One of my favorite advocacy groups, the Electronic Frontier Foundation has launched a new website called Copyright Watch. The site allows users to see the latest news in copyright law. The effort is to inform the general public about the threat that looming copyright laws poses to individual freedom, and maintaining an open Internet.
In other related news, here’s a quote from BoingBoing for you… I can’t improve upon their words:
“Two US Senators, Bernie Sanders (I-VI) and Sherrod Brown (D-OH), have written to the US Trade Representative demanding that the text of the secret Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement be made public. This is the treaty that allows for criminal sanctions against noncommercial file-sharers, demands border-searches of laptop hard-drives and personal media players and phones for pirated material, requires ISPs to spy on their users, and gives movie and record companies the right to take whole households off the Internet with unsubstantiated allegations of piracy.”*
This secret copyright treaty is pretty black and white to me; we must crush it. The consequences of this treaty are unimaginably dreadful.
For more information you can visit the following links:
I just got home from seeing Grace Potter & the Nocturnals, Brett Dennen, and Sean Bones at Terminal 5 in New York City.
Grace Potter rocking out
Sean Bones
Sean Bones opened strong enough. He played in a fairly unique pop-rock/ reggae style that successfully held my attention through a thirty minute set. He had a couple songs that were strong enough that I considered buying his CD, but ultimately decided that I probably wouldn’t listen to it.
He’s really young, and pretty talented. If he can find a way to write songs that are a bit easier to distinguish from one another, he could do big things.
Last thought on Mr. Bones… his bassist needs to chill-out with all of the hopping on one foot, it was seriously distracting.
Speaking of distracting…
Brett Dennen
Brett Dennen played his brand of folksy pop/ acoustic pop for a little over an hour, and I found the experience rather painful. Brett’s albums never excited me, but I really was trying to give him a chance.
As it turned out, the biggest problem with his performance wasn’t really his music, but his stage presence. There’s no reason to beat around the bush… Brett comes across as one strange dude. The six foot five, bare foot vocalist/ guitarist danced through his set in the most unbelievably awkward fashion. I couldn’t look at him without laughing, and I wasn’t alone. All six people in my immediate vicinity felt the same way. There was a lot of awkward gyrating.
His band was really talented, but even during their solos Brett’s constant dancing detracted from their work.
The second half of his set he lost the audience. The roar of side conversations overpowered the music.
I won’t be seeing him again.
Grace Potter & the Nocturnals
Thirty seconds into their Grace Potter & the Nocturnals’ set, I completely forgot about the first two acts; they killed.
Grace & Co. were my reason for going. I’ve been following them for about two years, and had high expectations. They annihilated my expectations by the third song.
They are serious musicians, and they play in a number of different styles. Blues, rock, jam, and soul are in any combination are all fair game for Grace and her band. Not only are they supremely talented, but Grace has an excellent stage presence, and is really easy on the eyes… come to think of it, no one minded the gyrating when she was on stage.
They played a number of unreleased songs that will appear on their next album Medicine, due out in Spring 2010. Every song they played was good, but Oasis stood out in a major way. The duel guitar melodies in Oasis were incendiary, to steal a phrase from Almost Famous.
Grace Potter & the Nocturnals are talented, inventive, and fun. I wish there were more emerging bands like that.
The encore kicked off with Jefferson Airplane’s psychedelic anthem, White Rabbit. It was great, just like everything else they did, but the stage lighting was pretty trippy; props to the lighting guy.
The night concluded with a long jam on the seriously soulful Nothing But Water. Clearly they blew the audience away because as I walked up 56th Street on my way to Penn Station, I was singing the lyrics, and so was everyone else. The song was haunting on its own, but imagine hearing person after person sauntering through Hells Kitchen quietly singing:
Take me down to the river
Take me down to the lake
Yes, we’ll all go together
We’re gonna do it for the good Lord’s sake
It was the strangest departure from a concert that I have ever had, and it served to illustrate the power of the performance.
This show is pretty early in her touring schedule. If she will be coming through your area, I strongly recommend you see her.
Yes my friends, that is a sleeping bag that looks like a tautaun from Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, and this is no joke.
Remember when Han and Luke were stranded in the snowy desert of Hoth. Han used Luke’s lightsaber to cut open a tauntaun and sleep within it’s warm guts. Now your child can experience that awesome moment with the Tauntaun sleeping bag.
It comes complete with a lightsaber zipper, because there is absolutely no other way to open up your tauntaun. It also has a printed organ pattern on the inside for that extra bit of detail.
Boobs increase readership... sometimes you've got to pander to your audience
I’m annoyed. Not because Dollhouse was canceled; I expected this.
What really bothers me is that this show never had a chance, and they kept it instead of giving Terminator The Sarah Conner Chronicles an opportunity to shine. Terminator had a devoted and growing fan-base, much like that of Firefly. Dollhouse, while it has devoted fans, they don’t have the same passion, simply because it isn’t as good as Firefly or Terminator ever were.
Making this even sadder, is the fact that Dollhouse finally started hitting its stride in the last three or four episodes; it was starting to shine. Too little too late.
Fox should have canceled Dollhouse last season and let Terminator live for a little while longer.
Dollhouse will eventually air its remaining episodes, then it will be sent to the attic.
The new first-person shooter, Modern Warfare 2 has smashed the entertainment industry’s sales records selling 4.7 million copies on its release date (Crosswalk). A new sequel is already in the works. The Onion News Network has the scoop on their next war game; this time it’s as realistic as it’s ever going to get.
To followup yesterday’s post, Copyright, teh Internets & the Future, here’s a bit on the secret international copyright treaty known as the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA).
ACTA is an international copyright treaty that is being negotiated in secret; although a lot of details have been leaked. The sections regarding the Internet are obscenely draconian; three strikes and you lose your right to connect to the Internet for a year. If this passes, I want that applied to major media conglomerates as well. Three misuses of intellectual property and the whole company loses it’s connection.
This video explains the treaty as it exists today, it’s origins, and it’s potential impact. This isn’t the best video, but it does the job. You are on the Internet, and you are reading a blog, so this treaty will harm you. You should watch the video, don’t be ignorant on this issue.
Make no mistake about it, ACTA will impact everyone. We all handle intellectual property on a daily basis, and current copyright law just doesn’t make sense in a post-Internet world (see yesterday’s post for more on that).
How can the US Government participate in secret negotiations for a treaty that will directly impact so many American’s? This isn’t some right wing thing pro business thing, this is the Obama Administration (not that I care for either side, but some of you do).
Current copyright law turns everyone into a criminal.
My friend Laurie shared this on Facebook a few weeks ago and I almost forgot to post it. Basically it shows how much media hype surrounded a potential cataclysm… then it show’s how man deaths actually occurred as a result of this apocalyptic problem. In each case, the hype was infinitely more intense the the problem.
Click for a larger view
The total deaths from killer wasps, killer wifi, mobile phone cancer, Autism vaccinations, asteroid collisions, the Millennium Bug, Mad Cow Disease, video game violence, SARS, Bird Flu, and Swine Flu total somewhere in the range of 3000 people. I don’t mean to diminish the deaths of those who did die from killer wasps, Mad Cow, SARS, Bird & Swine flu, but the amount of attention we give these problems isn’t worth it.
The one in red is video game violence… I think I will be revisiting that one soon.
Copyright law has fascinated me since high school. I read a lot about it, I understand it (fairly well), I have a lot of informed opinions on it, but I have never been able to articulate my ideas on the subject in the way that I am confident.
Fortunately, law professor and Creative Commons founder Larry Lessig does it for me. His presentation perfectly explains Copyright law, then he breaks it down in ways that make so much sense. So much more sense then I could ever make. Not only that, the presentation uses PowerPoint in fun ways.
This isn’t short, but if you have any curiosity or interest in Copyright law and how it impacts you, watch this video. If you don’t have a lot of time, watch the first twelve minutes, and the last five; you won’t regret it.
- verb
to be owned, to have your rear kicked, to be destroyed in a spectacularly manner.
Origin
The is word common among gamers, geeks, and nerds.
Related Forms
Pwned, Pwn3d, and Pwnage
Usage
“Did you see that? I just pwned your ass!”
After crazy Uncle Rupert (Murdoch) claimed that he was contemplating hiding all of his news sites from Google and other news aggregation services (Rupert Murdoch Threatens Seppuku), the Internet was all a-buzz. While everyone was writing about how epicly stupid the idea was, Mike Masnick of Techdirt did some research.
Masnick realized that many of Murdoch’s own sites “parasited” content in exactly the same manner that he endlessly complains about with Google and Microsoft. Prestige sites like The Wall Street Journal and Fox News “steal” stories from blogs, other sources, and even Techdirt itself. Many of Murdoch’s most successful web properties “steal” stories, or have searches powered by Google that allow users to search the broader Internet within a News Corp branded user experience (Techdirt – the original post is worth reading).
Earlier this year I read a novel that captivated and simultaneously scared the shit out of me. It didn’t scare me in a horror movie kind of way… It scared me in a “large portions of this could work” kind of way. The book was Daniel Suarez’s Daemon.
Daemon has it all, crime, technology, compelling characters, unexpected plot twists, and a brutal look at alternate applications of technology.
“Originally self-published, Suarez’s riveting debut would be a perfect gift for a favorite computer geek or anyone who appreciates thrills, chills and cyber suspense. Gaming genius Matthew Sobol, the 34-year-old head of CyberStorm Entertainment, has just died of brain cancer, but death doesn’t stop him from initiating an all-out Internet war against humanity. When the authorities investigate Sobol’s mansion in Thousand Oaks, Calif., they find themselves under attack from his empty house, aided by an unmanned Hummer that tears into the cops with staggering ferocity. Sobol’s weapon is a daemon, a kind of computer process that not only has taken over many of the world’s computer systems but also enlists the help of superintelligent human henchmen willing to carry out his diabolical plan. Complicated jargon abounds, but most complexities are reasonably explained. A final twist that runs counter to expectations will leave readers anxiously awaiting the promised sequel. (Jan.)”
To add a spoilerish piece to the description I pulled from Amazon, Sobol’s Daemon works by spidering Internet news sites and looking for events. Once those events transpire, they trigger new ones. The first event was Sobol’s own death; his obituary was published. Then the Daemon murders a couple of people; stories of their deaths trigger more events, and so on. It makes insanely good sense.
One big plus of the book is that it explains a lot of the technology, so you don’t need to be too geeky to understand it.
Most of the technology in the book is incredibly grounded, while the story takes off in fanciful directions. All-in-all, a great and compelling read that I should have written about months ago.
Why am I writing about this now?
Why did I spoil a portion of the early story?
Back when I read the book I subscribed to the Daemon Technology Feed on my Google Reader. The feed linked to interesting tech stories and other geeky things, then it went silent after February 25, 2009. For some reason I never unsubscribed, but yesterday, it started publishing new and cool things again.
I’m sure the Feed turned back on because the Daemon sequel, Freedom is hitting bookstore shelves on January 7, 2010… but after reading the book, I have to admit there was something mildly frightening about seeing it become active again.
You can purchase Daemon, and pre-order Freedom on Amazon.
Seppuku – a ritualized disemboweling that originated among the Japanese Samauri.
Rupert Murdoch, the media mogul chairman and majority shareholder of News Corp (The Wall Street Journal, Fox News, and pile of other news outlets) wants to force his business model back into relevance. According to this recent interview, he wants to put pay-walls up around most of his content, sue fair-use into oblivion, and make his sites invisible to search engines like Google (mUmBRELLA).
I was going to write a full response to Mr. Murdoch’s ideas, but Perry de Havilland of Samizdata really hit the nail on the head:
“Not only will people not be motivated to pay Rupert Murdoch for content if they cannot find it via google, they will not even be aware of the content Murdoch is hiding from them. In short, Murdoch will become completely irreverent irrelevant on-line almost overnight and I am not sure why he thinks all too many people will care one way or the other. This is a bit like threatening someone that if they do not give him their money, Murdoch will cut his own throat. Er, sure Rupert, whatever. I suspect folks at the Guardian (who may not be my favourites ideologically but they certainly ‘get’ the internet better than most) and elsewhere can hardly believe their good luck (From Samizdata Murdoch’s suicide threat).”
Rupert, Rupert, Rupert, Rupert… your plan will fall to pieces if a single online news outlet keeps their content free. No one with half a brain will pay for it. Your best years are behind you. Long behind you.
Ruperts words made me think of a line from last night’s Mad Men Season Finale when Don snapped at his fellow partner Bert Cooper saying, ”And you old men love building golden tombs and sealing the rest of us in with you.” Mr. Murdoch is an old, rich, proud man, the people who will suffer from his decisions are his employees, and their families.
“No Doubt” is suing Band Hero (and Guitar Hero) maker Activision over their appearance in the game (GameSpy).
Allegedly, the band’s contract with Activision dictates that the band member’s avatars can only be used on their own songs, but they are fully playable characters in the game. This means that players can appear as say, Gwen Stefani on any song in the game.
Apparently this is damaging to the members of “No Doubt.”
Someone screwed up badly, and only time will tell who it was. Either…
“No Doubt’s” lawyers dropped the ball or…
Activision breached their contract.
I don’t know how it actually went down, but either way, this is pathetic.
At the end of the day, I don’t see how the members of “No Doubt” are actually damaged and deserving of financial reward on account of this, but I’m sure their lawyers would be happy to explain why I’m wrong. By the same token, Activision needs to get their shit together and make sure that the artists that they put in their games understand, and are happy with their role within it, as the very same thing happened with Guitar Hero 5, and their use of Kurt Cobain.
I’m sure that the same lawyer who approved the deal with Activision over Cobain’s appearance along with the song “Smells Like Teen Spirit” in Guitar Hero 5, had to approve the deal with Nicktoons as well. I can’t imagine that Cobain would have liked that commercial.
So, “No Doubt” & Courtney Love, let’s cut this shit out. Everyone got paid and these games introduce the music of “No Doubt” and Nirvana to a younger generation. Everyone is making money, and that’s all that you folks really want at this point.
In Brütal Legend, you play as the greatest roadie in the world, Eddie Riggs (Jack Black). Riggs is killed while saving his wussy band’s pathetic guitarist after he does something stupid on stage. Instead of dying, Riggs is transported back in time to the World of Metal where he takes on the small task of saving the human race with the power of his metal.
The Basic Game Mechanics
Riggs is armed with two axes. The first axe (the chopping kind) is used for melee combat, while the second axe (the musical kind) is used to electrocute, blow away, and explode enemies… in the World of Metal, guitars can do that kind of shit. However, that’s just the tip of the mechanics iceberg. You also have an awesome car, “the Deuce” (as in the Deuce (not douche) from Bruce Springsteen’s song “Blinded By the Light”).
Finally, there is an entirely unique portion of the game, and that’s a real-time strategy (RTS) component. Riggs leads his army, the forces of heavy metal into battle against the likes of General Lionwhyte’s (Rob Halford of Judas Priest fame) glam metal army.
The game is part sandbox/ hack & slash, and part hack & slash/ real-time strategy. The combination works well.
The Good
There is a lot to love about this game; especially if you enjoy metal… but I believe that you don’t need to enjoy the music to have a good time playing this game.
First, the game is hilarious. The dialog is brilliant and well-crafted.
Sample dialog from the opening scenes:
Eddie: “I can fix anything, except that” (in reference to his band’s awful music)
Roadie: “Metal is dead”
Eddie: “Ever feel like you were born in the wrong time, like you should have been born earlier… when the music was real?”
Roadie: “Like the 70’s?”
Eddie: “Earlier… like the early 70’s.”
The voice acting is great. Metal legends like Ozzy Osbourne (who is unusually coherent), Lemmy Kilmister (or as I like to call him, “the fucking man”), Lita Ford, and the aforementioned Rob Halford all lend their legendary voices and faces to the game. They are joined by other actors like Tim Curry (the Tim Curry), and Brian Posehn.
The World of Metal is gorgeous. It looks exactly like what heavy metal world look like if the music and album covers became a functional reality. The landscape, people, weapons, buildings, cars, men, women (especially the women), and even the creatures all look like they could grace a stage or album cover.
The story is oddly compelling, and pays such a loving tribute to the often misunderstood musical genre.
My favorite part of the game was visiting the location known as “the Wall of Sound.” Guitarists like Yngwie Malmsteen play with a wall of amps behind them… the Wall of Sound is a cliff of amps.
The use of the music was wonderful, especially in certain areas of the game where the music was deliberately selected. The getaway scene where you are speeding in the Deuce, avoiding the onslaught of some big and ugly monsters is set to Dragonforce’s shredfest, “Through the Fire and Flames” (I can’t help but speed in real life when this song is blasting in my car, so I was happy to race to it in-game). During one critical story moment, Ozzy Osbourne’s “Mr. Crowley” struck me as particularly beautiful and powerful.
Throughout the game, music constantly plays through the stereo in the Deuce. The selection is broad and generally good. I was especially pleased to hear song’s like Motörhead’s “We Are the Road Crew,” and a pair of songs by Racer X.
The driving and combat was intuitive, and the RTS components were easy to control after I got the hang of it; fortunately the learning curve was pretty shallow on the RTS battles.
The Not So Good
Brütal Legend gets everything almost perfect, but it could have used some polish. For example…
Riggs often gets stuck on things like rocks – a jump button would have fixed that
Riggs dies in water – I’m so tired of characters dying in water (especially when you see them swim in the during cinematic sequences of the game without dying)
A mini-map while driving the Deuce would have saved me from constantly pausing to check the damn map
Cinematic scenes, particularly at the beginning and end of the game cut to load screens in odd places; this yanked me out of the narrative
A lack of instructional cues – There are things throughout the game that aren’t explained and you have to discover them for yourself (how do you a free serpent statues, or disabling songs that you don’t enjoy [I can't stand industrial metal], among many other key features
None of these ruin the game by any stretch of the imagination, but an extra month or two in development would have gone a long way.
The Ugly
I’m not completely sold that this belongs in the “Ugly” category, but I need to put something here, and this bothered me the most about Brütal Legend…
It was too easy, even on the Brütal difficulty level.
Once I got the hang of the RTS system, and discovered that the old Starcraft Zerg rush technique worked insanely well, I destroyed the computer without any resistance.
The Bottom-line
This is a great game, and well worth your time and money; if only for the humor, story, and music. Brütal Legend is a breath of fresh air, and a truly original experience in an ocean of sequels and rehashed game mechanics. There are so many great things about this game that I couldn’t even get into all of them. I guess you will just have to play and discover them for yourself.
Daemon has it all, crime, technology, compelling characters, unexpected plot twists, and a brutal look at alternate applications of technology.
The Premise
While returning from the Wall of Sound, Riggs & Co. are attacked by a flock of seagulls; the joke was so subtle I had to pause the game to cackle (if you don’t get it, 
