Copyright maths: Why we have 75,000 jobs in our pocket

After the Hype, the new iPad.

Announced yesterday under the usual hype storm Apple can generate, the new iPad (not iPad 3 eh?) was billed as being a revolution over the current model. 

A quick look at the headlines would support that, Double Resolution Retina Display, Quad Core A5X chipset, a 5MP Camera and umm, dictation support?

Let's be clear here, the iPad is still the market leader when it comes to the tablet form factor, it's just better in almost every way than it's competition, but for all the hype I'm left more than a little disappointed by this new model.

The higher resolution screen is nice, as is the faster chipset that is required to power it, but the other additions - to even call them incremental would be generous. A 5MP camera is not revolutionary, the smaller iPhone 4S has a better camera, the battery life is the same as the outgoing model, the dictation support is a mere gimmick, but worse - the one feature everyone's clamouring for is not the gamechanger it should be.

Yes, the new iPad has 4G LTE. But there will be two versions in the US to account for the differing bands used by carriers, there will be more versions still in the international market. Yes, everyone complains about fragmentation of the Android market, but fragmenting like this is worse - because there's no differentiation between the products like there is with Android. And to make matter worse, I can't understand why, other than needing to push out new features.

We've had dual-band and quad-band mobile phones for years, to get around this problem, but Apple in it's rush to have more killer features has jumped the gun. Multiband LTE chipsets are not available yet (at least not in the price/quantity required) which means you fragment. Apple is meant to be the company with the obsessive eye for detail, and yet in this case, not so much.

So no, the new iPad is not revolutionary, and is barely evolutionary. Where they've taken steps forward (Retina Display) they've taken just steps just as large in the other direction. Will this stop anyone from buying one, no - because people don't understand that there's a difference. Will it cause issues in the future, yes - because people don't understand that there's a difference.

The Pirate Bay to be blocked in the UK, where will it lead?

One of my favourite sites on the internet, Techdirt, has a post up linking to a (not very impartial) Telegraph article which goes into the details of The Pirate Bay probably on course to being blocked in the UK. In fact, I'd go as far as saying it's almost certain the site will get blocked - however, when it does it will change nothing.

We recently saw The Pirate Bay move from a .org to a .se domain, the reason was two fold. Firstly, it removes the domain from the control of the US government, and the agencies working on their behalf. Secondly, it moves the domain to a system that supports DNSSEC, which essentially ensures that the site being served to you, is the site which should be served to you.

Depending on the ban to come, there are several possible outcomes. If UK ISP's are forced to ban ThePirateBay.org then not very much will change, people will just go to the new address. If UK ISP's are forced to block ThePirateBay.se, then they will be breaking the safety of the DNSSEC system - of course they'll claim that they have reason to do so in this case, but it seems like a slippery slope to me. However, even then, all TPB need to do is buy a new TLD and resolve it to an unblocked IP address, neither of which are expensive, and both of which will get round any ISP level blocking.

But even then, the users of services such as The Pirate Bay are more savvy than simply having to wait for a domain name change. Foreign Proxy servers, Foreign VPN services, Tor, I2P2 and a plethora of other options will allow access to the site, and though none will truly mask what you're downloading, all of them will prevent you from being seen as going to TPB to begin with. This is bad, as if copyright infringement really is the root of all evil, you a literally sweeping it under a rug, rather than counter-acting it.

It's not only the users who are more savvy though, The Pirate Bay no longer needs to host actual torrent files, in fact from 29th February it will no longer host any torrent files at all. The only data it needs to host is the Hash of a torrent, and that's plain text. The whole of the current Pirate Bay database is available online, it weighs around 90MB, and as it is just a list of Titles and Hash's, and both of those are plaintext, anyone in the world could host a searchable version of The Pirate Bay, and it would take less than 20 minutes to implement.

But it gets worse, this file could also be indexed by search engines, and whether the site they point to continues to exist or not, the search engines themselves could be used to display the Magnet (the name of the Hash) data, removing the need to go much further than your search engine of choice to not only find copyright infringing material, but to download it also.

So, not only would DNS blocking one of the top 100 websites of the world sweep the problem under the carpet, it would also instantly create hundreds of copycat sites, push people underground and distribute the infringement "issue" to thousands of locations instead of just one. Far from being a victory for the major lobbyists, it would be a nightmare.

However, this is not where the lobbyists will stop, in fact it is only the beginning.

By having ISP's block ThePirateBay this easily, a precedent will have been set. Newzbin2 took a long court battle with BT to get blocked, TPB didn't. No one was present in court to defend the site, nor to defend users (though I didn't really expect anyone to, as TPB is very well known to only be used by one type of user). This means that it will be very simple to block copycat sites, eventually probably not needing the court order to begin with. Now, of course, all the methods above will still enable you to get to these sites, but how long before the lobbyists target them?

This is the core issue for me. Sure, at the moment they're blocking sites in DNS. And OK, some of the block are breaking DNSSEC, which has ramifications beyond simple blocking, but how long before they start blocking certain protocols? How long before Tor gets blocked because it's only used by "Paedophiles" and "Pirates". How long before using an encrypted VPN is illegal? Yes, maybe I'm being a little dramatic here, but do you really think the Copyright Lobbyists are going to stop at DNS blocking?

The argument that "if you do nothing wrong, then you have nothing to hide" is a dangerous one, and is looking at the problem backwards. "If I've done nothing wrong, then I have a right to hide" is more accurate, at least as long as I'm innocent until proven guilty. By taking away tools which ensure my privacy, you're denying my innocence. It's like those legitimate DVD's you buy, which tell you you're a pirate - for having bought the DVD - it's backwards, and its not right.

The copyright lobbyists have a huge amount of money, and therefore power, and they're waving a lot of it towards Whitehall. You want to get elected, you need money, you need money, you go to the people with money - those people are the copyright holders, and they aren't interested in a free and open internet. They aren't interested in adapting their business to a new market. They aren't interested in personal liberties, privacy or end user security. They're interested only in the profits of the companies they represent. If they break the internet, and outlaw free-speech in the process of securing these profits, do you really think they care? If you do, you live in a different world to me.

Politicians no longer serve the public interest, the represent the interest of the strongest lobby groups - and pretend that it's the same thing. They overlook the fact that most lobby groups don't represent the people either. ACTA, SOPA, PIPA and their ilk were all agreed upon, behind closed doors, in meeting where even the politicians were not present, but they don't matter. The laws, rules, and punishments they laid out are being implemented anyway.

The Prate Bay will be blocked, that's almost certain, what is also almost certain is that hundreds of other sites will follow, off the radar and with increasing speed and frequency. New laws will be passed, and public apathy will allow them. We're about to exit the golden age of the internet, and it's all because the people with the money didn't think to embrace the changing times.

999 calls went missing during clock change

We're told that the clocks change twice a year, not simply to annoy the heck out of us, but because it increases pedestrian safety and saves energy. While the latter is open to debate, the former really isn't because it combines "think of the children" with common sense - neither of which are attackable, but both of which are often used to protect flawed logic.

However, last year when the clocks changed here in the UK, an updated IT system which handles 999 emergency calls lost 70 of them, for a period of 25 minutes. Luckily, none of the calls were life threatening, though that's more luck than anything else.

A spokesman for the trust told Guardian Government Computing:

"On 30 October 2011, a technical issue developed in our control room where some 999 calls were not visible on a small number of the computer screens.
 "The issue was immediately identified by staff, and after 25 minutes was resolved by our technical team, who were able to account for all the 999 calls in the system."

 It's not impossible to see a situation where this could have led to fatalities, and although the IT system was the cause of the issue, it's interesting to think that without the clock changes, these 70 lives would not have been put at risk

Big Media should stop fighting, we've already changed the game.

I've written time and again, both on the old blog (come on Virb, I'd like to import my old posts sometimes) and this new look one, about the dangers of over-reaching Intellectual Property, and Copyright claims. However, over the weekend, I had a very interesting thought.

I've often claimed that the UK leads the way with online streaming. Most of our TV channels allow you to watch live over the internet, and all of the big players allow you to catch up for 14 to 28 days after the programme airs, most of the time availabilty is within an hour.

More and more TV in the UK is watched online, I know I do it a lot now, instead of using my DVR to catch up on shows, I'll watch them on my iPhone, only venturing to the DVR when there's something of interest to both my wife and I. Streaming TV over the internet is definitly the future, as it gives us the control and personability we all crave.

So how then, is this a good thing, when the big media companies are sueing or extraditing everyone they can, in an attempt to prop up their old (out of date?) business plan - whcih is to essentially sell shows wholesale and not worry about the delivery other than to decide whether it's legitimate.

It's a good thing because it means that TV companies can now better tailor their lineup to their users. No longer do they have to rely on metrics companies to tell them how many people said they watched which shows, they can now look at the analytics of their web-platform and tell exactly who and how many watched everything. This is a much more valuable metric, mainly because it is much more reliable. This means that TV companies can focus their budgets on what works, and get instant feedback - this is extremely important to TV companies, and is why they'll continue to put stuff online.

But really, why is this good for us? It's good for us, because although the TV companies are great at selling advert space, there is someone better at providing the internet service. The BBC understands this, as do most of the UK TV industry, they're hiring server and internet specialists at an incredible rate - they know that to win in this new age of TV they have to provide what the end user wants, and that's choice, simplicity and ease of use.

As a side note, IPTV is coming to the UK soon, and BT are behind it. Yes, their current Vision service is less than well known, but with IPTV comes a whole new raft of TV channels, and broadcaster options, and where BT go Virgin are sure to follow. This means that, alongside our usual collection of TV channels, we'll be seeing a lot more Internet born programming on our goggle boxes.

So, the online world is invading the TV space, and TV is already existent online. Since we'll already be online while watching our favourite shows, it's not too much of a stretch to imagine a time where, instead of opening the EPG (the modern Radio TImes) we'll soon be opening Google, looking through our past TV watching, and be given a nonbiased suggestion on other shows we'll probably also like, which we'll be able to watch instantly.

The only stumbling block is movies, but they'll catch on soon enough.

So yes, SOPA, PIPA, ACTA et al are bad for the internet, but here's the thing. The big media companies are fighting a war of 5 years ago, we've changed the game since then, and insodoing have ensured that media delivery will never be the same again. Over-reaching IP and Copyright are still dangerous things, but when media is born on the internet, and not for old media, the concerns are lessened - the internet is global, the advertising is super local, and the winner will be the first to truly understand this. Big Media are fighting against no real opposition here, as we're already in the bar, having won the game a long time ago. We just both need to realise this.

ACTA to be signed today, without public input]

ACTA, the controversial International Trade Agreement will be signed by the 27 members of the European Union today, along with the EU itself. Although originally intended to curb physical IP infringement, the act also delves into the digital, in a similar way to the SOPA/PIPA bills which were being proposed in the States this month.

Although ACTA itself doesn't apply any new laws, the agreement does specifically state objectives pre-existing laws should manage - such as reasonlable levels of compensation.

Due to ACTA being quite a short agreement, I decided (as a non-lawyer) to have a quick browse through it, and pick out anything which looked a little wrong - which our (unelected) representitives have obviously also sone. I've also added my own commentary to why I disagree with certain bits, and to hopefully translate them into English.

At least with respect to infringement of copyright or related rights protecting
works, phonograms, and performances, and in cases of trademark counterfeiting, each
Party shall also establish or maintain a system that provides for one or more of the
following:
(a) pre-established damages; or
(b) presumptions for determining the amount of damages sufficient to
compensate the right holder for the harm caused by the infringement; or
(c) at least for copyright, additional damages.

[...]

The presumptions referred to in subparagraph 3(b) may include a presumption that the amount of
damages is: (i) the quantity of the goods infringing the right holder’s intellectual property right in
question and actually assigned to third persons, multiplied by the amount of profit per unit of goods
which would have been sold by the right holder if there had not been the act of infringement; or (ii) a
reasonable royalty; or (iii) a lump sum on the basis of elements such as at least the amount of royalties or
fees which would have been due if the infringer had requested authorization to use the intellectual
property right in question.

Essentially this section is dealing with re-imbursing lost sales due to copyright infringement. It will be up to the copyright holder to decide which of the damages it wishes to claim, and they've also written in "additional" damages to that which can be proved. This is slightly alarming in itself, because the proof of damage assumes each case of infringement counts for one lost sale. Basically, cipyrights holders would be recouping their losses as if each copy is a lost sale, plus "additional" damages which aren't defined.

The act also goes on to say that in addition, legal fees will be paid by the losing party.

Each Party shall further provide that its judicial authorities have the authority to
order that materials and implements, the predominant use of which has been in the
manufacture or creation of such infringing goods, be, without undue delay and without
compensation of any sort, destroyed or disposed of outside the channels of commerce in
such a manner as to minimize the risks of further infringements.

This is particularly vague, in the case of Software, Music and Video piracy, as the "implements" used for this purpose can be any PC on the market. So, should you ever copy a DVD, even for personal use (which is still copyright infringement in many places in the EU), you risk losing the copy and your PC.

A Party may provide for the remedies described in this Article to be carried out
at the infringer’s expense.

And you have to pay for it to be destroyed.

Each Party shall provide that its judicial authorities have the authority to adopt
provisional measures inaudita altera parte where appropriate, in particular where any
delay is likely to cause irreparable harm to the right holder, or where there is a
demonstrable risk of evidence being destroyed. In proceedings conducted inaudita
altera parte, each Party shall provide its judicial authorities with the authority to act
expeditiously on requests for provisional measures and to make a decision without
undue delay.

"inadita alrera parte" means, without the involvement of the other side. In the case of copyright infringement, this means that action can be taken against you without you having the chance to defend yourself - even if the act you commited is just alledged.

However, there is some good news

Where the provisional measures are revoked or where they lapse due to any act
or omission by the applicant, or where it is subsequently found that there has been no
infringement of an intellectual property right, the judicial authorities shall have the
authority to order the applicant, upon request of the defendant, to provide the defendant
appropriate compensation for any injury caused by these measures.

If you're wrongly accused, and lose money over the issue, the rights holder has to compensate you

The act even goes on to say that

provide a reasonable security or equivalent
assurance sufficient to protect the defendant and the competent authorities and to
prevent abuse.

This however, has all been warm up, it isn't until section 5 that we start to look into "Digital" content explicitly.

Each Party shall provide adequate legal protection and effective legal remedies
against the circumvention of effective technological measures

Requires that breaking DRM, for example, would be illegal under ACTA.

the offering to the public by marketing of a device or product,
including computer programs, or a service, as a means of
circumventing an effective technological measur

Supplying software that enables you to break DRM would be illegal.

has only a limited commercially significant purpose other than
circumventing an effective technological measure

Even if breaking DRM isn't it's sole purpose.

In order to combat intellectual property rights infringement, in particular
trademark counterfeiting and copyright or related rights piracy, the Parties shall promote
cooperation, where appropriate, among their competent authorities responsible for the
enforcement of intellectual property rights. Such cooperation may include law
enforcement cooperation with respect to criminal enforcement and border measures
covered by this Agreement.

Expect more extraditions, as governments have to cooperate with each other.

The ACTA agreement isn't as restrictive as SOPA or PIPA, but it does lay the way for more restrictive policy in the future. For example, it is unclear whether to receive immunity from lawsuits, whether ISPs must voluntarily inform rights holders of infringement on their network. If this were the case, then it would mean ISPs would be forced to monitor every site you visit, and every file you stream/download, and then work out whether you're breaking the law.

The onus should be on the rights holders to prove willful infringement, and from there to prove damages in a court - with proper defense mechanisms for the accused. However, by proposing that every infringement is a lost sale, adding "additional damages", allowing action before defense and the ability for the rights holder to claim infringement in any country where infringement occured - regardless of nationality of ther accused. This is dangerous in itself, and is laid out in ACTA as proposed.

Silicon Valley doesn't need to beat Hollywood, it needs to beat cable

It's funny that, just as I went to publish this post, I spotted one with a similar argument from Erick Schonfeld over at Techcrunch - which is also well worth a read.

I've seen it argued several times that Apple should buy Hollywood. Ignoring the Antitrust issues this would raise, no-one in SIlicon Valley needs to buy Hollywood at all, it can be done in a much simpler fashion, and it can be done in a way which would appease Hollywood.

The reason the entertainment industries, though mainly Film and TV currently, are pushing for such Draconian copyright and IP laws (Such as SOPA, PIPA and ACTA) is because, currently, the majority of content on the internet is cutting into their distribution deals with cable and TV networks - as well as with general DVD distributers. Netflix and LoveFilm are still the minority, but thsat could change very quickly if Silicon Valley decided that it wanted to be the Distribution channel, and meant it in a very real way.

If Google, Apple, Netflix or Amazon flexed their muscles, they could easily take first run rights for almost all of the big shows currently on TV, for us in the UK the list would also include Sky, and by shoreing up the rights they would then own the distribution model for those shows. Because of the money being thrown at them, matters such as DRM would become negotiable, afterall, the Music industry makes more money of DRM free content on the internet now than it did with DRM'd content - which proves that if you're good to your customer they'll be good to you.

Also, think for a moment at what a change in distribution, to the internet, would mean to the way we'd consume TV content. DVR's would become a thing of the past, as everything is streamed when you want it anyway, and advertising would be unskippable. For a small fee you could watch truly a la carte TV, only paying for what you want, and not 500 channels of shopping.

This would be a major shift, and would benefit everyone, except the incumbent TV networks - and therein lies the stumbling block. Many of the TV networks are owned by the big Hollywood studios, Hollywood essentially gets 2-3 bites of the same Cherry. However, the market exists online, and the TV networks would still get secondary rights to the shows, just the same as Terrestrial TV in the UK gets shows after Sky, so why not?

Well, it would be a gamble for Amazon, Google and Apple - though a gamble which Netflix is already taking. If it pays off, expect a lot more of your shows to appear online first, at a price.

Cable and Sattelite may have started the Pay Per View model, but the internet is capable of perfecting it, to such an extent that all shows are either PPV, or stuffed with unskippable ads.

The benefits? Hollywood studios would get a much better metric of "what worked", so could move budgets around to capitalise, and the viewer would potentially have a much lower cable bill. Now what's not to like, everyone's a winner, exceptthe incumbent, as they'd have lower rates for their programming as they are now the secondary source, they'd probably also lose a lot of their ad revenue.

Move over TV, Hollywood has a new sugar daddy, it just needs to realise it.

Chris Dodd makes it abundantly clear how politics really works

"Those who count on quote 'Hollywood' for support need to understand that this industry is watching very carefully who's going to stand up for them [...]. Don't ask me to write a check for you when you think your job is at risk and then don't pay any attention to me when my job is at stake."

This is what the head of the MPAA and former Senator Chris Dodd told Fox News last week, in an enlightening show of "how politics works".

Apparently, if your pockets are deep enough, you're allowed to write protectionist federal laws, and expect them to be passed - if they aren't passed, you're allowed to make thinly veiled threats to politicians.

Now, I'm no published author, but this looks very much like extortion to me, and some are calling for an investigation into the practice.

Is defragmenting your drive still worth it?

A few years back, one of the default and first tools in any techguy's aresenal was a trusty defrag. Defragging a drive would give good speed boosts to almost any system, and we often advised setting up a schedule.
But is defragging your drive still worth while?
Fragmentation occurs when Windows places two or more parts of the same file in different locations on a drive, this means that when you want to access a file, Windows has to go and find all the fragments and put them back together again. There are several factors at play here, but essentially it boils down to, the fewer fragments you have to put together, the quicker you can load the file and move onto the next one.
With larger Hard-Disks now the norm, it should be easier for Windows to find a block of freespace large enough to place a file without splitting it up. However, it's not always so simple. Where a file may fit nicely into freespace when it's created, when edited and resaved, the file may outgrow it's allocation, and the new bits will literally be saved elsewhere - this is the usual form fragmentation takes in todays computing. Increases in hard-disk speed mitigate some of these fragmentation issues, but there is still something to be gained.
We also now have access to a lot more RAM than in the past, and many argue that by loading as much data into RAM as possible, you don't need to use your hard-disk so much. The problem with this argument is that the files have to get into memory in the first place, so even here fragmentation could cause a slow down.
So on the whole, at the consumer level, fragmentation can still slow your machine down. Faster, bigger drives and access to more RAM however mean that it isn't as pertinent an issue as 10 years ago. So it probably isn't so important to defrag your drive on too rigid a schedule.
In fact, by default, Windows 7 will defrag a drive automatically once a week, but it happens at 1am, so only those who don't turn off their machines would benefit.
There are however several free apps, besides that built into Windows which do a very good job of defragging, and even offer more advanced features. Auslogics Disk Defrag being my favourite. Although you cannot schedule a defrag with Auslogics, you can set it to "optimize" your files to the outside of you disk platter, which is the fastest part, not only defragging but also placing files where they'll naturally load faster - though you'd only want to use that feature once every couple of months. General defragging is also very fast with the app, as it recognises files which wouldn't benefit from being defragmented (such as files which have very large fragments).
Defragging in the enterprise can be even more beneficial than for consumers, but we'll post about that another time.

We may have had an impact, but the fight isn't over yet

According to Fight for the Future where last week we had 5 Senators opposing PIPA we now have 35, with only 6 more needed to stall the legislation in the Senate. It's a great improvement, but it's not the end of the fight.

Lamar Smith, the Author of the SOPA bill, who coincidentally may be using images without permission on his official website, has said that he fully "expects to move forward" with the bill next month. PIPA hasn't been stalled either, with a vote planned in the Senate on the 24th January.

It's important then, that any friends of our over in the states, who would like to continue enjoying a free and open internet, continue to ring and write to their congreess men and women - we the affected, can do little to defend ourselves in this so are really relying on your support.

Piracy is wrong, but so is digging up a main road, just to stop some shoplifters.