Holy Dying Business Model, Batman!

In many ways, I love my job at PIJIP, I get to work on website stuff, do some actual HTML editing, update the IP curriculum, and most importantly, troll the entire internet looking for IP related stories and events and post blurbs on them on our front page. 

Of course, one of the downsides to this is that I’m forced to read through horrible stories that just make my blood boil about the state of the internet and media in this country. Take this story I just found, for example. According to Engadget, cable companies are currently plotting to attempt (read: attempt) to limit online content to pay-TV subscribers. What that would mean is that, all you people that have canceled cable subscriptions and think you can get the majority of your TV fix online via sites like Hulu and network websites would be SOL. Rather, you would have to currently subscribe to cable service in order to access these things online. 

Now why is this happening? Apparently the cable companies are getting butthurt because some people find their extraordinarily expensive cable services to be, well, extraordinarily expensive, and they’re trying to find a way to supplement their already dying business model of just gouging the public because they are (were) the only game in town for providing access to media. 

I’m not even entirely sure how they would implement such a thing. I’m guessing some kind of universal login for hulu/nbc/abc/every network provider website that’s tied to your cable online login? Regardless, this is silly, stupid, and downright sad. I can’t believe anyone would ever think this is a good idea.

Yawn

Getting ready to go out to Best Buy and possibly pick up Street Fighter 4. Yes, I don’t get a lot of time these days to enjoy games, but I make do with what I can. 

It’s also snowing right now. It was rather crazy — one minute there was nothing and the next minute it just came crashing down. It’s a light snow now more than anything else, but I can only imagine what stuck before it lessened up. 

Things have been calming down a bit lately. Now that the clinic trial is over, I can relax a bit and just concentrate on things like graduating and finding a job. I wish the second was much easier than it is turning out to be, but I’m sure something will crop up eventually. It’s not that I care so much about a job per se, but I need the cashflow for when loan payments start cropping up. I suppose in that sense I don’t really care what I do just as long as I get paid. 

In any event, I’m enjoying my classes this last semester. Outside of clinic I’m taking IP and Cyberpolicy and International and Comparative Copyright Law. Interesting topics and a good mix of review and new topics.

WTC News for 2/18/09

While my computer is taking *forever* to upload a stupid picture of the Canadian flag to our database server, it’s time for what I like to call the :wtc: News. 

Straight off the presses from Ars Technica, it seems that in Canadia, your ISP is the equivalent of your home address so it can be looked up by an ISP and given to law enforcement without a warrant.

Um, seriously? First off, your IP isn’t equivalent to your name. Rather, your IP is equivalent to your name, shopping history, record of GPS activity and then some. Once anyone has your IP address (and assuming it’s a static one at that), you can get a very comprehensive record of everywhere that IP address has been across the Internet. Next thing you know, they have everything on you and there is no privacy. I’m sure that’s a little tinfoilish, but the record needs to be set straight on that. 

Next, because everyone wishes they could go to court dressed as a pirate, here’s a story about the “spectrial” going on in Sweeeeeden with the Pirate Party. Will the ‘AAs get their way and shut down the Pirate Bay? Will the courts stand up for freedom of expression and copyright infringement? Will the torrent servers stay up long enough for me to complete my download of the entire series of Sopranos? Only time will tell.

GOOOOAAAALLLL

Watching the guy in front of me watch ESPN 360 soccer in the middle of my IP and Cyberpolicy class is pretty amusing. According to a friend that sits next to me, he also streams UFC and other MMA bouts in class as well. I guess I’m too busy checking Slashdot or Engadget to really have noticed before.

I love this class a lot, but to be truthful, I took it as a swan song to IP. I’ve taken all the core classes and quite a few advanced IP classes, so taking this survey course with an internet theme isn’t exactly new stuff for me. However, I do enjoy the technology focus on it, which is what keeps me interested. But the law? I could do a fair use analysis with my eyes closed these days, although it won’t hurt to have a trademark refresher.

Para-JD

Is it sad that I’m excited that there are actually some paralegal openings in my town because I may actually be able to get a legally relevant job when I eventually get home? It is extremely sad, but after receiving more, “We are not hiring. Go away and die” letters from local law firms, I’m starting to think that there really are no jobs. 

I wonder… do I need a paralegal certificate if I have an actual JD? From the research I’ve done, it seems as if certification is designed so that paralegals actually know a little bit about the law, which would make it horribly redundant if I had to do that. 

Of course, I think of the horrible possibility that I will be a paralegal with a JD and have passed the bar. :sigh:

WoW

It’s hard sometimes to think of the amount of sheer volume of time that I’ve spent playing World of Warcraft. True, I’ve basically been playing on and off since it came out so many years ago (with a brief hiatus to play the hell that is Final Fantasy XI), but still it’s hard to imagine that one game could keep you coming back time after time again. 

To be honest, it certainly isn’t the game that keeps me coming back, it’s the friends. 

I have, in no particular order, four sets of friends on various servers that I attempt to balance my playing time with. 

1. The CL Crowd on their own Server
2. My Stanford friends (now just friend) on a different server
3. Goonsquad
4. PvP server where my PvP extraordinaire friend plays on

Now #1 and #3 I’ll admit I don’t play very often. These days, now that Clan Lord is free, I can just play Clan Lord with the CL folks. As for the goons, yeah I can imagine it would be very fun, but I prefer the personal contact with real life friends. 

So that leaves 2 and 4. I spent a good few months bringing a death knight to 80 with all PvP trimmings, and then I promptly decided to put her on the back burner and focus on my 70 (now 74) Shammy on my Stanford server. Thankfully, one friend still plays, and I get quite a bit enjoyment just hanging out with him in Guild Chat. 

Ugh, I know this post will come back to bite me some day in the future.

Oh Microsoft…

Please tell me this isn’t true. Seriously? A version of your operating system that will artificially limit the number of applications you can have open to three? I have eight open on my Macbook Pro right now. 

I feel like I have to give them the benefit of the doubt and hope that this is not true. Although you never know.

Yet another reason why I stick with my Mac OS.

ACTA

I’ve been following ACTA for awhile. For those that don’t know, it’s essentially a secret treaty that’s been in talks for awhile between various countries that would, among many things, impose new sanctions on Intellectual Property law. It seems new details have emerged recently from the talks which basically say that the current draft would incorporate revisions to the enforcement policy. Specifically, imprisonment for Copyright infringement, and a greater emphasis on infringement regardless of whether or not you are infringing copyright law for profit or not. 

Granted, in the US Fair Use already works similarly — meaning that the fact that you aren’t making a profit off this website does not automatically guarantee a finding of Fair Use. Then again, it is still a factor to be considered, whereas in ACTA, it is not a factor at all. 

I think of the social consequences should something like this pass. Yeah of course there’s the P2P sites that don’t make money and just want to pirate goods as much as possible. But what about academic sites that just want to spread knowledge in a controlled setting? What about developing countries that just want to try and share what they can under the radar with no profit involved simply to try and get their citizens up to speed with current IP products and issues? The rights owners will argue that they will attempt to sell these goods in these countries for a price they can afford, but we all know that hasn’t happened. This could be yet another subtle attempt for the industrialized countries to control information spreading in those that haven’t reached their state yet.

Goonfleet

Found this interesting article on Slashdot yesterday. To summarize for non-nerds: a giant alliance of players in this MMORPG was infiltrated (or attacked from within by a defector) which caused the complete destruction of the whole alliance. This basically dissolved the group and made all the items they owned fair game for the rest of the player population to loot and pillage. 

Besides the fact that this is pretty funny (I’m in support of most goon stuff that happens), I was wondering about the legal implications. Obviously players spent a great deal of time amassing this virtual wealth, which does have a real world equivalent as seen on eBay and a bunch of different sites that sell virtual goods for cash. Of course, there’s the issue that technically everything you do in the game belongs to the developers, and the Terms of Use state that you can’t sell anything. There’s quite a few conflicts of law that would be interesting.

Friiiiidaaaay

I don’t mind Fridays, even if I still have to get up at 9am and go to work. Unfortunately I woke up way too early this morning, which just made the rest of the day pretty bland. 

I’m trying to find jobs back home, but no one’s biting. I’m slowly transitioning over to Plan B, which is just to find a good job working at the Naval Base back home and go from there. I can still use my degree as a springboard to higher paying jobs — even if they don’t directly involve the application of law. Hopefully I’ll be able to transition over to something like that after the market stops crashing. 

It’s way too cold in this bloody place.