unlametheweak - Slashdot User

Submission + - MPAA Allows Teachers to Camcord for Fair Use (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by unlametheweak on Saturday May 09, 2009 @02:33PM

unlametheweak writes: From the I-Want-To-Control-You department; the MPAA will let teachers have their already established legal right of fair use with media files, but only if certain conditions and rituals are met first. From the article:

Teachers don't need to rip DVDs to get clips for classroom use--they should just use a camcorder to record the DVD playing on a TV screen! So says the MPAA in a video it showed to the US Copyright Office in an attempt to argue that nobody should be ripping DVDs, even for educational use.

The MPAA was even kind enough to supply a demonstration of how to videotape a television set with a camcorder, http://vimeo.com/4520463.

Submission + - Neverending Copyright Extensions coming to Europe (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by unlametheweak on Saturday December 13, 2008 @08:11AM

unlametheweak writes: After a UK government-led commission said that the current 50-year term for musical copyrights was fine, and the government last year publicly agreed that there was no need to extend the term, culture minister Andy Burnham yesterday made the logical follow-up announcement that yes, the government would now push for a 20-year extension on copyright.... by framing the issue as a "moral case," Burnham gets to sidestep the entire issue of logic.... the move has been pushed largely by fabulously wealthy musicians and the music industry... While the UK says it will work to extend musical copyright from 50 to 70 years, the European Union is considering a plan (backed by Commissioner Charlie McCreevy) to extend musical copyrights to 95 years.... The Open Rights Group, which is bitterly opposed to extension, claims that 80 percent of all artists would receive under 30/year from the EU plan, while music labels would share 90 percent of the cash coming in.

Submission + - Senate wants to empower parents to be censors (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by unlametheweak on Sunday October 05, 2008 @07:47PM

unlametheweak writes: The United States Senate has unanimously passed a bill that requires the Federal Communications Commission to explore what "advanced blocking technologies" are available to parents to help filter out "indecent or objectionable programming."
The text of the bill notes that the average child watches four hours of television a day. It also observes that "99.9 percent of all consumer complaints logged by the Federal Communications Commission in the first quarter of 2006 regarding radio and television broadcasting were because of obscenity, indecency, and profanity."
The probe should also look at apps that can filter closed captioning language, and "operate independently of ratings pre-assigned by the creator of such video or audio programming."

The negative attitudes that people have towards children and freedom in general are spawning these movements. People feel the need to control their environments, and so they seek out the most vulnerable to control and manipulate.

Submission + - MySpace Age Verification for Parents

Submitted by unlametheweak on Tuesday May 29, 2007 @05:32AM

unlametheweak writes: North Carolina thinks of the children by passing a law http://www.ncga.state.nc.us/Sessions/2007/Bills/Se nate/HTML/S132v3.html requiring parents to verify they are parents before letting their children onto social networking sites http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070528-mysp ace-age-verification-for-parents.html. Notwithstanding the whole concept of an Internet ID for people in general; children are now being tracked by cellular phones with GPS, spied upon with Parent Controls (MS Vista has built-in parental spyware), and also strategically placed Nanny Cams, keyboard loggers, etc. Is the zoo-like Minority Report world in which children are growing up in today doing more harm than good? How will this affect a 14 year old, much less a 17 year old "child"?

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