documents had appealed to the court seeking to overturn the law. According to the article from CNN, The Supreme Court unanimously rejected his case Thursday, ruling the 2003 law constitutional. However, judges added it was invasive and encouraged the legislature to review it. 強制不妊を義務付ける法律は憲法違反であるとして、とあるトランス男性が裁判を起こした。最高裁は満場一致でその法律は合憲であるとその訴えを退けた。しかしながら、裁判官たちはそれが人権侵害的であると付け加え、見直しを求める見解を述べた。

The court initially said the law was intended to prevent "problems" in parent-child relations which could lead to societal "confusion," and avoid "abrupt changes" to society. その法律はその当時、性別を変更することによって、社会的な「混乱」が起こり、それによって親子の関係に「問題」が発生すること、そして社会の「突然な変化」を防ぐために制定されたという。 参考: https://www.hrw.org/ja/news/2017/11/29/315692 https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20190124/k10011789831000.html https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/25/asia/japan-supreme-court-trans-intl/index.html Art direction / design / illustration basically everything by Miu Kayama @yesjaoui 

#mimiartworks #yesjaoui #graphicdesign #transrightsarehumanrights #japan #law#humanrights #transwomenarewomen#transmenaremen #poster #art #design#illustration

[planetaria-blog]

New image of Ultima Thule/2014 MU69!

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/News-Article.php?page=20190124

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Independent Musician Explains Why Article 13 Will Be An Utter Disaster For Independent Artists

Mike Masnick/Techdirt:

A decade ago, when there were still people laughably insisting that the internet was the worst thing that ever happened to musicians, I kept pointing out examples of artists who were creatively embracing the internet to great success -- connecting with fans, building new business models, and succeeding. And every time I did that, people would complain that this example was an "exception" or an "anomaly." And, they had a habit of qualifying any success story -- even if the qualifications were contradictory. For example, if I highlighted an independent artist's success, people would say "well, that's just a small independent artist, they have nothing to lose, no big rock star could ever succeed that way." And then, when I'd highlight a big rock star having success embracing the internet, I'd be told "well, it's easy for him, he already had a huge following." It got so silly that back in 2008 one of our commenters coined "Masnick's Law" to describe this phenomenon:

Masnick's Law states that in any conversation about musicians doing something different to achieve fame and/or fortune someone will inevitably attempt to make the argument that "it only worked for them because they are big/small and it will never work for someone who is the opposite," no matter how much evidence to the contrary might be readily available.

In 2009, getting fed up with this, I wrote a long article detailing examples of a whole bunch of success stories of artists embracing the internet mixing in ones who were hugely famous with ones who were moderately successful and ones who were small independents... and someone complained in an email that these were all exceptions.

Over the past few years, I thought this kind of "exception" thinking had mostly died out, but it showed up again recently. We posted famed science fiction author Ken MacLeod's excellent opinion piece arguing that, even though he's a big supporter of copyright and against anyone pirating his books, he's absolutely against the EU's plans for Article 11 and Article 13 in the EU Copyright Directive. The key line: "Far greater than my interest in copyright is my interest in a free and open internet – or, failing that, in keeping the internet as free and open as it is now."

And, in the comments... Masnick's Law reared its ugly head again:

Straw-man argument, since he has a big publisher to both pay him and defend his property rights. He's not an indie who markets his own work on the internet and has to fight mass piracy on his own. He doesn't need copyright protection when he has distribution sending his fans to pay for his work (while the same fans might pirate the indies).

He is the one who wants big publishers to continue to dominate and profit, while the indies want direct access to the public and the elimination of the middleman that is this man's meal ticket.

Of course, that's nonsense. That comment is based on the idea that you need to "fight" mass piracy, rather than looking for ways to build a successful business model that involves connecting with your true fans.

And, of course, the impact on independent artists will be even more serious than those signed to big publishers/labels/studios/etc. Indeed, Ken's own Twitter feed pointed me to an independent musician in the UK, Stephen Blythe, who has written about why Article 13 will make life worse for him as an independent musician. After detailing his situation as a musician, he explains that if you want to get your music out there, so that you can build a fanbase, you need to get your music onto the "most popular music" sites. And to do that you have to use a special third party:

If an independent artist wants to get their music out there into the world, to the most popular music sharing sites, they need to use some kind of recognised distributor – as direct submissions are either impossible, or extremely restricted. A pile of these have sprung up, including Amuse, RouteNote, DistroKid, etc. Some charge a subscription fee per year, some take a cut of any revenue generated, and some of them don’t even have a website – operating just from an app. The concept is simple: You send your music to them, and they distribute it digitally to the various partners. One of these partners is YouTube.

But it turns out that those services, as part of their "value add" will "enforce copyright" for you:

What isn’t made clear by these distribution networks is that by submitting your music to YouTube, you essentially give the distributor a licence to enforce your copyright on the platform using the ContentID system. This automatically detects any music uploaded along with a YouTube video (including short clips), and flags it up as unauthorised. To many this might sound great. Stop people stealing your stuff!

The problem of course is that there is very often no way to denote authorised uses or channels with these common distribution services.

He then details two separate scenarios of artists being harmed by this kind of "enforcement" including one that happened directly to himself:

An artist (A) is asked by a fellow musician (B) if they would be interested in a collaboration. The process is simple: B will supply A with some vocal samples that A can then chop up and use however they wish. A gladly accepts, and comes up with a whole electronic composition that brings the vocals to life. B loves the track, and asks if they can use it on their upcoming DIY release. A agrees. B’s friend runs a small label who agrees to put out the album, and they use a distribution service which sends the album to all the major partners automatically – including YouTube’s ContentID system. A few years later, A is producing short video blogs and decides to use one of their old tracks as background music. It gets flagged up as a copyright violation automatically, which A disputes – but the appeal is rejected by the distributor, who has no knowledge of how the track came about in the first place.

He then explains that in a world where everything involves a massive ContentID-like filter, you create a terrible situation for independent musicians, who are at the mercy of much larger companies with no flexibility:

Independent musicians are at the mercy of a system which locks them out from negotiating their own contracts without major label backing, and they therefore have to rely on gatekeepers which provide an inadequate level of information and control over their own music.

Artists who are starting out lack the information required in order to make informed decisions about their interaction with such services, and can inadvertently give away their ability to exploit their creations commercially due to how the systems are constructed.

The ContentID approach to copyright enforcement gives huge clout to the first entity to register a piece of work within their system – which is rarely going to be the artist themselves.

This model has no room for the ad-hoc, informal, and varying ways in which independent musicians create and share their works online.

Or, in short:

The current ContentID system works on a first-come, first-served basis. It puts huge power in the hands of intermediary distribution services which do not provide a service that can ever give artists the amount of control over their licenses they would require to fully exploit their creations. The nature of the beast means that informal collaborations between like-minded folks can unexpectedly tie up their creative expression years down the road. Article 13 will only expand these systems, which will inevitably be less sophisticated on other platforms than ContentID. Independent artists lose the ability to share their work even further.

I'd argue it goes much further than that. First, the major record labels see everything stated in the paragraph above as a benefit of Article 13. Giving huge power to the middlemen gatekeepers puts them back in the position they were in year's ago, where they get to decide who gets distribution and who doesn't. That system created a world in which musicians had to hand over their copyright and nearly all of the revenue generated from their works in exchange for a pittance of an advance (which was really just a loan). So, putting more gatekeeper power back in their hands is the goal here.

Second, and even more concerning, is that Article 13 is premised on only the largest platforms being able to comply -- meaning that there will be less competition on the platform side and fewer and fewer places for independent artists to distribute their work, should they wish to do so. That gives them fewer options and less ability to build a fanbase, unless they get plucked out of obscurity by a giant gatekeeper (again, going back to the way things were a couple decades ago).

Now, I'm sure that someone will pop into the comments and point out that this example doesn't count because it's just a "small, independent artist," and that his concerns don't matter to "real" artists (meaning major label ones), but, haven't we played that game long enough?

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20190124/22555441466/independent-musician-explains-why-article-13-will-be-utter-disaster-independent-artists.shtml

[nathancatucci]

World Premiere announcement in Broadway World: https://www.broadwayworld.com/article/Santino-Fontana-Stars-in-IMPOSSIBLE-MONSTERS-Making-its-World-Premiere-at-the-Cinequest-Film-Festival-20190124 #impossiblemonsters #cinequest #worldpremiere #movie #thriller #dreams #nightmares #sanjose #redwoodcity #stanford #paloalto #sanmateo @santinofontana #lailarobbins #dennisboutsikaris @devikabhise @natalieknepp #donallohealai @geoffreyowensofficial @chenryjava @spikefirst Dir. @nathancatucci @officialbroadwayworld (at New York, New York) https://www.instagram.com/p/BtD2KRhhTuA/?igshid=fq42enwjwl94

[spacebetweenthespaces]

“Joie Henney, 65, said his registered emotional support animal named Wally likes to snuggle and give hugs, despite being a 5-foot-long alligator.”

[thcscout]

Panukalang gawing legal ang medical marijuana, pasado na sa 2nd reading sa Kamara

Panukalang gawing legal ang medical marijuana, pasado na sa 2nd reading sa Kamara

Saksi is GMA Network’s late-night newscast hosted by Arnold Clavio and Pia Arcangel. It airs Mondays to Fridays at 11:30 PM (PHL Time) on GMA-7. For more videos from Saksi, visit http://www.gmanews.tv/saksi.

GMA promotes healthy debate and conversation online. Any abusive language that does not facilitate productive discourse will be blocked from this post.

GMA upholds ethical standards of…

[baileyspecialrisks]

The reality is that most technology firms are small companies or start-ups and don’t have the billion-dollar budgets of Facebook, Google, or Amazon. A significant claim or lawsuit could put a fledgling tech company out of business for good.

[therebelwrites]

“In a highly unorthodox move, the Illinois attorney general’s office is ‘reviewing’ former Chicago police Officer Jason Van Dyke’s relatively lenient prison sentence, a spokeswoman for the office said Thursday.

“‘We are going to do a careful review of the record and the law and make a determination based on our review,’ spokeswoman Maura Possley said in an email.

“Possley declined to elaborate on what exactly the office is examining, but legal experts told the Tribune the attorney general might be considering whether to petition the Illinois Supreme Court to order the trial judge to sentence Van Dyke again — only under tougher guidelines this time.

“Last week, former state Sen. Kwame Raoul was sworn in as attorney general just days before Van Dyke was sentenced to less than seven years in prison for shooting Laquan McDonald 16 times.

“A Cook County jury found Van Dyke guilty of second-degree murder and 16 counts of aggravated battery last fall, making him the first Chicago police officer in half a century to be convicted of murder for an on-duty shooting.

“Judge Vincent Gaughan sentenced Van Dyke under the less stringent second-degree murder statute, not for the aggravated batteries that could have led to a much longer prison sentence.

“The shorter sentence prompted the defense to back off promises to appeal Van Dyke’s conviction out of concern that such a move could result in added prison time for the ex-officer.

“But if Raoul successfully challenged the sentence, that could force Van Dyke’s defense team to appeal the conviction after all, dragging the case out for years, legal experts said.”