Yes, I've written about this before, but it is something that is on my mind all the time. I see so many articles on it that when I see one that really grabs my attention I have to share it. I love this response. Apparently it works sometimes.
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140521/06322827302/patent-troll-apparently-didnt-appreciate-being-called-piece-shit-sues-over-basic-location-functionality.shtml
It did this time thought. But, the article makes a great point. If you understand patents and copyright the point is to encourage innovation. Some libertarians might say that it is not the government's place to encourage or discourage any behavior short of preventing any individual or group from infringing on the liberty of another. I do believe that patents and copyrights are defensible. I believe that people have the right to benefit financially from their own hard work and innovation. Patents and copyrights make this possible. However, when the "innovator" isn't really doing any innovating they should not be allowed to patent the "innovation." The problem is that our patent office and legal system are so far behind the technological curve that those granting patents and handing down legal opinions do not really understand that they are following neither the spirit or letter of these laws.
I haven't spent any time in the courtrooms where these decisions are being made, but I have to believe that they lawyers aren't doing a very good job of explaining these things to judges and juries either.
Monday, May 26, 2014
Sunday, May 25, 2014
What is important?
A couple of things reminded me in the past few days about what is important. I'm going to work backward though because that is where I am at this moment. I'm watching Hating Breitbart instead of getting done the things around my house that need to be done. For those of you who don't know Breitbart is sort of like the antithesis of Arianna Huffington. He is an unabashedly biased reporter. Whereas the Huffington Post looks to the left for inspiration, Breitbart.com looks to the right. Is this a problem? Not really. They tell us who they are and what they believe. Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, and other major media outlets on the other hand, claim to be unbiased while focusing their reporting and selection based on a political agenda.
So here I sit in my living room reflecting on my own political beliefs and morals. The fact that I am a bit of a news junkie. I love learning, reading, and following the news.I don't really care about the latest antics of some Hollywood personality, or who is going to get picked first in the next draft. I do, however, want to know what is going on the political sphere, especially where it concerns my family's constitutional rights and the future of the United States as a free society. I do that by reading news feeds, and watching documentaries from as many sources as I can. I want to make decisions based on the best information available. For whom should I vote? What companies/services should I use/avoid? These and other decisions need to be made with good information. Information that I do not believe is reliably available by simply watching Fox, CNN, or MSNBC. I do not believe that I can get this information by simply reading one newspaper, website, or blog. So I have assembled a small collection of sources which I believe report reliably on issues about which I care.
The other thing that is important to me is prioritizing my time. And recently I have found myself losing sight of some of that. A few years ago I read The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. My main takeaway was the importance/urgency matrix. It looks a bit like this:
So here I sit in my living room reflecting on my own political beliefs and morals. The fact that I am a bit of a news junkie. I love learning, reading, and following the news.I don't really care about the latest antics of some Hollywood personality, or who is going to get picked first in the next draft. I do, however, want to know what is going on the political sphere, especially where it concerns my family's constitutional rights and the future of the United States as a free society. I do that by reading news feeds, and watching documentaries from as many sources as I can. I want to make decisions based on the best information available. For whom should I vote? What companies/services should I use/avoid? These and other decisions need to be made with good information. Information that I do not believe is reliably available by simply watching Fox, CNN, or MSNBC. I do not believe that I can get this information by simply reading one newspaper, website, or blog. So I have assembled a small collection of sources which I believe report reliably on issues about which I care.
The other thing that is important to me is prioritizing my time. And recently I have found myself losing sight of some of that. A few years ago I read The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. My main takeaway was the importance/urgency matrix. It looks a bit like this:
Lately it seems that everything is urgent, and not all of it is important. Sure, some of these things can overlap. Building/maintaining relationships for example can involve social media. Procrastination can allow things to shift from the not urgent to the urgent category. I have more and more allowed myself to be drawn into the "urgent, but not important" category. Some of these tasks are subjectively placed into a quadrant. It can be difficult to decide and sometimes agree upon what goes where. I remember my parents had a sign which read, "A lack of planning on your part, does not constitute an emergency on mine." While something may be important to you, it may not be important to someone else. Therefore, it is often necessary to complete this sort of task before it becomes urgent. Likewise, we should not let others impose their ideals on us. We cannot be held accountable if they did not plan and now have an urgent matter which, while important to them, is of little or no importance to us.
This book helped me change the way I organized my life. I realized that much of what I was doing was not really all that important. I had to do a better job at prioritizing. For me, that means putting my own family and goals first. I often allow myself to get drawn in by things which are urgent, but important to others, and not to me. It is part of what inspired me to go back to school. That was something which had been important to me for some time, but I had put it off because it did not seem urgent. It is also one of the reasons I stopped spending much time on social media. I still pop into Facebook or Google+ occasionally either to post pictures or see what is going on. I do this though because I want to maintain those personal connections, not because I am looking for an excuse to avoid something else. I was once a great procrastinator. No longer, but I do still take some time on the weekend to rest, relax, and be unproductive on purpose. In the end, each one of us has to decide what is important and prioritize based on that.
Wednesday, May 7, 2014
Antenna v. Aereo
This has been on my mind for a while, and while I've talked to a few people about it, I haven't really said anything here. If you aren't familiar with the case here is a quick summary. Aereo is an upstart tech company that provides a service which allows viewers to view local broadcast television in their homes. It does this by using a small antenna at a central location to receive over the air (OTA) TV signals and then streams them via a broadband connection to the users home. How can they stream someone else's content without paying re-transmission fees you ask. Aereo houses an antenna for every user. Meaning they aren't simply rebroadcasting, but rather they are leasing equipment. The lessee decides when and how to use that equipment.
In 1984 Universal Studios sued Sony over their Betamax video recording device. Sony won. Otherwise you wouldn't have been able to record television programming for the last 30 year. Likewise, you wouldn't be able to use DVR services like Tivo and Hopper. I don't know about the rest of the world, but I probably wouldn't watch much TV at all if I had to watch it at the time it was broadcast. Maybe that would make it a better world. People wouldn't watch so much damn TV... That, however, isn't the point here. The point is that while the producers own the content, they don't own my time, my home, my TV, my antenna, or my internet service (well in some cases the producers like Time Warner, may produce content, and own cable broadband services, but I pay for those things separately and unless they want to start including free cable with my internet at the same price, then they can't claim that one depends on the other).
Functionally, Aereo's system is similar to an antenna, a tuner, and a VCR. The fact that it is in a remote location is no more relevant than the difference between a Walkman cassette player and an iPod that is streaming music from iTunes. These are all private performances where copyright law is concerned. Aereo even takes it's limitations on technology a step further. While they could allow users to access any antenna from anywhere in the country, they do not. The restrict users to a single zip code and allow users to access only channels which area available in that area. The broadcast companies, of course, completely ignore this fact. Even if you don't plan to use Aereo, this case could affect you. Should Aereo lose, you may not longer be able to use your DVR, VCR, or other "time-shifting"/recording equipment.
For a more in-depth understanding of this case read the links below. This is important to anyone who cares about copyright. Not just for television, but for copyright in general. Private performance rights are protected under fair use, but if they are to remain that way, Aereo needs to win this case. Technology can confuse this issue since it is almost always impossible for lawmakers to predict how laws they create today will affect technology that is invented tomorrow, but copyright is about encouraging innovation by protecting innovators from the theft of intellectual property. It is not about preventing consumers and potential innovators from accessing that intellectual property unless the pay absolute top dollar.
Here is an analogy that I came across the other day which I believe applies here. Programmers who by the nature of their work create intellectual property. Programmers are paid when they create their programs. Other programmers build on those older programs to make them better or useful in new ways. Programmers do not receive royalties, and do not expect to receive royalties, in perpetuity.
Similarly, teachers share intellectual property, sometimes of their own creation, with their students. They do not charge their students every time the student applies some bit of knowledge s/he learned in a teacher's classroom. Why then does Hollywood believe that every time someone sees a small bit of something they created (I use that term loosely by the way considering that they often borrow plot lines and themes from other stories) is viewed or even referenced? I'll leave you to form your own opinion from here...
http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2014/04/30/broadcasters-advertisers-watch-aereo-case-closely/
https://aereo.com/
http://www.solidsignal.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Corp._of_America_v._Universal_City_Studios,_Inc.
http://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/publications/supreme_court_preview/briefs-v3/13-461_resp_amcu_36ipclp.authcheckdam.pdf
http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/american-broadcasting-companies-inc-v-aereo-inc/
In 1984 Universal Studios sued Sony over their Betamax video recording device. Sony won. Otherwise you wouldn't have been able to record television programming for the last 30 year. Likewise, you wouldn't be able to use DVR services like Tivo and Hopper. I don't know about the rest of the world, but I probably wouldn't watch much TV at all if I had to watch it at the time it was broadcast. Maybe that would make it a better world. People wouldn't watch so much damn TV... That, however, isn't the point here. The point is that while the producers own the content, they don't own my time, my home, my TV, my antenna, or my internet service (well in some cases the producers like Time Warner, may produce content, and own cable broadband services, but I pay for those things separately and unless they want to start including free cable with my internet at the same price, then they can't claim that one depends on the other).
Functionally, Aereo's system is similar to an antenna, a tuner, and a VCR. The fact that it is in a remote location is no more relevant than the difference between a Walkman cassette player and an iPod that is streaming music from iTunes. These are all private performances where copyright law is concerned. Aereo even takes it's limitations on technology a step further. While they could allow users to access any antenna from anywhere in the country, they do not. The restrict users to a single zip code and allow users to access only channels which area available in that area. The broadcast companies, of course, completely ignore this fact. Even if you don't plan to use Aereo, this case could affect you. Should Aereo lose, you may not longer be able to use your DVR, VCR, or other "time-shifting"/recording equipment.
For a more in-depth understanding of this case read the links below. This is important to anyone who cares about copyright. Not just for television, but for copyright in general. Private performance rights are protected under fair use, but if they are to remain that way, Aereo needs to win this case. Technology can confuse this issue since it is almost always impossible for lawmakers to predict how laws they create today will affect technology that is invented tomorrow, but copyright is about encouraging innovation by protecting innovators from the theft of intellectual property. It is not about preventing consumers and potential innovators from accessing that intellectual property unless the pay absolute top dollar.
Here is an analogy that I came across the other day which I believe applies here. Programmers who by the nature of their work create intellectual property. Programmers are paid when they create their programs. Other programmers build on those older programs to make them better or useful in new ways. Programmers do not receive royalties, and do not expect to receive royalties, in perpetuity.
Similarly, teachers share intellectual property, sometimes of their own creation, with their students. They do not charge their students every time the student applies some bit of knowledge s/he learned in a teacher's classroom. Why then does Hollywood believe that every time someone sees a small bit of something they created (I use that term loosely by the way considering that they often borrow plot lines and themes from other stories) is viewed or even referenced? I'll leave you to form your own opinion from here...
http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2014/04/30/broadcasters-advertisers-watch-aereo-case-closely/
https://aereo.com/
http://www.solidsignal.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Corp._of_America_v._Universal_City_Studios,_Inc.
http://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/publications/supreme_court_preview/briefs-v3/13-461_resp_amcu_36ipclp.authcheckdam.pdf
http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/american-broadcasting-companies-inc-v-aereo-inc/
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