Author: mklang

Mininova must remove infringing torrents

TorrentFreak reports that the torrent search engine Mininova:

…has lost its civil dispute with Dutch anti-piracy outfit BREIN. The judge ruled that Mininova is not directly responsible for any copyright infringement, but ordered it to remove all torrents linking to copyrighted material within three months, or face a penalty of up to 5 million euros.

The courts attitude towards the site was very different to the Swedish Pirate Bay case since it was not BREIN’s intention was not to shut down the site. But they demanded a filtering of infringing keywords to ensure that copyright holders were protected.

The court agreed with BREIN’s assessment that Mininova is not doing enough to protect the rights of copyright holders, and ordered the site to remove all torrent files that link to infringing content within three months, or pay a penalty up to 5 million euros ($7 million).

The interesting thing is that the courts are demanding that Mininova do more than apply a takedown policy that allows copyright holders to remove infringing torrents but stop short from demanding the site is liable for everything straight away (which was the Swedish approach). The fact that “doing more” is extremely complex (and therefore costly) did not impress the courts.

Posted on by mklang

Pirate Bay does Churchill

The Pirate Bay is back online (at least the front page) with an updated version of Churchill’s We shall fight them on the beaches speech

We have, ourselves, full confidence that if all do their duty, if nothing is neglected, and if the best arrangements are made, as they are being made, we shall prove ourselves once more able to defend our Internets, to ride out the storm of war, and to outlive the menace of tyranny, if necessary for years, if necessary alone.
Even though large parts of Internets and many old and famous trackers have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Ifpi and all the odious apparatus of MPAA rule, we shall not flag or fail.
We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the ef-nets and darknets, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Internets, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the baywords.org, we shall fight on the /. and on the digg, we shall fight in the courts;
we shall never surrender, and if, which I do not for a moment believe, the Internets or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the Anon Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in Cerf’s good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.
 TPB Crew, for now and until when needed.

An interesting thing about Churchill’s speech was that when he paused for applause/effect in the middle of the speech he whispered to an aide, “and we shall fight with the butt end of broken beer bottles because that’s bloody well all we’ve got.”

Posted on by mklang

Equality loses on Wikipedia

Wikipedia is planning to add a feature called “flagged revisions” which will fundamentally alter the basic philosophy of WIkipedia. The plan will effect the articles of now living people and will require trusted voluntary Wikipedia editors to accept changes made to any article. Prior to acceptance the changes will not be visible. The New York Times writes:

The change is part of a growing realization on the part of Wikipedia’s leaders that as the site grows more influential, they must transform its embrace-the-chaos culture into something more mature and dependable.

The original free for all attitude where anyone can change articles – which is still the main boast of Wikipedia – has not been true since the Seigenthaler “scandal” in 2005. After John Seigenthaler was accused in a Wikipedia article of being directly involved in both the assassinations of John and Bobby Kennedy Wikipedia removed anonymous edits.

But the basic change occurring now is that the simple user cannot change articles (of now living people) which means that the balance of power in the creation of online information on Wikipedia shifts and gives the voluntary editor more power – even in relation to the knowledgeable writer.

Considering the past problems and the ways in which Wikipedia articles are often used for marketing and boastfulness these changes are probably necessary. But at the same time it is sad to see that the power over the online knowledge infrastructure is fundamentally shifting from the users into the hands of the gatekeepers.

Posted on by mklang

Fifteen minutes

In 1968 Andy Warhol launched the idea that: “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.” Later in 1979 Warhol restated his idea with the words: “…my prediction from the sixties finally came true: In the future everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes.”

Yesterday my colleague Dr Dick posted this amazing quote on Facebook:

In the future, everyone will be anonymous for 15 minutes.

With a little googling I found the origins of the quote come from the great street artist Banksy – here is a picture from one of his exhibitions.

This was a brilliant twist on the classic Warhol idea. Today everyone is striving for fame in a way that has never been done before. If we then add the death of privacy both the voluntary and the semi-voluntary. We voluntarily give away our privacy through blogs, twitter and facebook (and tons of other web2.0 applications). Then we semi-voluntarily give away too much information through our dependence upon technology.

Through all this loss of privacy the question is no longer one of fame or recognition. The question is if we in the future can have any privacy at all. So in the same way as Warhol in the sixties surprised (or even shocked?) people by claiming people would have fame the question today is more relevant whether we will have privacy.

Fifteen minutes of privacy is an important question to be thought about considering the way in which or society is moving.

Posted on by mklang

Cyberbullying on Facebook

It was obviously just a matter of time before it would happen. The only question is what took it so long. The Guardian reports that a teenager was jailed for bullying on Facebook:

A teenager who posted death threats on Facebook has become the first person in Britain to be jailed for bullying on a social networking site.

Keeley Houghton, 18, of Malvern, Worcestershire, has been sentenced to three months in a young offenders’ institution after she posted a message saying that she would kill Emily Moore. She pleaded guilty to harassment.

Posted on by mklang

Hanging with TJ

On my way home I was wandering aimlessly browsing stores and walked into a second hand bookstore and found The Life and Selected Writings of Thomas Jefferson for 1.99 euros! The book includes many of his longer and shorter works and a large selection of letters. My favorite is Thomas Jefferson’s letter to Isaac McPherson (13 August 1813) which includes the wonderful quote:

If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property.

Thomas Jefferson was also in Paris during the French revolution and I am looking forward to reading his letters during this period. Some red wine and an interesting discussion with Thomas is my idea of a good Friday.

Posted on by mklang

Would the real inventor of calculus please stand up?

XKCD has done a strip on the conflict of calculus invention.

Most stories of calculus (but wikipedia does a very nice history) tend to forget all the work done by the ancient and medieval mathematicians (not to mention the foreigners) and skip straight away into the Newton vs Leibniz conflict.

The problem was that Newton didn’t publish his work so when Leibniz figured out a system for the calculus of infinitesimals he was accused of plagiarism by Newton. The petty academic discussion continued for a while and Leibniz was apparently very hurt the great man’s accusations.

The image at the end with Newton in shades is a perfect example of the man who was a bit of a diva.

Posted on by mklang

Three strikes discussed in Singapore

The Straits Times reports that Singapore is joining the group of countries considering (or implementing) the three strikes law to fight illegal copyright violation. Or as the newspaper buts it:

terminating Internet access of hardcore pirates who refuse to quit despite repeat warnings.

Three strikes is already in force in South Korea and has been proposed in Britain, France and New Zealand.

The problem with these types of laws is that the internet connection is not a personal item but is shared with others Closing an internet connection negatively effects the whole group of users who rely on there internet connections to carry out their daily lives. Not to mention the difficulty of what to do when other family members apply for a new connection to the same address as the blocked user.

Posted on by mklang

Personas – who are you online?

Personas is a component of the Metropath(ologies) exhibit, currently on display at the MIT Museum by the Sociable Media Group from the MIT Media Lab. It uses sophisticated natural language processing and the Internet to create a data portrait of one’s aggregated online identity. In short, Personas shows you how the Internet sees you.

Had to try this and ended up with:

personasThe headings are Online, Books, Sports, Management, Education, Legal, Religion. Not sure what all this says about me but this is the way in which a data mining tool thinks I am on the internet.

Posted on by mklang