Ironic that I am interviewing a young musician for SaGeek MAG this month. This week www.mybroadband.co.za broke the story that RISA asserts it is illegal to convert a CD you bought to MP3 for playing in your mp3 player. Unfortunately a law penned in 1978 supports their assertion.
Working on my opinion piece for the MAG, I decided to check out their website, below are a few thoughts on one or two or more of their points re piracy.
The scene is early 1942. In the distance air-raid sirens can be heard wailing, the dull thud of explosions far away still rattle the windows of the tiny office. It is desperate times for Britain. Three men sit around the table, hunched over blueprints for a new supercharger, destined to be fitted to the Supermarine Spitfire. They seem to be anxiously waiting for something.
Suddenly a fourth man comes barreling through the door, slip of paper in his hand. He looks distraught.
“Well spill it man!” exclaims one of the fellows at the desk.
The newcomer swallows, then clears his throat. “The… the yanks… we can’t do it.”
One of the men by the desk throws his hands in the air and glares out the window.
Computer Use Policy, Internet Policy, Computer Compliance Policy or even Email Policy – call it by many names, but the Electronic Communications Policy remains universally important to the employer and employee alike.
Here’s why.
People assign intrinsic value to money. Be it cash, what is in your account, or credits in an e-store. Cash allows you to buy stuff. You could buy a car, it would be your car. You could buy a radio, and it would be YOUR Panasonic monster 3000watt PMPO sitting on your desk just waiting to freak out your neighbors.
With the advent of online stores you can buy applications with your cash, credit or whatnot. You can buy an iPhone app from the app store and have it downloaded onto your iPhone, or iPad for that matter. And it would be YOUR app.
Wait, no. It wouldn’t after all… continue reading…
Two interesting stories today…
Again both stories are from the BBC. The first one relates how Intel apparently made things difficult for the OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) Project.
While the tone of the news report makes it difficult to ascertain exactly who is the party in the wrong, one thing seems certain, OLPC project leader Professor Nicholas Negroponte has had enough.
“Why would I throw away the six million dollars they were supposed to give us yesterday? Why would I do all of these things unless I was stark raving mad?”
According to him Intel would go in and push their competing product to governments after the OLPC Project has already signed a contract.
A Cited example is Peru where apparently Intel tried to convince Vice Minister of Education Oscar Becerra Tresierra to buy the Intel Classmate PC.
Mr Paul Otellini, the head of Intel, called the allegations “Hogwash”
An interesting note is that the OLPC product uses AMD hardware, runs Open Source software whereas the Intel product uses Intel Architecture (obviously duh) and runs Windows.
Windows *shudder*.
I am sniffing a spanner in the works, one that is shaped like Bill Gates glasses. But that again is just speculation on my part.
Read more on that here.
On the next story I do not have too much to say, but IT’S ABOUT TIME SANITY RETURNED!
The UK Minister of Intellectual Property Lord Triesman suggested that the laws governing copyright should catch up with the times.
A new law would make it legal for users to copy music from their PC’s onto a CD.
Score one for Customers Rights!
Thats all for today, read more on this here.
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