Monday, January 4, 2010
Saturday, January 2, 2010
DoubleSpeak from Sookman
Update - 4:25 PM Saturday: Thanks to a tweet from Barry - here's a link to an article on Torrent Freak, which is about another case of industry insider uploading. In this case the insider was targeted, not the torrent site, however industry seems to regard killing torrent technology as more effective than policing it's employees.
*****
Before I start - A Happy New Year to all - and a milestone - my 101st article!
*****
DoubleSpeak from Sookman
Hum, what to say. Barry publishes an article titled ITIF Report: Strategies for Reducing Digital Piracy.
Now that is exactly what the report is named, no doubt about that. And Barry’s quotes are accurate. But...
Barry isn’t stupid. Doctor Robert D. Atkinson, President of The Information Technology & Innovation Foundation isn’t stupid either. It appears that they know George Orwell too damned well. Remember that beautiful line in Orwell’s classic book 1984, ‘We have always been at war with Eastasia?’
What we have here is a classic form of Doublespeak. To quote Wikipedia’s article on Doublespeak, ‘Doublespeak (sometimes called doubletalk) is language constructed to disguise or distort its actual meaning, often resulting in a communication bypass. Doublespeak may take the form of euphemisms (e.g., "downsizing" for layoffs) or deliberate ambiguity.’
The euphemism here of course is piracy. What they actually mean is copyright infringement.
But wait you say - doesn’t everyone use the term piracy for copyright infringement? I mean there’s even a Pirate Party which has evolved into a worldwide political movement. Much to my surprise, I found out when researching this article that the usage of the term piracy for copyright infringement actually predates the concept of copyright infringement! From Wikipedia:
Fascinating. So historically the term ‘Piracy’ was used for ‘Copyright Infringement’ before ‘Copyright Infringement’ legally existed. But we are getting sidetracked. One side of the argument is trying to paint the other side as thieves and murderers. Not a very nice move on their part.
OK you say - everyone called copyright infringement piracy. Why should I? Let me posit you a question. If your entire Ninth Grade high school class decided to take swan diving lessons from the Observation Deck of the CN Tower without parachutes, would you allow peer pressure to make you join them?
Right. You wouldn’t. You’d think they either were idiots, or pod people. But you wouldn’t follow them. So when you are talking about copyright infringement, call it copyright infringement - not piracy.
And remember - these people aren’t idiots. They are using DoubleSpeak to try to gain an advantage in the discussion about Copyright and it’s place in the modern world. By using a pejorative, they wish to convince the general public that their side is in the right, without there being a substantive discussion of the benefits and costs to the public of our current copyright regime. Even more important to them however is that they do not wish under any circumstances to get involved in a discussion of the benefits and costs to the artists of our current copyright regime! Oh my god, that would be terrible!
No. I’m serious. I’m not sure that Barry understand this. He isn’t an artist after all (artist being defined as writer, composer, musician, film maker, photographer, painter, etc. - in simple terms a human or other intelligent being capable of producing works which can be copyrighted). I’m not sure that Robert Atkinson understand it either, after all he’s a gunslinger for hire who’s organization has taken conflicting positions in the past. Both will claim loudly that what they are doing is for the benefit of the artists, while a rational evaluation will show that it’s not the artists that benefit - it’s the middlemen. Specifically the CRIA, RIAA, MPAA, IFPI,, etc., etc.
So what exactly is going on if Barry doesn’t understand what he’s doing? Well, let’s take a look at a story that was in Barry’s Computer and Internet Law Updates for 2009-12-28 about an Italian case where a court has ruled that BitTorrent Sites May Be Censored In Italy according to TorrentFreak (note that this story was sent from Barry’s Blackberry - if you wish to go directly to the article click here.
I don’t know what the legal costs have been for the IFPI (probably the industry organization involved according to an earlier TorrentFreak article, but you have to question if the looked for increase of sales would cover them. There is no proof that I know of, that blocking downloads actually causes an increase in sales. But let’s assume that there is. If 1% of the cost of a $10.00 US Compact Disc was be used for copyright enforcement ($0.10 US), and the cost of legal representation was $10,000.00 US, then they would have to sell an additional 100,000 Compact Discs to break even. But could they afford to spend 1% of their revenues on enforcement? What if they only spent 0.1%? In that case they’d have to sell and extra 1,000,000 Compact Discs. The math makes sense. The economic reasoning doesn’t.
And when you add up every other ‘Enforcement Action’ that has been taken against ‘Piracy’ the economic justification makes even less sense. So as my Dad would have put it - ‘What the hell is going on here?’
After banging my head against the wall for a long time, I’ve finally come up with a theory or sorts. It fits the facts. It makes better economic justification than ‘Enforcement.’ But it does sound a little bit paranoid. Like something a crazy ‘hatred-driven style of Maoist Guard’ might come up with... So let me lay out the evidence that I’ve seen. Almost all of it is public, so unlike the other side I will provide documentary links (yes, I’m being nasty again). When my evidence is anecdotal, I’ll tell you.
*****
Case 1 - OINK.CD
OINK.CD - Oink’s Pink Palace was a torrent site that specialized in music. Music professionals such as Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails was a member. If we can take the industry representative (IFPI) who spoke to reporter at face value the reason for the raid on OINK.CD was pre-release music. Think - pre-release music. Just where would they have gotten that? In other words the industry was using the police to shutdown a service that their own employees were using! They couldn’t catch them on the inside, so they dumped on Alan Ellis, even arranging for a BBC camera crew to film the raid on his flat. Based on statements made by police at the time, it appears that the IFPI lied police and prosecutors (the police statements were bizarre to say the least).
Now this is where it gets anecdotal. I have friends in low places, and they allege that some of the alleged 60 pre-release albums were deliberately uploaded by the labels. If this is true, and it comes out in discovery (this case is under British law, and it is a criminal case, Regina V. Ellis, so I do not know if Mr. Ellis would be able to do discovery on the IFPI or the labels), it could cause problems for the prosecutors.
For an excellent article about the implications of the OINK.CD enforcement effort check out this article at Demon Baby.
Case 2 - EliteTorrents
EliteTorrents was a general torrent site. To the best of my knowledge it is the only torrent site that has the distinction of being taken down by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Their crime? A movie industry insider uploaded a ‘pre-commercial release work’ which hasn’t been identified, but is rumored to be Star Wars Episode 3. Right. A movie industry insider commits an act of copyright infringement (is it copyright infringement if the act was done by someone who worked for the company? It couldn’t be classified as theft - nothing is missing!) Unfortunately for EliteTorrents the torrent (not the video) was uploaded to their server. Result is that the site admin spends four years in jail, another admin gets eighteen months, and an uploaderescapes jail but looses his job. Whether he is the uploader who actually uploaded the file that brought everything down isn’t mentioned, but it is doubtful, since he worked for Lockheed Martin. Oh. and a movie exec says that the release made no difference at the box office.
Case 3 - Demonoid
Demonoid is an odd one. While it is a private tracker, it is so high profile that you could consider it the CIA of the tracker world. Demonoid has been up, and down, many times over the last few years, changing country of origin at least once because of legal issues. Wikipedia has an article describing this.
Case 4 - The Pirate Bay
The Pirate Bay is probably the most infamous torrent site, and people who were involved with it started the original original Pirate Party in Sweden. The Pirate Bay claims that it is legal under Swedish law, and usually posts legal threats to their website, often with smart aleck responses.
In 2008 Nine Inch Nails released their newest album under a Creative Commons license on The Pirate Bay. Their move was apparently a great success, with the band making a good profit. They’ve also allowed their fans to put together their own packages like this one and use the Pirate Bay for distribution.
More recently Director Hanna Sköld released her feature film Nasty Old People. On the front page of her website she put a torrent link. The tracker she choose to host her torrent was The Pirate Bay. It was a great film, if you haven’t seen it I highly recommend it. Oh, and she’s taking donations, I sent her $20.00 US to thank her for her work.
*****
So looking at the cases above, and considering how little economic benefit that industry has gotten from them, why are they doing this?
Easy. It’s an anti-competitive act. If the requirement for Internet Service Providers to block The Pirate Bay stands, Italians won’t be able to enjoy Hanna’s film, or the latest Nine Inch Nails album. By blocking the alternative distribution methods that independent artists are adopting (Finnish producer Samuli Torssonen also uses The Pirate Bay), they limit the market that the independents are using to reach their customers. If the independents can’t distribute using the alternate channels, their only choice is to use the big, established, distributors.
Now that may sound paranoid, but look at the evidence. The actions that the industry organizations are taking aren’t cost effective if what they are doing is trying to increase their sales by blocking ‘supposedly illegal’ downloads of the product they distribute. However if they can manage to convince legislators that Torrent technology should be made illegal, then a competing distribution system cannot form, and all distribution continues through them.
What do you think?
*****
Before I start - A Happy New Year to all - and a milestone - my 101st article!
*****
DoubleSpeak from Sookman
Hum, what to say. Barry publishes an article titled ITIF Report: Strategies for Reducing Digital Piracy.
Now that is exactly what the report is named, no doubt about that. And Barry’s quotes are accurate. But...
Barry isn’t stupid. Doctor Robert D. Atkinson, President of The Information Technology & Innovation Foundation isn’t stupid either. It appears that they know George Orwell too damned well. Remember that beautiful line in Orwell’s classic book 1984, ‘We have always been at war with Eastasia?’
What we have here is a classic form of Doublespeak. To quote Wikipedia’s article on Doublespeak, ‘Doublespeak (sometimes called doubletalk) is language constructed to disguise or distort its actual meaning, often resulting in a communication bypass. Doublespeak may take the form of euphemisms (e.g., "downsizing" for layoffs) or deliberate ambiguity.’
The euphemism here of course is piracy. What they actually mean is copyright infringement.
But wait you say - doesn’t everyone use the term piracy for copyright infringement? I mean there’s even a Pirate Party which has evolved into a worldwide political movement. Much to my surprise, I found out when researching this article that the usage of the term piracy for copyright infringement actually predates the concept of copyright infringement! From Wikipedia:
For electronic and audio-visual media, unauthorized reproduction and distribution is also commonly referred to as piracy (an early reference was made by Daniel Defoe in 1703 when he said of his novel True-born Englishman : "Its being Printed again and again, by Pyrates"[2]). The practice of labeling the act of infringement as "piracy" actually predates copyright itself. Even prior to the 1709 enactment of the Statute of Anne, generally recognized as the first copyright law, the Stationers' Company of London in 1557 received a Royal Charter giving the company a monopoly on publication and tasking it with enforcing the charter. Those who violated the charter were labeled pirates as early as 1603.[3]
The legal basis for this usage dates from the same era, and has been consistently applied until the present time.[4][5] Critics of the use of the term "piracy" to describe such practices contend that it is pejorative and unfairly equates copyright infringement with more sinister activity,[6] though courts often hold that under law the two terms are interchangeable.[7]
Fascinating. So historically the term ‘Piracy’ was used for ‘Copyright Infringement’ before ‘Copyright Infringement’ legally existed. But we are getting sidetracked. One side of the argument is trying to paint the other side as thieves and murderers. Not a very nice move on their part.
OK you say - everyone called copyright infringement piracy. Why should I? Let me posit you a question. If your entire Ninth Grade high school class decided to take swan diving lessons from the Observation Deck of the CN Tower without parachutes, would you allow peer pressure to make you join them?
Right. You wouldn’t. You’d think they either were idiots, or pod people. But you wouldn’t follow them. So when you are talking about copyright infringement, call it copyright infringement - not piracy.
And remember - these people aren’t idiots. They are using DoubleSpeak to try to gain an advantage in the discussion about Copyright and it’s place in the modern world. By using a pejorative, they wish to convince the general public that their side is in the right, without there being a substantive discussion of the benefits and costs to the public of our current copyright regime. Even more important to them however is that they do not wish under any circumstances to get involved in a discussion of the benefits and costs to the artists of our current copyright regime! Oh my god, that would be terrible!
No. I’m serious. I’m not sure that Barry understand this. He isn’t an artist after all (artist being defined as writer, composer, musician, film maker, photographer, painter, etc. - in simple terms a human or other intelligent being capable of producing works which can be copyrighted). I’m not sure that Robert Atkinson understand it either, after all he’s a gunslinger for hire who’s organization has taken conflicting positions in the past. Both will claim loudly that what they are doing is for the benefit of the artists, while a rational evaluation will show that it’s not the artists that benefit - it’s the middlemen. Specifically the CRIA, RIAA, MPAA, IFPI,, etc., etc.
So what exactly is going on if Barry doesn’t understand what he’s doing? Well, let’s take a look at a story that was in Barry’s Computer and Internet Law Updates for 2009-12-28 about an Italian case where a court has ruled that BitTorrent Sites May Be Censored In Italy according to TorrentFreak (note that this story was sent from Barry’s Blackberry - if you wish to go directly to the article click here.
I don’t know what the legal costs have been for the IFPI (probably the industry organization involved according to an earlier TorrentFreak article, but you have to question if the looked for increase of sales would cover them. There is no proof that I know of, that blocking downloads actually causes an increase in sales. But let’s assume that there is. If 1% of the cost of a $10.00 US Compact Disc was be used for copyright enforcement ($0.10 US), and the cost of legal representation was $10,000.00 US, then they would have to sell an additional 100,000 Compact Discs to break even. But could they afford to spend 1% of their revenues on enforcement? What if they only spent 0.1%? In that case they’d have to sell and extra 1,000,000 Compact Discs. The math makes sense. The economic reasoning doesn’t.
And when you add up every other ‘Enforcement Action’ that has been taken against ‘Piracy’ the economic justification makes even less sense. So as my Dad would have put it - ‘What the hell is going on here?’
After banging my head against the wall for a long time, I’ve finally come up with a theory or sorts. It fits the facts. It makes better economic justification than ‘Enforcement.’ But it does sound a little bit paranoid. Like something a crazy ‘hatred-driven style of Maoist Guard’ might come up with... So let me lay out the evidence that I’ve seen. Almost all of it is public, so unlike the other side I will provide documentary links (yes, I’m being nasty again). When my evidence is anecdotal, I’ll tell you.
*****
Case 1 - OINK.CD
OINK.CD - Oink’s Pink Palace was a torrent site that specialized in music. Music professionals such as Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails was a member. If we can take the industry representative (IFPI) who spoke to reporter at face value the reason for the raid on OINK.CD was pre-release music. Think - pre-release music. Just where would they have gotten that? In other words the industry was using the police to shutdown a service that their own employees were using! They couldn’t catch them on the inside, so they dumped on Alan Ellis, even arranging for a BBC camera crew to film the raid on his flat. Based on statements made by police at the time, it appears that the IFPI lied police and prosecutors (the police statements were bizarre to say the least).
Now this is where it gets anecdotal. I have friends in low places, and they allege that some of the alleged 60 pre-release albums were deliberately uploaded by the labels. If this is true, and it comes out in discovery (this case is under British law, and it is a criminal case, Regina V. Ellis, so I do not know if Mr. Ellis would be able to do discovery on the IFPI or the labels), it could cause problems for the prosecutors.
For an excellent article about the implications of the OINK.CD enforcement effort check out this article at Demon Baby.
Case 2 - EliteTorrents
EliteTorrents was a general torrent site. To the best of my knowledge it is the only torrent site that has the distinction of being taken down by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Their crime? A movie industry insider uploaded a ‘pre-commercial release work’ which hasn’t been identified, but is rumored to be Star Wars Episode 3. Right. A movie industry insider commits an act of copyright infringement (is it copyright infringement if the act was done by someone who worked for the company? It couldn’t be classified as theft - nothing is missing!) Unfortunately for EliteTorrents the torrent (not the video) was uploaded to their server. Result is that the site admin spends four years in jail, another admin gets eighteen months, and an uploaderescapes jail but looses his job. Whether he is the uploader who actually uploaded the file that brought everything down isn’t mentioned, but it is doubtful, since he worked for Lockheed Martin. Oh. and a movie exec says that the release made no difference at the box office.
Case 3 - Demonoid
Demonoid is an odd one. While it is a private tracker, it is so high profile that you could consider it the CIA of the tracker world. Demonoid has been up, and down, many times over the last few years, changing country of origin at least once because of legal issues. Wikipedia has an article describing this.
Case 4 - The Pirate Bay
The Pirate Bay is probably the most infamous torrent site, and people who were involved with it started the original original Pirate Party in Sweden. The Pirate Bay claims that it is legal under Swedish law, and usually posts legal threats to their website, often with smart aleck responses.
In 2008 Nine Inch Nails released their newest album under a Creative Commons license on The Pirate Bay. Their move was apparently a great success, with the band making a good profit. They’ve also allowed their fans to put together their own packages like this one and use the Pirate Bay for distribution.
More recently Director Hanna Sköld released her feature film Nasty Old People. On the front page of her website she put a torrent link. The tracker she choose to host her torrent was The Pirate Bay. It was a great film, if you haven’t seen it I highly recommend it. Oh, and she’s taking donations, I sent her $20.00 US to thank her for her work.
*****
So looking at the cases above, and considering how little economic benefit that industry has gotten from them, why are they doing this?
Easy. It’s an anti-competitive act. If the requirement for Internet Service Providers to block The Pirate Bay stands, Italians won’t be able to enjoy Hanna’s film, or the latest Nine Inch Nails album. By blocking the alternative distribution methods that independent artists are adopting (Finnish producer Samuli Torssonen also uses The Pirate Bay), they limit the market that the independents are using to reach their customers. If the independents can’t distribute using the alternate channels, their only choice is to use the big, established, distributors.
Now that may sound paranoid, but look at the evidence. The actions that the industry organizations are taking aren’t cost effective if what they are doing is trying to increase their sales by blocking ‘supposedly illegal’ downloads of the product they distribute. However if they can manage to convince legislators that Torrent technology should be made illegal, then a competing distribution system cannot form, and all distribution continues through them.
What do you think?
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Evil Cyber Empire only possible because of Microsoft
Barry tweeted a Newsweek article titled The Evil (Cyber) Empire - Inside the world of Russian hackers. What the article doesn't mention (possibly because Microsoft is a Newsweek advertiser) is that what holds the 'Russian Business Network' together is a vast botnet consisting of millions of compromised computers running the Microsoft Windows Operating System.
That's right. Windows. Not OSX. Not Linux. Only Windows.
The problem is that Windows was originally designed as a single user system. When network capabilities were grafted on in Windows 3.11 in an anti-competitive move against Novell, then the premier network software provider, security wasn't considered. When Microsoft belatedly recognized the Internet, and grafted TCP/IP networking onto Windows 95 and Windows NT 4.0, again, security wasn't considered.
Microsoft has never to this day taken security seriously in my opinion. Features such as the infamous ActiveX, which Microsoft eventually had to cripple, are an example of this. Another example is Internet Exploder, the disastrous web browser that Microsoft includes with Windows.
No other operating system has the security issues that Windows has. And quite frankly no other operating system ever will. Even Microsoft has admitted that
No other operating system is susceptible to so many attacks. Even Microsoft has admitted publicly that their products aren't engineered for security.
That's right. Windows. Not OSX. Not Linux. Only Windows.
The problem is that Windows was originally designed as a single user system. When network capabilities were grafted on in Windows 3.11 in an anti-competitive move against Novell, then the premier network software provider, security wasn't considered. When Microsoft belatedly recognized the Internet, and grafted TCP/IP networking onto Windows 95 and Windows NT 4.0, again, security wasn't considered.
Microsoft has never to this day taken security seriously in my opinion. Features such as the infamous ActiveX, which Microsoft eventually had to cripple, are an example of this. Another example is Internet Exploder, the disastrous web browser that Microsoft includes with Windows.
No other operating system has the security issues that Windows has. And quite frankly no other operating system ever will. Even Microsoft has admitted that
No other operating system is susceptible to so many attacks. Even Microsoft has admitted publicly that their products aren't engineered for security.
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Sookman found liable for worldwide article inaccuracies
OK. I’m being mean. I know it. You know it. Barry knows it. But hey, it’s me. This is how I am. Still I feel kind of guilty. It’s like shooting fish in a barrel. Quite frankly I should just forget about Barry, and finish the article I started before Christmas on Canadian attitudes towards Climate Change.
But hell - I declare this ‘Beat up on Barry week.’ In my earlier articles about Barry’s writing (one) (two) I mentioned that I had spotted other inaccuracies, and here’s one:
Fung and Isohunt found liable for inducing worldwide copyright infringement
Like wow, man. Guilty of Worldwide Copyright Infringement! That’s bad. Really bad.
And also totally untrue. Barry even includes a link to the judgement which I gather he didn’t read, because what the judgement says (on page 40 of 46 pages in the PDF version) is:
I included the entire paragraph, but really it’s this sentence that matters:
This is the only time you can find the word ‘world’ in the summary judgement.
Now I’m not a lawyer, but management has to have a basic understanding of the legal system in order to operate. One of the major legal concepts is ‘jurisdiction.’ A court can only issue a ruling for those things it has jurisdiction over. Generally a court in one country cannot issue a ruling about actions in a second country. To give an example, if a user in Germany was to download a movie from ISOHUNT, which is in Canada, a court in the United States would not have jurisdiction.
It would however have jurisdiction over actions in the United States, and that's what the summary judgment is about.
So when I saw the title of this piece, I knew it was wrong, without even having read the judgement. It was impossible. And it’s too bad, because the article is actually really good. It covers the issues well, and while I may disagree with Barry’s writing, and his interpretations, in general he did a good job. Except for the title.
Come on Barry - you can do better than this. And yes, I know my title is as accurate as yours is. I'm trying to make a point.
Now that I’ve completed this, I’m going to pick up the guitar amp that the dogs knocked over, get out my Telecaster, and play some music. Good night all.
But hell - I declare this ‘Beat up on Barry week.’ In my earlier articles about Barry’s writing (one) (two) I mentioned that I had spotted other inaccuracies, and here’s one:
Fung and Isohunt found liable for inducing worldwide copyright infringement
Like wow, man. Guilty of Worldwide Copyright Infringement! That’s bad. Really bad.
And also totally untrue. Barry even includes a link to the judgement which I gather he didn’t read, because what the judgement says (on page 40 of 46 pages in the PDF version) is:
Even under this stringent “willful ignorance” test, it is apparent that Defendants have “turned a blind eye to ‘red flags’ of obvious infringement.” See H.R. Rep. 105-551(II), at 57. Most importantly, Defendant Fung himself has engaged in unauthorized downloads of copyrighted material; even if those downloads were done abroad and were not actionable under United States copyright law (and thus would not provide “actual knowledge” of illegal activity for purposes of 17 U.S.C. § 512(d)(1)(A)), Fung’s actions show that Fung was aware that infringing material was available on the Defendant websites. Given the “worldwide” nature of the world-wide web, it would have been obvious that United States-based users could access these same infringing materials and thus engage in infringing acts. Defendants provide no evidence to rebut this obvious conclusion that United States-based users would have been able to download the same copyrighted works that Fung himself downloaded.
I included the entire paragraph, but really it’s this sentence that matters:
Given the “worldwide” nature of the world-wide web, it would have been obvious that United States-based users could access these same infringing materials and thus engage in infringing acts.
This is the only time you can find the word ‘world’ in the summary judgement.
Now I’m not a lawyer, but management has to have a basic understanding of the legal system in order to operate. One of the major legal concepts is ‘jurisdiction.’ A court can only issue a ruling for those things it has jurisdiction over. Generally a court in one country cannot issue a ruling about actions in a second country. To give an example, if a user in Germany was to download a movie from ISOHUNT, which is in Canada, a court in the United States would not have jurisdiction.
It would however have jurisdiction over actions in the United States, and that's what the summary judgment is about.
So when I saw the title of this piece, I knew it was wrong, without even having read the judgement. It was impossible. And it’s too bad, because the article is actually really good. It covers the issues well, and while I may disagree with Barry’s writing, and his interpretations, in general he did a good job. Except for the title.
Come on Barry - you can do better than this. And yes, I know my title is as accurate as yours is. I'm trying to make a point.
Now that I’ve completed this, I’m going to pick up the guitar amp that the dogs knocked over, get out my Telecaster, and play some music. Good night all.
God, I love History!
I really do. You find out the most amazing things, about some of the most amazing people, some of whom may even be related to you - or in this particular case are you!
As many of you know, I'm currently unfit for work. It just hurts too damned much for me to be effective. I am either so much pain that I cannot think straight, or I'm so stoned from the medication that I cannot think straight. I have an MRI scheduled for March 2010, and hopefully it will give the doctors the information that they need to go ahead with surgery. In the meantime, I'm spending far too much time surfing the net, and arguing with people (Hi Barry).
So, I have a new project. I'm writing a book. A history book to be precise, and I am in it.
At this point most people are probably wondering what great historical event I took part in, and know from my age (53) that I wasn't at Pearl Harbor, or on the HMCS Haida when she blew up a train during the Korean conflict. Truth is, like most of us, I didn't take part in any great historical events.
But one thing that I've learned is that history doesn't have to be about great historical events - it is also about the daily life of people like ourselves. The things that we do, and the places that we do them. My thanks to Tony Robinson and the rest of the folks on Time Team for giving me a better understanding of history (Time Team is shown in Canada on TVOntario).
So I'm writing a book about the Schools and Students of the Township of Markham, with the assistance of several delightful ladies who went to school with me.
Why do I think that this will be interesting? To most people it probably won't be. But to us, well it is the basis of what our lives have become today. A bunch of farm kids, going to school in the last of the historical one room school houses, many of which had undergone some expansion - one that I attended had been expanded to have FIVE classrooms.
To us farm kids, it was freaking huge!
It was a different time, and a different world in many ways. Just think - in September 1963 I started Grade 2 at a one room school house, which had a portable classroom added for more space. There I meet a really cute little redheaded girl and her twin brother. The school, the main part of which had been built in 1902, was on land donated by their great-grandfather. Their father, and grandfather had both attended that school. The cute little redheaded girl that I meet on that day in 1963 is now a doting grandmother. I hadn't talked to her in over 20 years when I found her on Facebook last fall. Yes, Shirley, to a large extent this is your fault!
Just before Christmas, Shirley, Linda, Debbie, Joyce, and I started trading memories of school, after I uploaded scans of some of our class pictures. This got me thinking. The Township doesn't exist anymore as a political entity - it disappeared during the reorganization of municipalities in the Province of Ontario which occurred in 1971. Parts of the Township of Markham were absorbed by the Town of Markham, the Town of Richmond Hill, and the Town of Whitchurch-Stoufville.
The Township school board doesn't exist any more either, it was absorbed into the York Region District School Board). None of us knew how many schools the Township ran, or even where all of them were. Some of the buildings still exist - for that matter SS#4 is still in use by the York Region Board. SS#5 is in use too, as a historical classroom. SS#8 is now a restaurant. SS#10 was removed from it's foundations, and moved to Black Creek Pioneer Village. We knew that SS#6 had to exist, and Debbie found a reference to it being classified as a historical building. I'm driving by it today to take a look. SS#7 still exists, but it is boarded up, and I'm not sure who owns the land, or if the building (built in 1902) has been declared historical. Hell, if it hasn't, I'm going to make damned good and sure that it will be.
This may not be as exciting as a war. But it means a lot to me, and my friends. Much of what we are, was formed in those little schools. They educated generations of farm kids, and their story deserves to be told.
And yes, I've volunteered.
Oh, and if anyone knows all the verses of the SS#4 theme song, which we sang on bus trips to drive the teachers crazy, please email what you have to me. I want to record it, and yes, I have the equipment :)
As many of you know, I'm currently unfit for work. It just hurts too damned much for me to be effective. I am either so much pain that I cannot think straight, or I'm so stoned from the medication that I cannot think straight. I have an MRI scheduled for March 2010, and hopefully it will give the doctors the information that they need to go ahead with surgery. In the meantime, I'm spending far too much time surfing the net, and arguing with people (Hi Barry).
So, I have a new project. I'm writing a book. A history book to be precise, and I am in it.
At this point most people are probably wondering what great historical event I took part in, and know from my age (53) that I wasn't at Pearl Harbor, or on the HMCS Haida when she blew up a train during the Korean conflict. Truth is, like most of us, I didn't take part in any great historical events.
But one thing that I've learned is that history doesn't have to be about great historical events - it is also about the daily life of people like ourselves. The things that we do, and the places that we do them. My thanks to Tony Robinson and the rest of the folks on Time Team for giving me a better understanding of history (Time Team is shown in Canada on TVOntario).
So I'm writing a book about the Schools and Students of the Township of Markham, with the assistance of several delightful ladies who went to school with me.
Why do I think that this will be interesting? To most people it probably won't be. But to us, well it is the basis of what our lives have become today. A bunch of farm kids, going to school in the last of the historical one room school houses, many of which had undergone some expansion - one that I attended had been expanded to have FIVE classrooms.
To us farm kids, it was freaking huge!
It was a different time, and a different world in many ways. Just think - in September 1963 I started Grade 2 at a one room school house, which had a portable classroom added for more space. There I meet a really cute little redheaded girl and her twin brother. The school, the main part of which had been built in 1902, was on land donated by their great-grandfather. Their father, and grandfather had both attended that school. The cute little redheaded girl that I meet on that day in 1963 is now a doting grandmother. I hadn't talked to her in over 20 years when I found her on Facebook last fall. Yes, Shirley, to a large extent this is your fault!
Just before Christmas, Shirley, Linda, Debbie, Joyce, and I started trading memories of school, after I uploaded scans of some of our class pictures. This got me thinking. The Township doesn't exist anymore as a political entity - it disappeared during the reorganization of municipalities in the Province of Ontario which occurred in 1971. Parts of the Township of Markham were absorbed by the Town of Markham, the Town of Richmond Hill, and the Town of Whitchurch-Stoufville.
The Township school board doesn't exist any more either, it was absorbed into the York Region District School Board). None of us knew how many schools the Township ran, or even where all of them were. Some of the buildings still exist - for that matter SS#4 is still in use by the York Region Board. SS#5 is in use too, as a historical classroom. SS#8 is now a restaurant. SS#10 was removed from it's foundations, and moved to Black Creek Pioneer Village. We knew that SS#6 had to exist, and Debbie found a reference to it being classified as a historical building. I'm driving by it today to take a look. SS#7 still exists, but it is boarded up, and I'm not sure who owns the land, or if the building (built in 1902) has been declared historical. Hell, if it hasn't, I'm going to make damned good and sure that it will be.
This may not be as exciting as a war. But it means a lot to me, and my friends. Much of what we are, was formed in those little schools. They educated generations of farm kids, and their story deserves to be told.
And yes, I've volunteered.
Oh, and if anyone knows all the verses of the SS#4 theme song, which we sang on bus trips to drive the teachers crazy, please email what you have to me. I want to record it, and yes, I have the equipment :)
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Barry Sookman - I stand by my post
I feel awful. My ‘Post Nasal Drip’ has reached the point, that if I don’t post this tonight, I’ll have to post it ‘Posthumously.’
I got up this morning, and noticed Barry Sookman had deigned to respond to my criticism. He wrote:
And yes Barry, I moderate too. Unlike you I approve all responses that aren’t link spam. This is Liberty Hall. You can spit on the mat, and call the cat a bastard. Though I really wouldn’t recommend doing that. Both of my dogs are scared witless of her, and she’s less than half the size of the beagle.
As to your response, I’m sorry Barry, but I just don’t buy this. You remember what was on the sites months ago, but can’t provide any proof? How do we know that your memory is any good? How do we know that you aren’t just making this up?
You are a lawyer. If you went into court with something like this, the judge would have your head, and quite rightly so. I’ve seen what happens to lawyers who don’t do their work properly, and raise the judge’s ire. And I’m not a lawyer, I’ve just been involved in several very interesting lawsuits.
You claim you stand by your post. But you edited it to remove the points I had complained about, did so without indicating to your readers that you had any problems (indeed there is no evidence in the article to indicate that you removed over a third of it). I didn’t even get mentioned in the updated article, though it could be argued that I had more to do with it’s current state than you do.
If you had come out and said, ‘Oops, I messed up,’ I would have had some respect for you. Instead you’ve just gone on my watch list. I’ll be reading everything you post. If you mess up, I’ll let you know. I’ll let everyone else know as well, since I don’t trust you to do so.
Oh, and you still haven’t fixed several other obvious errors. I’ll leave you the job of finding them, it will be good for your soul. And I’ve noticed while you posted the news about Argentina, that you haven’t posted the news about Chile. Naughty, naughty. Trying to hide defeats for your side is typical of the man you are showing us.
I got up this morning, and noticed Barry Sookman had deigned to respond to my criticism. He wrote:
barry said...
I stand by my post. The quotes in my blog were collected several months ago, so any deviations could be due to subsequent changes at the sites.
Barry SOOKMAN
And yes Barry, I moderate too. Unlike you I approve all responses that aren’t link spam. This is Liberty Hall. You can spit on the mat, and call the cat a bastard. Though I really wouldn’t recommend doing that. Both of my dogs are scared witless of her, and she’s less than half the size of the beagle.
As to your response, I’m sorry Barry, but I just don’t buy this. You remember what was on the sites months ago, but can’t provide any proof? How do we know that your memory is any good? How do we know that you aren’t just making this up?
You are a lawyer. If you went into court with something like this, the judge would have your head, and quite rightly so. I’ve seen what happens to lawyers who don’t do their work properly, and raise the judge’s ire. And I’m not a lawyer, I’ve just been involved in several very interesting lawsuits.
You claim you stand by your post. But you edited it to remove the points I had complained about, did so without indicating to your readers that you had any problems (indeed there is no evidence in the article to indicate that you removed over a third of it). I didn’t even get mentioned in the updated article, though it could be argued that I had more to do with it’s current state than you do.
If you had come out and said, ‘Oops, I messed up,’ I would have had some respect for you. Instead you’ve just gone on my watch list. I’ll be reading everything you post. If you mess up, I’ll let you know. I’ll let everyone else know as well, since I don’t trust you to do so.
Oh, and you still haven’t fixed several other obvious errors. I’ll leave you the job of finding them, it will be good for your soul. And I’ve noticed while you posted the news about Argentina, that you haven’t posted the news about Chile. Naughty, naughty. Trying to hide defeats for your side is typical of the man you are showing us.
Monday, December 28, 2009
Barry the Inaccurate
Updated Tuesday December 27, 2009 at 12:58 AM
At about 12:30 AM, Tuesday December 29th, Barry sent the following in Twitter:
Post Edited: Toying with funny math to downplay Canada's role as a piracy haven (http://www.barrysookman.com/?p=435)
Barry Sookman’s most recent post titled Toying with funny math to downplay Canada’s role as a piracy haven is, at best, inaccurate. Since I’m suffering from a nasty head cold I’m only going to cover the most noticeable errors - and then go back to suffering.
In paragraph three, Barry claims that Mininova is down. A quick visit to the site shows that he is in error, that Mininova is still in operation. He also claims that the court ordered it shut down. This is incorrect. The court ordered that certain torrents be removed. Nothing more. Nothing less.
In paragraph four, Barry claims that a court ordered that the The Pirate Bay be shut down. He does not mention that an appeal has been filed. In a later paragraph he claims that The Pirate Bay will be shut down shortly, however the shut down order is on hold until the appeal is complete. To the best of my knowledge a court date has not been picked as yet, and since the shut down cannot take effect until after the appeal, his claim that it will be shut down shortly is specious at best.
So if he is so wrong on those two things, why do we have any reason to believe him when he posts the following quotes:
Where exactly Barry gets this from is unclear. Graboid is headquartered in the Barbados according to their site, and make no such claims. I’d never heard of Graboid before - not that it would do my much good anyways, since it appears to only support Windows, and well, you have to be suicidal to run Windows on a machine that is connected to the internet in my opinion.
This appears pretty damning, until you realize that Barry grabbed it from About.com, and that he did a bit of editing (don’t believe me or him - read it yourself). There is nothing like this in the Peer Guardian FAQ, or for that matter on the entire site that I could find.
Again, sounds damning, until you try to find those words on IWannaDownload.com. Check out the FAQ and confirm for yourself what I say. It's not there. So where did Barry get it from?
Wow. These words actually appear on the TorrentPortal website. Shocking. However this is a partial quote, in full it reads (the text missing from Barry's article is in bold):
By only quoting part of the words, Barry is able to make it sound damning. When you read the rest, including the quote from the Canadian Music Creators Coalition, who are the very people that Barry pretends to represent, it sounds far less damning. And of course what you have is the opinion of the person who wrote it. Lawsuits over distribution of music in Canada happen regularly, and are covered in the media including the New York Post, ZDNet, Vancouver Sun, Semi Accurate, and others. Under our current laws lawsuits are obviously possible - so why is Barry saying that they aren’t? Possibly because the lawsuit I'm using for an example is by an artist against the CRIA member companies. Michael Geist has claimed that Barry is a CRIA Lobbyist. If he is, this may explain why he ignores the proof that lawsuits abour copyright infringement do happen in Canada.
Barry appears to have decided that Wikipedia is accurate, since it suits his purposes. Me being me, I checked the reference link on Wikipedia, and it leads to a site run by a company called RobTex. RobTex has automated tools which allow you to look up the name servers for a site. Since one of the name servers is in Canada, Barry is assuming that at least one BT Junkie server is in Canada. This is not a safe assumption, the location of the name server has no relation to the physical location of the server it points to.
Here Barry thinks that quoting an online article gives him credence. However considering the lack of accuracy in his own articles, how can we tell that this article is accurate, and in several places it doesn’t appear to be. However IsoHunt is definitely located in Canada. The operator has admitted this. So Barry did get one right.
Now if Barry has any problems with my take on things, I will happily talk to him. But quite frankly his accuracy stinks. I've dealt with a lot of lawyers over the years, and I would not hire a lawyer who is this sloppy in his fact checking.
Hell - I’ll call him tomorrow and see what he has to say :)
At about 12:30 AM, Tuesday December 29th, Barry sent the following in Twitter:
bsookman
Post Edited: Toying with funny math to downplay Canada's role as a piracy haven (http://www.barrysookman.com/?p=435)
Barry Sookman’s most recent post titled Toying with funny math to downplay Canada’s role as a piracy haven is, at best, inaccurate. Since I’m suffering from a nasty head cold I’m only going to cover the most noticeable errors - and then go back to suffering.
In paragraph three, Barry claims that Mininova is down. A quick visit to the site shows that he is in error, that Mininova is still in operation. He also claims that the court ordered it shut down. This is incorrect. The court ordered that certain torrents be removed. Nothing more. Nothing less.
In paragraph four, Barry claims that a court ordered that the The Pirate Bay be shut down. He does not mention that an appeal has been filed. In a later paragraph he claims that The Pirate Bay will be shut down shortly, however the shut down order is on hold until the appeal is complete. To the best of my knowledge a court date has not been picked as yet, and since the shut down cannot take effect until after the appeal, his claim that it will be shut down shortly is specious at best.
So if he is so wrong on those two things, why do we have any reason to believe him when he posts the following quotes:
Graboid: “Graboid Video is completely legal in Canada.”
Where exactly Barry gets this from is unclear. Graboid is headquartered in the Barbados according to their site, and make no such claims. I’d never heard of Graboid before - not that it would do my much good anyways, since it appears to only support Windows, and well, you have to be suicidal to run Windows on a machine that is connected to the internet in my opinion.
PeerGuardian: “Important Technical and Legal Notes: no masking of your address is 100% foolproof. At the same time, remember that in any other country outside of Canada, downloading copyrighted movies and songs puts you at legal risk for copyright infringement prosecution. Hundreds of users in the USA and UK have been fined by the MPAA and RIAA for downloading files in the last three years. Only in Canada is P2P file sharing tolerated legally.”
This appears pretty damning, until you realize that Barry grabbed it from About.com, and that he did a bit of editing (don’t believe me or him - read it yourself). There is nothing like this in the Peer Guardian FAQ, or for that matter on the entire site that I could find.
IWannaDownload: “Canadian Server Location = Completely Legal”
Again, sounds damning, until you try to find those words on IWannaDownload.com. Check out the FAQ and confirm for yourself what I say. It's not there. So where did Barry get it from?
TorrentPortal: “Unless you live in Canada, downloading copyrighted material via P2P may put you at risk for a lawsuit. Canadian users are currently shielded from P2P lawsuits. Canada signed the 1997 World Intellectual Property Organization Internet Treaties, but has not yet ratified them by enacting their provisions into domestic law.”
Wow. These words actually appear on the TorrentPortal website. Shocking. However this is a partial quote, in full it reads (the text missing from Barry's article is in bold):
TorrentPortal is like Google™ in that it only links to .torrent metafiles and takes a cache of such files. None of the data transferred by or stored on TorrentPortal servers is content linked to by .torrent files.
Unless you live in Canada, downloading copyrighted material via P2P may put you at risk for a lawsuit. Canadian users are currently shielded from P2P lawsuits. Canada signed the 1997 World Intellectual Property Organization Internet Treaties, but has not yet ratified them by enacting their provisions into domestic law. Recently there has been class-action suits filed against users who copy and distribute copyrighted material without regard for the law. The MPAA, RIAA and the governments of both England and Australia have taken several thousand users to court demanding thousands of dollars. Your ISP may, on their own judgment, give their logs of your downloading activity to those who request it. In those situations, the more you download and share, the more risk you put yourself at.
Please keep all this in mind before you use any portion of TorrentPortal. Know your local laws and be sure you are following them. “Fans who share music are not thieves or pirates. Sharing music has been happening for decades.” - CMCC (Canadian Music Creators Coalition) (Barenaked Ladies, Avril Lavigne, Sarah McLachlan, Chantal Kreviazuk, Sum 41, Stars, Raine Maida (Our Lady Peace), Dave Bidini (Rheostatics), Billy Talent, Sloan, and more!)
By only quoting part of the words, Barry is able to make it sound damning. When you read the rest, including the quote from the Canadian Music Creators Coalition, who are the very people that Barry pretends to represent, it sounds far less damning. And of course what you have is the opinion of the person who wrote it. Lawsuits over distribution of music in Canada happen regularly, and are covered in the media including the New York Post, ZDNet, Vancouver Sun, Semi Accurate, and others. Under our current laws lawsuits are obviously possible - so why is Barry saying that they aren’t? Possibly because the lawsuit I'm using for an example is by an artist against the CRIA member companies. Michael Geist has claimed that Barry is a CRIA Lobbyist. If he is, this may explain why he ignores the proof that lawsuits abour copyright infringement do happen in Canada.
BTJunkie: “BTJunkie has moved to Canada for legal reasons.” -Wikipedia, BTJunkie, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Btjunkie. (BTJunckie still has at least one server operating in Canada. Adding it to the list would really give Canada 5 of the top ten.)
Barry appears to have decided that Wikipedia is accurate, since it suits his purposes. Me being me, I checked the reference link on Wikipedia, and it leads to a site run by a company called RobTex. RobTex has automated tools which allow you to look up the name servers for a site. Since one of the name servers is in Canada, Barry is assuming that at least one BT Junkie server is in Canada. This is not a safe assumption, the location of the name server has no relation to the physical location of the server it points to.
IsoHunt: “In February of 2006, isoHunt and TorrentSpy were the recipients of a copyright infringement complaint from the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America). TorrentSpy eventually shut down and was forced to accept a $100 million settlement; however, because isoHunt is situated in Canada, it has been able to hold off the powers that be for significantly longer.” Slyck.com, “isoHunt Celebrates 6 Years Online”, January 5, 2008.
Here Barry thinks that quoting an online article gives him credence. However considering the lack of accuracy in his own articles, how can we tell that this article is accurate, and in several places it doesn’t appear to be. However IsoHunt is definitely located in Canada. The operator has admitted this. So Barry did get one right.
Now if Barry has any problems with my take on things, I will happily talk to him. But quite frankly his accuracy stinks. I've dealt with a lot of lawyers over the years, and I would not hire a lawyer who is this sloppy in his fact checking.
Hell - I’ll call him tomorrow and see what he has to say :)
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