How they rattled their sabers and promised a boycott of HD that would destroy America's chances for an analogue switchoff. For example, the MPAA's CTO, Fritz Attaway, said that "high-value content will migrate away" from telly without DRM.

Viacom added: "[i]f a broadcast flag is not implemented and enforced by Summer 2003, Viacom's CBS Television Network will not provide any programming in high definition for the 2003-2004 television season."

One by one, the big entertainment companies – and sporting giants like the baseball and American football leagues – promised that without the Broadcast Flag, they would take their balls and go home.

So what happened? Did they make good on their threats? Did they go to their shareholders and explain that the reason they weren't broadcasting anything this year is because the government wouldn't let them control TVs?

No. They broadcast. They continue to broadcast today, with no DRM.

They were full of it. They did not make good on their threats. They didn't boycott.

They caved.

Why did Ofcom back down over DRM at the BBC?

Mastering by John Taylor Williams: wryneckstudio@gmail.com

John Taylor Williams is a full-time self-employed audio engineer, producer, composer, and sound designer. In his free time, he makes beer, jewelry, odd musical instruments and furniture. He likes to meditate, to read and to cook.

MP3 Link

We're trying to retrofit the rules that governed multi-stage rocket ships (huge publishing conglomerates) to cover the activity of pedestrians (people who post quotes from books on their personal blogs). And the pedestrians aren't buying it: they hear that they need a law degree to safely quote from their favourite TV show and they assume that the system is irredeemably broken and not worth attending to at all.

It's an impossible situation. As an author, I depend on there being some rules of the road when I negotiate with my publishers, and it's in every commercial creator's interest to try to find a moderate, coherent copyright rule that avoid dumb absolutes in favour of nuance and fairness. I don't pretend that I have all the answers, but here's some of the principles that I think a good copyright system must embrace if is to succeed. Many of these principles are already in various nations' copyright rules as part of "fair dealing" or "fair use," but these user-rights in copyright are complex and difficult to navigate and vary from country to country.

Copyright, companies, individuals and news: the rules of the road

(Image: Breach of Copyright - The Independent, from PeteZab's photostream)

Mastering by John Taylor Williams: wryneckstudio@gmail.com

John Taylor Williams is a full-time self-employed audio engineer, producer, composer, and sound designer. In his free time, he makes beer, jewelry, odd musical instruments and furniture. He likes to meditate, to read and to cook.

MP3 Link

Mitch Wagner from the Second Life interview show Copper Robot has written up my interview there a couple weeks ago, in a Tor.com post called "A cheery conversation with Cory Doctorow about the upside of economic collapse." He's also included the audio, which I'm folding into my podcast feed.

A cheery conversation with Cory Doctorow about the upside of economic collapse

MP3 link

Joris Peels from Shapeways liked the cover on the HarperCollins UK edition of my novel Makers, which features a variety of objects depicted in the novel as plastic model-parts attached to a sprue. Shapeways being a custom 3D printing shop, Joris whipped up an incredibly detailed 3D version of the cover illustration, which arrived in today's post. Color me grateful, delighted and gobsmacked. Thanks, Joris!

Update: Joris adds, "The design was modeled by Shapeways Community member Dmitry Kobzar; He spent 13 hours and 7 minutes making it. He will be thrilled that you're happy with it. The reason I asked Dmitry to model it was so we could make Makers come to life just like the people in your book do."

We're going to release the model files under a Creative Commons license. Watch this space!

Shapeways 3D printed version of the UK Makers cover

Tor.com's just posted the final iteration of the little rotating tile-game based on the Creative Commons-licensed illustrations that accompanied the serialization of my novel Makers. The 9x9 grid is truly a thing of awesome beauty.

Makers Tile Game, final 9x9 iteration now live

Mastering by John Taylor Williams: wryneckstudio@gmail.com

John Taylor Williams is a full-time self-employed audio engineer, producer, composer, and sound designer. In his free time, he makes beer, jewelry, odd musical instruments and furniture. He likes to meditate, to read and to cook.

MP3 Link

Content:
Selezione di saggi sulla tecnologia, la creatività, il copyright

(Grazie, Fabio!)

In other words, rock 'n' roll is cheap, experimental and fluid, and devotes most of its energy into the production of music. Orchestral music is expensive, formal and majestic, but tithes a large portion of its effort to coordination and overheads and maintenance.

If the Internet has a motif, it is rock 'n' roll's Protestant Reformation thrashing against the orchestral One Church. Rock 'n' roll gets lots of wee kirks built in every hill and dale in which parishioners can find religion in their own ways; choral music erects majestic cathedrals that humble and amaze, but take three generations of laborers to build.

The interesting bit isn't what it costs to replicate some big, pre-Internet business or project.

The interesting bit is what it costs to do something half as well as some big, pre-Internet business or project.

Cory Doctorow: Close Enough for Rock 'n' Roll

(Image: Rock-n-Roll Adventure Kids, a Creative Commons Attribution photo from Invisible Hour's photostream)

Mastering by John Taylor Williams: wryneckstudio@gmail.com

John Taylor Williams is a full-time self-employed audio engineer, producer, composer, and sound designer. In his free time, he makes beer, jewelry, odd musical instruments and furniture. He likes to meditate, to read and to cook.

MP3 Link

PDF link

Arturo Icaza de Arana-Goldberg, Detective de Policía de Tercer Grado, Esfera NorteAmericana de Comercio, Tercer Distrito, Cuarta Prefectura, Segunda División (Parkdale) había tenido muchas aventuras en su distinguida carrera, atrapando a sinvergüenzas con una imbatible combinación de instinto y devoción al deber sin restricciones. Había sido condecorado en tres ocasiones distintas por su comandante y por el Gerente Regional de Armonía Social, y su madre mantenía un altar dedicado a sus recortes de prensa y menciones que ocupaba la mayoría de la atiborrada sala de estar de su apartamento en Steeles Avenue.

Aunque ninguna cantidad de técnica o devoción policial le era de utilidad en la tarea de de preparar a su hija de doce años para ir al colegio.

—Mueve el culo, jovencita, fuera de la cama, en pie, cagar-ducharse-afeitarse, o juro por dios que te sacudo hasta ponerte como un tomate y te saco por la puerta completamente desnuda, ¿capichi?

El montículo bajo las mantas gruñó y siseó.

—Eres un padre terrible—dijo—. Y nunca te he querido.

La voz sonaba indistinta, amortigüada por la almohada.

—Buah buah—dijo Arturo, examinando sus uñas—. Lamentarás haber dicho eso cuando haya muerto de cáncer.

El montículo, cuyo nombre era Ada Trouble Icaza de Arana-Goldberg, echó a un lado las sábanas y se incorporó de un salto.

—¿Te estás muriendo de cáncer? ¿Es cáncer de testículos?—Ada aplaudía y daba grititos de alegría—¿Me puedo quedar con tus cosas?

Yo, robot

Each installment in Tor.com's serialization of my latest novel Makers was accompanied by a Creative Commons licensed illustration from Idiots' Books, in the form of a tile that can be interlocked with previous tiles on all four sides. We're planning to release these as a limited-edition deck of cards in the future, and we've also been releasing little flashtoys that let you play with the tiles onscreen as they were released.

Now Tor has an embeddable version, courtesy of Malloc, which you can stick in your blog or wherever you choose! Here's the code:

Makers Tile Game, now embeddable!

The entire DTLA system relies on the keys necessary to authenticate devices and unscramble video being kept secret, and on the rules governing the use of keys being inviolable. To that end, the DTLA "Compliance and Robustness Agreement" (presented as "Annex C" to the DTLA agreement) has a number of requirements aimed at ensuring that every DTLA-approved device is armoured against user modification. Keys must be hidden. Steps must be taken to ensure that the code running on the device isn't modified. Failure to take adequate protection against user modification will result in DTLA approval being withheld or revoked.

This is where the conflict with free/open source software arises.

Free/open source software, such as the GNU/Linux operating system that runs many set-top boxes, is created cooperatively among many programmers (thousands, in some cases). Unlike proprietary software, such as the Windows operating system or the iPhone's operating system, free software authors publish their code and allow any other programmer to examine it, make improvements to it, and publish those improvements. This has proven to be a powerful means of quickly building profitable new businesses and devices, from the TomTomGo GPSes to Google's Android phones to the Humax Freeview box you can buy tonight at Argos for around £130.

Because it can be adapted by anyone, free software is an incredible source of innovative new ideas. Because it can be used without charge, it has allowed unparalleled competition, dramatically lowering the cost of entering electronics markets. In short, free software is good for business, it's good for the public, it's good for progress, and it's good for competition.

But free software is bad for DTLA compliance.

The BBC's digital rights plans will wreak havoc on open source software

(Image: JERKS!, a Creative Commons Attribution photo from ebmorse's photostream)