Thoughts for the day:
- Michael Moore’s documentaries
- P2P Wins!
- OS wars?
“View site”
“View site”
“View site”
“View article”
“View review”
“View speech”
“View site”
“What is vicarious liability?”
“Download audio (16MB)”
“What is the Betamax Case?”
“Download video”
“View site”
“What is CISC?”
“What is RISC?”
Michael Moore and his documentaries
A couple of days ago, I was finally able to watch Bowling for Columbine and Fahrenheit 9/11.
Bowling for Columbine was a good and funny flick. I say “flick,” cuz apparently, it isn’t a documentary. In nonetheless raises a very valid question about what the hell is up with “American mentality.”
Fahrenheit 9/11 however, is totally different. Here we are, thinking we Filipinos had problems. Is installing incompetent leaders a trend of the world nowadays?
Though Fahrenheit is considered a true documentary, I can’t help but notice how biased Mr. Moore is in both of his works. That’s not to say that it is wrong to be biased – it’s your work, after all. I guess that his works can be too “suggestive.” And since they are primarily based on facts… it would be easy to deceive the audience to accept his interpretation of fact as the absolute truth. Which can be dangerous. I guess he’s like a Dan Brown in the film industry.
But the difference between the two, are the purpose of their work. Mr. Brown writes fiction based on fact, and writes for the sole purpose of entertainment. Mr. Moore on the other hand, totally abhors the Bush administration, and takes great risks to get his “ideas” across.
Though both documentaries are truly exceptional, because of the “motives” he may have, one could probably argue if his style both on and off camera is “appropriate.”
Honestly I don’t care if what he did was unprofessional or inappropriate – I applaud Mr. Moore for the courage he has. The courage to risk professionalism for what is right. He’ll probably never win another academy award after that stunt he did, but I’d probably would’ve done the same if I had the chance.
Morpheus and Grockster win legal battle against MGM
I’ve been listening to the audio log of the last volley of arguments between the prosecution and defense. If you have time to download and listen to the 16MB file, I assure you it’s VERY interesting.
EFF has won its Grokster case in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals — this is the case that establishes that if you make truly decentralized P2P software — like Gnutella — you can’t be held liable for any copyright infringement that takes place on their networks
The example case stated was the Sony’s Betamax case, where copyright holders tried to shut down sales because you could copy broadcasted content for illegal distribution.
The Studios’ (or copyright holders) argument was that P2P software should be capable of policing.
The defense countered that using theoretical “possibilities” would give no limit to the rule of “Vicarious Liability”. What are the implications of such latitude? Having the rule extend to accomodate even “possibilities” would hold ANY technology liable for any form of copyright infringement, wether it be Radio broadcasting copyrighted material, or CD players simply being able to play pirated material.
If that were the case, then the whole Sony Betamax case could be re-litigated and have a different outcome. The defense made it clear that instead of stifling technology at its infancy, they should embrace and find a way to work with it. Like what they did with the Betamax (or VCR). Disney, Universal, etc., wanted the betamax shut down in its infancy. After losing the legal battle, they adapted to it… the result? MORE SALES – since they now had created another market demographic.
Well in any case, this is a good day for P2P (peer to peer) filesharing people (myself included). Let’s just hope it lasts.
OS wars?
I recently watched this mac parody, really funny stuff. Of course reading the page itself showed a lot of misguided Mac fanatics missing the whole point. They don’t realize that the creator himself was a Mac user, and the film was a PARODY.
The creator then admits that all the negative vibes he’s getting, was from the misconception that Macs nowadays mess up. It doesn’t help that everything he mentioned in the video DID happen on a Mac. The difference is it was OS9, and not the veritable OSX nowadays.
The PC-MAC war, isn’t based on the inherent capabilities of the machines, or even the system architecture for that matter. I don’t hear people from any side screaming bloody hell with regards to CISC or RISC architectures.
This is definitely an OS war. If Apple probably created it’s OS on an x86 architecture we’d still have a debate between Windows and Mac because of the fact that these two OSes love going head to head with each other. And it’s funny because if it was just about the OS, then why don’t we see Linux and the rest take a shot at the title? If that were the case, we all know who the winner would be: UNIX. Linux is a variant of it [unix]. OSX is built on FreeBSD (which is also a variant)
You know, it probably isn’t even about the the OS, but the name. Is the name really that important? Cuz based on everything stated previously, its really just about the name is it? – wether you’d like to admit it or not.
Apple could make Windows applications if they wanted to, Microsoft could do the same on OSX. Oh wait, both sides have been doing that already! I don’t see a lot of Mac users dissing MS Office for OSX, nor do I see QuickTime for windows being marginalized in the PC world.
Truth is there is no absolute better player when it comes to technology. Whether it be Apple, Microsoft, Unix, Intel, AMD, etc. – ALL have the potential of delivering the best user experience over time. That’s why competition is so great, as it forces innovation.
If it’s that damn important, then I say use all, and quit it with the “my dick is bigger than your dick” arguments. At the end of the day, it’s ANYBODY’S ballgame.