There was a beetle on the shower curtain this morning, so I flicked the curtain, and the beetle fell into the tub. I turned on the water and then splashed some more to lead it to the drain. I entered the tub from the end rather than the side to avoid the insect and then used my foot to push water toward it until it finally fell down the drain, finally, though it too many attempts. I kept climbing from to the metal rim, and it would fall down again. Climb, fall, climb, until, even with my near-sighted eyes, I could tell that it would not reemerge.
I have nothing against insects, as long as they stay out of my living space. Outside is best. Out of sight is sufficient.
The following email was sent out to students in batches today. Tyler got his copy half an hour before I did.
The recording industry is threatening lawsuits against those who may have
engaged in illegal file sharing. They are currently targeting students who
live in university residence halls. Recently, UW-Madison and other
universities have been notified that they will receive settlement letters
that are to be passed on to the individuals whom the senders believe to be
guilty of copyright infringement. Consistent with current network
management procedures and our understanding of federal law, UW-Madison does
not plan to forward these letters directly to campus network users. We
will, of course, comply with a valid subpoena.However, if the UW-Madison is given cause to believe that a student,
faculty or staff network user may have infringed on copyrights, it will
take action. University network policies empower the CIO to terminate that
person?s network access until the matter is resolved. The Dean of Students
office (for students) or supervisors (for employees) will be notified and
other disciplinary action may be taken, as appropriate.Unauthorized peer-to-peer file sharing of copyrighted works is illegal in
many circumstances, and a violation of the university?s Appropriate Use
Policy. Please be advised of your rights and responsibilities under these
rules. For more information, see:Ken Frazier
Interim CIO,
UW-Madison
It doesn’t worry me because I do not download anything over which the RIAA (or the MPAA for that matter) has jurisdiction. The previous argument against downloading shows from commercially supported but “publicly available” networks had to due with the potential for lost ad revenue. The thing to remember is that neither the commercials nor the things they advertise are “the product” — no, we, the viewers, are the product. Advertisers are buyers who pay money to networks for our eyes and minds. The price they’re willing to pay depends on market share. The more people watch a given show the more valuable it is. Then demographics come in.
Watch Heroes: it’s amazing at this. Notice that during Heroes ads for Spider-Man and 300 ran for several weeks, movies directed at that 18-34 year-old male demographic. But you’ll also notice ads, during the same period, during Heroes, for hormonal birth control for women, which, assuming the marketing folks know what they’re doing, indicates that a large number of women watch Heroes. Not girls, but women of child-bearing years. If the collected statistics indicate that people are downloading (sans-ads) TV shows in sufficient numbers the value of that time slow goes down, so the price a network can ask for it goes down, so network revenue goes down.
This is the purely, but also simplified, economic argument. It bypasses “moral,” “ethical,” or “legal” questions. It was a legal gray area in a sense, perhaps illegal, perhaps not. Was it or was it not the same as recording with the VCR or with TiVo. We have no legal obligation to watch the ads (ad executives know not everybody watches, but they’re probably trying to get an idea of what percentages tune in and what percentages tunes out), so watching a downloaded version without ads versus skipping the ads while watching it “live” should not matter in a certain sense. But according to another interpretation of the law it might be copyright infringement in the strict sense.
I’m no lawyer, I’m no judge, I’ve not studied the laws, the decisions, etc.
But ABC (Lost) and NBC (Heroes) make their shows available for download for free from their websites, though probably with ads and not at the quality I would like. I do not know. I have dialup at home, and downloading TV shows over dialup is not a priority. But if they make them available for free online, what should the legal difference be versus downloading from a torrent tracker?
And this ignores a final matter, a matter of perception and a matter of human heuristics, one dealing with similarity and even analogy. If it seems the same as recording with a VCR, or as downloading for free from the network site, or or or … it is perfectly reasonable that television viewers will see it as similar. Ads are nuisance and viewers are not plotting the rationality of their television viewing of of their television sources by the logic or intention or wishes of television or ad executives. Viewers do not have the same cares, so they do not judge based on the same criteria, so-called “objective” matters of law or economics notwithstanding.
Cable television — that’s a potentially different matter, is it not? You pay for cable (or satellite) access. If you download “The Sopranos” from a torrent site (that is: from users also using a torrent client and employing a torrent file with hashes that you found at a torrent site, which itself hosts no copyrighted material) for free but are not a cable subscriber, are you in a sense cheating? Stealing? Even the rationality of a television viewer probably says “yes” here — one way I get it for free, the other I pay. Whereas with ABC or NBC, it’s free if I download it, free if I view it during primetime, so the reasoning goes, no? But, see, even the rationale of the viewer can be short-circuited in the cable argument here. It’s not pay-per-view on cable, it’s part of basic cable for most people. Cable is just another bill you have every month. It’s “access,” not a “product.” You don’t feel that you’re paying for “The Sopranos.” You might feel that you’re paying for HBO or Showtime or the Sci-Fi network, but you do not feel that you’re paying for “Stargate: Atlantis” or “Battlestar Galactica” anymore than you feel that you’re paying for “Lost” or “Heroes.”
And back to music and movies. I get my new music from friends, or, that is, by way of recommendations from friends. If I get it digitally it’s not from downloading, generally — though, there is a good amount of legally free music out there –, but from swapping with friends. Without downloading RIAA materials I don’t feel that I have anything to care about; the same for movies and the MPAA, but, off-topic, perhaps, the same matter of consumer/viewer/listener rationale applies here. We’re used to music for free, on the radio, for example. Now, also, “for free” on those digital music channels that come with our digital cable. When we buy a CD we don’t think that we’re buying a license to listen to music; we think we’re buying a CD. And the RIAA, of course, sees it differently. But since I’m not in a mood to talk about the RIAA (jack-booted RICO thugs who deserve to get a corporate death penalty) or the MPAA (not much better), I’ll leave it at that and just mention that I finally decided to tell iTunes (not my favorite application, I must say, over-controlling, papa-knows-best piece of nanny-ware) to download album art for my music. I know, I’m only half a decade late on this, not that I care. I finished the “Miscellaneous” directory, as previously noted, and this afternoon made it through Moxy Fruvous, which was a pleasant surprise, actually. I did not know their music, but here was something sort of like a mix between They Might Be Giants and Da Vinci’s Notebook, with some witty lyrics here and a little musical experimentation there. That was followed up by Mr. Bungle, a Faith No More follow-up of sorts for FNM’s singer, I believe. Concept/theme album, the one I have. I say that because of a few weird tracks, but all in all it was nice, especially since I love FNM … but the kicker was the transition from Moxy Fruvous to Mr. Bungle … sonic/cognitive dissonance, there, and I was sure I was losing my mind.
But I was just losing the end of the week.
The weekend approaches.
