My Final Project

The podcast I made for my final project. It is 22.5 MB, 24 minutes and 32 seconds.

Comm. Tech. Podcast

My Final Presentation Video

Let's Play: My Final Project

Here is my final project. This is my first Let's Play run of Zombies Ate My Neighbors for Super Nintendo. I also included the short interview I did with my little brother about Let's Plays in general.

My Let's Play:

Interview with my brother:

Wow. I told you it has become completely iconic!

http://www.airbedandbreakfast.com/obamaos

Final Project

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6n_9eDFJBE

Interesting Article!

Let Them Log On
http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/21/let-them-log-on/

Gambling: From Vegas to Online

This is the video i made for my final project. Basically its a brief overview of online sports gambling; how it moved from gambling in casinos to sports betting to the transition it made to online. The film is unbiased in that it doesn't take a viewpoint however it does present alot of information from only one side of the issue (but it definitely isn't trying to persuade).
But its the first time I had done anything of this nature, so I tried a bunch of different things to get a feel for premiere i suppose. Anyway it took me a while to put together so try not to be to critical. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bV94HMhnrq8

DRM...the ongoing saga...

"Like a creeping fog, DRM smothers more and more media in its clammy embrace, but the sun still shines down on isolated patches of the landscape."

(Ok--so I have to give credit to my intro to Nate Anderson ...but I thought these words might just entice you to read further).
Hacking Digital Rights Management
http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/drmhacks.ars

I am not a music downloader. I listen to all my music on pandora.com and if I like the music I buy the cd. But...my six-cd changer has a habit of breaking and so I like to burn a copy of the real cd in case it gets stuck in my car. Imagine my suprise when I bought a cd recently and tried to burn a copy for my car and couldn't...I just paid $15 for ten songs and now I can't even make myself another copy...in a word...ridiculous.

In a perfect world DRM might work. But I agree with Jeremy Allison in his Tech News article on ZDNet that in our world it just won't work. People are sick of for many years paying for music that was mass-burned onto 50 cent cds and then marked up 25 times and the artist isn't even the one getting the money. So, they turn to file-sharing.

But in a perfect world maybe we wouldn't have to have stores carry cd's and charge overhead and it could be an ITunes model where you just pay for the songs you want and get them on your computer and you can use them how you like. However, there is always going to be illegal downloading of music...period. I agree with Allison in that, "engineers should simply refuse to create DRM for customers." These companies are in denial and it is still going to go on. Invest your dollars in other ventures as DRM isn't able to fully restrict anyway.

Even though artists' profits might be down a bit, exposure to their material is always a good thing. Getting their song out to thousands that would not pay for the music could pay dividends down the road in the form of concert tickets, t-shirts, souvenirs, posters, etc.

I do realize that people in the entertainment industry still need to make a living, but taking the time to establish complicated encryption models hardly seems worth the time, money, and frustration for all parties...but that's just my two cents.

DRM--not just music--now Google and books! http://www.drmwatch.com/legal/article.php/3781701

When I was perusing the web to see what type of commentary there was on DRM I came upon this website that tracks current news on DRM http://www.drmwatch.com/legal/

Also, if you have an opinion and would like to share it this would be a great place. They say that a 16-year old's comment is as good as Microsofts--so give it a shot!

The All Party Parliamentary Internet Group (Apig) is taking a closer look at digital rights management (DRM).
The group, which aims to promote discussion between lawmakers and the new media industries, has launched an inquiry into the issues surrounding DRM, the results of which will form the basis of recommendations it will make to parliament on how to deal with the burgeoning technology.
http://management.silicon.com/government/0,39024677,39154238,00.htm

As stated in the Good Copy Bad Copy film, copyright laws have become very powerful, and arguably to the point that they inhibit new creative works. There is really a fine line between sampling and parodies. I find someone like Weird Al Yankovic far less creative than the people who use the sampling method and create something very unique such as Danger Mouse in his Gray Album. In this case he was not making a profit and neither the Beatles nor Jay-Z was losing a profit, so I fail to see much wrong with it.

There is also the issue of each download being a lost sale, and this is clearly not the case for most people. I know very few people who will go out and buy a CD if there is one song on it that they like, they would however download it. At the same time if there is a great album out, most will give the respect to the artist and buy it.

The bottom line to me is that if there is a case where the artist is losing money , or someone else is making money by using the original artists work, this is wrong, but its generally harmless otherwise.

You ARE the Weakest Link, Goodbye...

DRM is, and has been for quite some time, a concern for me. This is especially true for music and other content that I have purchased legally. A few years ago I purchased a Foo Fighters CD and promptly attempted to rip the CD so that I could play it using my iPod. No so much success there. No matter how many times I tried to rip the music I ended up with garbled songs that were utterly unlistenable. Eventually, through the previously discussed miracle known as Google, I discovered that the problem lay within software called SunnComm and First 4 Internet. These programs, installed without my knowledge and with only my kinda-sorta consent, were preventing me from accessing my CD properly. A full discussion of the issue can be found here: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/computersecurity/2005-11-13-digital-rights_x.htm

Ridiculous! I bought CD and intended to use it only for my own personal use. I did not intend to distrubute it, remix it, or do anything else illegal with it. But regardless of my intent, Sony was very concerned and decided to block my legal use. This was a big turning point for me. Up until that point I downloaded only very little music and the music that I did download was used for preview purposes, not in place of purchasing legally. However, since that time I have become an avid downloader of all sorts of digital content. If companies are going to put themselves above their consumers, I don't feel too bad for doing the same in reverse. I do NOT actively screw companies by getting things I would buy for free, but I certainly am not worried about using digital content without permission either. In addition, I am legally allowed to make archival copies of legally purchased DVDs and I take great joy in doing so regardless of what copyright protection is contained on the disc. Getting around their copyright protection is half the fun. I haven't met a DVD or software label yet that was uncrackable.

These practices are destined to continue and get worse. As we come into the era of increased amounts of entirely digital content, we are poised on the brink of disasterous levels of DRM and DRM-like protections. Nowadays we are seeing measures being adapted directly into hardware to prevent 'theft' of high definition digital content, even when it's not really theft at all. HDCP is an example of such measures. This protection, more here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDCP , is now intergrated into most new computer monitors as a measure to reduce copying of high definition content. However, HDCP protocol make no differentiation between legal unencrypted digital content and illegal unencrypted digital content. So there are certainly many instances in which this protocol will prevent or frustrate legal attempts at content distrubution.

In summation: DRM is evil and bad for consumers and merchants alike, including those people and bands that orginally produce the content. In addition, trying to truly prevent copyright violation is like trying to prevent all teenagers from having sex. You can try as hard as you want, but ultimately you're going to fail. Most attempts to prevent copyright violation are hacked or fixed before the technology even goes to market. So, to big business I say: give up and go have a cold one.

File Sharing

File sharing...good or bad? That is the big question posed by the readings and video. In my opinion there isn't really that much wrong with it. I think that by using a file sharing system that I do like Limewire there isn't a great chance to get caught. People that upload thousands upon thousands of songs a month and are all over the place sharing them should get caught. No one should fully depend on a file sharing system to get all of their music. I think that if you really like the artist and you just want to see what is on the CD to see if it is worth buying that it is okay to sample some of the songs. But if you do like the songs you should go out and make the purchase at the store. I also believe that buying the CD isn't really supporting the artist as much as you would think it was. I have heard that only one dollar out of the fourteen or fifteen that you spend on a the CD actually goes to the artist. I would rather support an artist that I like by buying a ticket to see them live in concert. I think that is a much better investment then a CD and a lot more fun then just listening to a CD in your car. Back to file shraing though...I think that it really isn't that big of a deal. I also don't think that when Napster got in big trouble for all the file sharing that that was necessary. I know that artists would like people to buy their CD's but the whole truth behind it is that no one really listens to CD's unless they are in their car usually. I know most people just use the music on their iPod or MP3 player to mainly listen to. This would mean that it is much easier to download a song on the internet and then put it on your iPod instead of going to the store, paying for a CD, uploading it onto your computer, and then finally adding it to your iPod. That takes a lot more work. I think aritists make enough money as it is that they don't need to be worrying about file sharing.

File Sharing

I don't generally buy into the argument that the internet and in particular piracy is killing the industries. To be honest, I think if anything allowing people to download music or movies is helping them. The example of how sales are down is more than ever people are more critical about what they buy because they have the option to "test" it out before they support the artist. So what that means is less money is going to the big names in the industries because they are making poor products and the more artists putting out a product that is worth something are getting the revenue.

What I think will be big for artists is now it is possible to release material on the internet that before they could only get released through record labels or film companies. There have been a couple of major label bands (Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails) that released their albums online without the record companies distribution. I know Radiohead offered a online download of their record "In Rainbows" on their website to fans who could donate money if they wanted where they could pick what they thought the album was worth. I could see this becoming a trend where artist will upload their album in low quality mp3s for fans to preview like they would on amazon samples to try it out and if they think it is worth it, they might actually pay for it. Who knows... the internet could benefit both artists and fans in getting the best product and cutting out the record labels greedy pricing.

What is Theft?

When dealing with file sharing and sampling there is a lot of skewed perceptions…much like we realized when we discussed it the other day in class. If you really take a look at forms of mediums one has to realize that you can listen to song or watch a movie and say hey that sounds like this older song or that shot was taken from this movie…people are always going to live in the past and references to Citizen Kane will NEVER go away. So if one ads an extra ting like Vanilla Ice did is it a different song….the lyrics are and the pace of the song is different. Another thing to look at is how powerful/impactive the band/artist you’re stealing from is…The Beatles would be a bad choice…Marky Mark do it up! Songs today are varied by very little, from just a slight chord change or extra beat and some people agree with it but usually the original artists like The Beatles or Tom Petty they’ll take you to court.

As for the DJs who take songs and mix them together and give props to the artists…I see no problem with that. Think about all the clubs in the world and all the DJ who are constantly ramping songs into each other and mixing beats night after night…that’s illegal? Plus how do they get the rights to spin the artists beats? Cause our DJ at where I work rips/burns his songs on his laptop…so someday we’re going to have a geek squad type police unit that rolls up in clubs and are like yank…no music for you…

SAW THIS COMMERCIAL THE OTHER DAY AND TOYS ARE GETTING CREEPIER!

Digital Rights Management

Digital rights management is something that we are going to be hearing a lot more about in the upcoming years. The current system is a complex network that still leaves the door open to who owns what material, and who is allowed to use it. “Good Copy Bad Copy” was a very interesting documentary in which the director examined piracy and digital rights management. What intrigued me the most was how record conglomerates would raise hell anytime a work they copyrighted was being reproduced even if it was non-profit. It seems frivolous to me that a company would pursue individuals who using copyrighted material simply to produce creative works. DJ Magicmouse for instance, who would have thought to use music from the Beatles and mix it with lyrics from Jay Z. Obviously artists are influenced by other artist, and I don’t see any reason why artists can’t use expired works to create new music. I guess this is just another example of money hungry fat cat executives trying to squeeze out every penny possible. With the accessibility of the internet to almost everyone, more and more I believe will see artists borrowing music from other artist. The cycle will never end, and record companies will probably end up spending more money on starting the cases then they ever will receive in a settlement. In the end I think there should be a element of respect for other artists work, but it should be between artists not record companies. If the music industry became regulated by artists and not multi-billion dollars corps, I think the piracy/digital rights management debate would have never existed. If they want to keep spending money trying to protect these works all your going to see is more of this:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,289546,00.html

DRMish

Uh oh it's happening to Macs too:

http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2008/11/apple-adds-copy.html

Obama was a package that was bought.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfpQfOENzjs

"organized civil disobedience"

My favorite part was when the Swedish boy called pirating a form of "organized civil disobedience" because part of me wants to say 'yea! screw the billion dollar music corporations.' As a broke student I want free movies and music and I want to be able to use those things in my own creative projects. It would be amazing to be able to use Food Network clips in my food show without worrying about if its legal, or to be able to pick some popular amazing music to jazz up the audio. This would be a dream come true. Then there is that pesky other side of my brain. The part that says what about when I am a famous filmmaker and some punk ass kids start downloading my movies and using them in their own works. Will that be ok? Will I be losing money or creative licence? Or does it even matter because will I be able to stop them? I like to think I would be happy to see people reuse my work in their own creative ways but I also like to think I will have some money some day so I don't know. Maybe I'll move to Sweden.

Is technology spawning new dating disasters?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27294186/wid/11915829/

When you don't want to be Facebook friends...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27775484/wid/11915829?GT1=43001&print=1&displaymode=1098

Nintendo Wii Going Second Life