news from the noino

A really interesting anti-piracy campaign.

And in other news, Walmart has lost the battle to claim yellow smiley faces as a trademark.

Quote from John Darnielle of Mountain Goats:

…The new means of distribution aren’t things we as writers or
singers or whatever (”content providers” UGH ICK GROSS) ought to be
having dumbass discussions about at the level of “shall we? or shall
we not?” Because yes, we shall, and no, we don’t have any choice in
the matter, and yes, actually, it’s all to the good. You can whine
about spilled milk, or about the horse leaving the barn, but these are
negative ways of talking about it. I mean, in a sense, you might as
well ask “how do you feel about people having conversations?” - how I
feel about it is beside the point. The only question that big
corporations ought to be asking themselves are, in this order: one,
how can we do something with this that our customers/audience/whatever
will enjoy, and, two, how can we make money off it so everybody gets
paid and we can keep the ball rolling? For me the sticking point is
mainly the moronic sort of talk that the whole new paradigm inspires
on both sides of the discussion - people thinking of labels as The
People In Suits!! t3h ev1L v1LLa1nz!! and labels imagining that
they’re going to be able to control the marketplace, which is a weird
delusion anyway, because the customer has always controlled the
marketplace. It’s in the nature of marketplaces to be controlled by
customers, unless there’s some heavy monopoly culture, which there
isn’t….

Bottom line is that you can’t tell your audience how to enjoy what
you do; our job as entertainers is just to do what we do as best as we
can, and if there are corporations whose job it is to turn what we do
into money, their job is to do that without being gross and
embarrassing about it, and then to fairly share the profits. As a
rule, the bigger corporations are 0-for-2 on these last couple of
points though.

Found at: http://www.largeheartedboy.com/blog/archive/2008/02/sam_means_inter.html

As if that was some kind of tradition…

1. Today on BoingBoing via Gizmodo, I read an article about Amazon Kindle, Sony Reader, and the reasons why the purchases you make for an eBook reader are not your own.

In it, the author lists some problems with owning digital media: first that there’s no physical item to exchange for money, and second the first purchase (if you will) may actually only be a licensing transaction, not an ownership transaction. From the quoted legal brief:

[Under the Copyright Act] the first sale doctrine only applies to the “owner” of a copy of a work, so end users who acquire content by license do not enjoy the right to resell their copies. Whether a transaction is a license or a sale is a factual question determined by courts—even if a publisher calls it a license, if the transaction actually looks more like a sale, users will retain their right to resell the copy. However, as more commercial transactions involve the transfer of digital content—particularly commercial software—courts have struggled to consistently make the distinction between license and sale. Software is increasingly transferred with highly restrictive licensing terms, but federal case law has not clearly determined whether these types of transfers are licenses or true sales.

Finally, on the subject of transferring copies (something both technologies restrict):

Another possible complication stems from the inherent difference between transferring an e-book and transferring a hard-copy book. The transfer of a hard-copy book is just that; the physical transfer of one copy. The transfer of an e-book, however, requires the digital recreation or copying of that e-book. Because the first sale doctrine allows transfers of only your particular copy, and not reproductions or recreations, a digital transfer of an e-book is probably impermissible. Thus, users of Kindle and the Sony Reader can only legally transmit works by selling the physical media on which they are stored—be that the e-book readers themselves or the users’ hard drives.

In the end, the argument seems to be that these restrictive licenses are merely the byproduct of technological advancements, and that it will be up to society to decide if this approach is acceptable.

Another item on the reading list is Cory Doctorow’s “Intellectual Property is a Silly Euphemism”

Trying to shoehorn knowledge into the “property” metaphor leaves us without the flexibility and nuance that a true knowledge rights regime would have.

And finally, Lawrence Lessig speaks at TED:

the mermaid and the barmaid, originally uploaded 5 Jul ‘07, 8.53pm EDT PST.

the mermaid and the barmaid, originally uploaded 2 Jul ‘07, 9.20pm EDT PST.

A preview of things to come. 15 prints of each 7.5″x12″ woodcut will be finished and up for grabs this weekend.

rear, originally uploaded 12 Aug ‘06, 1.34am EDT PST.

front, originally uploaded 12 Aug ‘06, 1.34am EDT PST.

oink, originally uploaded 10 Aug ‘06, 10.59pm EDT PST.

This is a sketch for Aaron’s new rally car design. This dirty little pig will smoke you!
har har har

(I know it’s strange coming from a vegetarian. The lines are a nice graphic detail if you ask me!)

It’s a delightful time right now in the printmaking side of life. I have three cherry boards of varying sizes ripe for the cutting, plus a set of freshly sharpened knives. Oh excellent. I believe at least one of these small prints will feature a pin-up, but I suspect the others will just be portraits. Sketches to come.
In the meantime, say it with me:
ooooo
ahhhh

[posted with ecto]

This is also a fun time for the blog, as I have just discovered ecto- they tell me it’s an amazing bit of software, but of course this is my first exposure so I can’t confirm or deny.

pinzilla, originally uploaded 5 Jul ‘06, 11.11pm EDT PST.

a “before” look at the Pin-up-zilla card I’m making for my brother(’s band, Empire State)