The Latest from Boing Boing

Brainstorm logo ideas for self-serve licensing here

Posted: 15 May 2009 03:33 AM PDT

Yesterday, I posted a link to my new column on self-serve commercial licensing, a "commercial commons" idea that would allow makers to commercially exploit your trademarks and copyrights in return for a fixed percentage of the money they earn off those products. I've gotten a ton of email about this, and there's an interesting thread of people with ideas for a logo to put on products licensed under self-serve. The logo above comes from the excellent Skennedy.

Here's another interesting proposal from Grant Robertson:

I don't know if you have a logo in mind for this license but how about this one:
*=$
It is very simple and can be typed on a regular keyboard. The asterics represents a gear which represents making things. It simply says, "If you make stuff from my work then you have to send me money." It could be made fancier with nice graphics for printing or posting on a web site. But by basing the fancy logo on something that can be easily typed on a keyboard, it will make it easier for people to discuss and adopt.
Perhaps it could be modified to indicate how much a crafter should pay:
*=15%
means, "If you make stuff from my work you have to pay me 15%."

I like the * as gear and * as wildcard crossover!

Do you have any good ideas for logos and license text? Hit the comments.

Scouts training to fight immigrants and terrorists

Posted: 15 May 2009 03:35 AM PDT

A new Scouting program teaches children to fight immigrants, Arab terrorists:

"United States Border Patrol! Put your hands up!" screams one in a voice cracking with adolescent determination as the suspect is subdued...
The Explorers program, a coeducational affiliate of the Boy Scouts of America that began 60 years ago, is training thousands of young people in skills used to confront terrorism, illegal immigration and escalating border violence -- an intense ratcheting up of one of the group's longtime missions to prepare youths for more traditional jobs as police officers and firefighters...
Their hearts pounding, Explorers moved down alleys where there were hidden paper targets of people pointing guns, and made split-second decisions about when to shoot. In rescuing hostages from a bus taken over by terrorists, a baby-faced young girl screamed, "Separate your feet!" as she moved to handcuff her suspect.
In a competition in Arizona that he did not oversee, Deputy Lowenthal said, one role-player wore traditional Arab dress. "If we're looking at 9/11 and what a Middle Eastern terrorist would be like," he said, "then maybe your role-player would look like that. I don't know, would you call that politically incorrect?"

Scouts Train to Fight Terrorists, and More

(Image: Todd Krainin for The New York Times)

Can't see the video? Click here

Sarah Palin's legal team doesn't understand DNS

Posted: 15 May 2009 03:18 AM PDT

A reader writes, "The person who owned the domain CrackHo.com set it up to redirect to Sarah Palin's website on the Alaska state site. No one used the site, but apparently someone got upset: Palin's lawyers sent a cease & desist, claiming that it was misuse of the Alaskan seal and copyright infringement. Note, that CrackHo didn't copy anything or use any of the content. It was just a simple redirect to the Alaska website."

CrackHo.com: Sarah Palin's New Legal Foe

Blinds made from Card Catalog cards

Posted: 15 May 2009 03:16 AM PDT

David sez, "My fiancee built these blinds out of old card catalog cards rescued from Columbia University."

Card Catalog Card Blinds (Thanks, David!)

Previously:

Custom Star Wars blinds - Boing Boing

Daydreaming brains are afire

Posted: 15 May 2009 03:12 AM PDT

A new study by University of British Columbia researchers, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggests that daydreaming is an extremely active, cognitively complex mental state:

"Mind wandering is typically associated with negative things like laziness or inattentiveness," says lead author, Prof. Kalina Christoff, UBC Dept. of Psychology. "But this study shows our brains are very active when we daydream - much more active than when we focus on routine tasks."...
Until now, the brain's "default network" - which is linked to easy, routine mental activity and includes the medial prefrontal cortex (PFC), the posterior cingulate cortex and the temporoparietal junction - was the only part of the brain thought to be active when our minds wander.
However, the study finds that the brain's "executive network" - associated with high-level, complex problem-solving and including the lateral PFC and the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex - also becomes activated when we daydream.

Brain's Problem-solving Function At Work When We Daydream (via /.)

Fake DHS "photography license" for fake no-photos laws

Posted: 15 May 2009 01:50 AM PDT

All around the world, cops and rent-a-cops are vigorously enforcing nonexistent anti-terrorist bans on photography in public places. If you're worried about being busted under an imaginary law, why not download these templates and print yourself an imaginary "Photography license" from the DHS? Who knows if it's legal to carry one of these -- probably about as legal as taking away your camera and erasing your memory card for snapping a pic on the subway.

In the event you're stopped by overzealous law enforcement or security officials attempting to enforce fictitious laws, I've designed these fictitious and official-looking Photographer's Licenses. If you have Adobe Illustrator, you can download the EPS vector art file and print your own. You'll need a photo of yourself, and OCR (or a similar font) to fill in your personal information.

Muni Don't Take My Kodachrome (via JWZ)

Optical illusion explains the curveball

Posted: 15 May 2009 01:46 AM PDT

Here's a sweet little flashtoy (click through to see it in motion) that illustrates the optical illusion behind a curveball: "In baseball, a curveball creates a physical effect and a perceptual puzzle. The physical effect (the curve) arises because the ball's rotation leads to a deflection in the ball's path. The perceptual puzzle arises because the deflection is actually gradual but is often perceived as an abrupt change in direction (the break). Our illusions suggest that the perceived "break" may be caused by the transition from the central visual system to the peripheral visual system. Like a curveball, the spinning disks in the illusions appear to abruptly change direction when an observer switches from foveal to peripheral viewing."

The break of the curveball (Thanks, Fipi Lele!)

Previously:

Can't see the video? Click here

Guatemala: "El Efecto Streisand," Update on Twitter User Arrested For One Tweet On Political/Financial Crisis

Posted: 15 May 2009 12:16 AM PDT

Update on the case of Jean Ramses Anleu Fernández, aka "jeanfer" (shown handcuffed, above), the Guatemalan Twitter user arrested for a tweet related to the assassination of a whistleblower attorney who sought to expose corruption in a state-run bank (background).

* Today, Anleu was raided, arrested, sent before a judge, and sentenced. That's all in one day. Anleu's single, 96-character tweet resulted in a judge ordering detention and a $6,500 fine for inciting financial panic, which is a punishable offense in Guatemala. Until he can pay that sum -- more than most Guatemalans earn in a year -- he will be held at a detention center. He is sentenced to be held under house arrest after the fine is paid. I do not yet have copies of the sentencing documents, so I don't know for how long.

* Here is Juan Anleu's blog. He is a 37-year-old I.T. guy in Guatemala City who loves books and "geek stuff."

* VIDEO: Above, a Guatemalan newscast which implies that military police in Guatemala are seeking to arrest a second Twitter user who posted tweets about the Rodrigo Rosenberg murder, and the resulting crisis shaking Guatemala's political and financial systems.

* TIME has a story up about the Rosenberg assassination scandal that was the subject of Anleu's "criminal tweets." Ethan Zuckerman of Global Voices also has a blog post up.

* News organizations in Central America are referring to "el efecto Streisand" in their accounts of the Twitter reaction to the Rosenberg case and @jeanfer's arrest. Here's what that means.

* Twitter traffic on the Rosenberg case, and on @jeanfer's arrest, is exploding. And with it, panic. A number of users are re-tweeting rumors that military police are hunting down other Twitterers, or that other arrests have already happened. Others are literally posting rallying cries, such as "Twitteros! Unidos! Jamas serán vencidos!" ("Twitterers! United! Never again will we be defeated!"). One such slogan in the banner at left (via).

* Some report that street vendors in Guatemala are selling DVD copies of Rosenberg's "pre-death tape" in which he accuses the Guatemalan president for his impending murder. Tonight, there is unconfirmed word (now reported on Guatevision) that one or more of the street vendors selling those DVDS have also been arrested for "inciting panic."

* Additional frequent retweets include observations like this one from @strgt: "If a tweet is enough to condemn someone for a crime, an 18 minute [YouTube] video should be enough to condemn [Guatemalan president Álvaro] Colom for ASSASINATION." Another wrote, "The death of attorney Rosenberg has returned [Guatemala] to life." Others have proposed "google-bombing" the Banrural website, or rallying to make #escandalogt a "trending topic" on the social network. Still others caution fellow Guatemalan Twitterers to watch what they tweet, presuming police are monitoring.

* Anleu's internet supporters are petitioning for charges to be dropped, and collecting funds via Paypal to pay his fine and legal fees. Details posted in the comments thread for this post. Anleu's supporters are also uploading TV reports about his case to YouTube, and dissecting inaccuracies in those reports with comment overlays. Guatemalan TV news organizations appear ill-informed about Twitter. One report I watched implied that he was a crazy provocateur who waged a mass email campaign of "financial terrorism." Not so. Mr. Anleu was arrested for having tweeted a single, 96-character thought.

* Libertopolis again live-streamed street protests today. This time, the protesters were out to support the arrested Twitterer.

* The "International Commission Against Impunity" in Guatemala has issued a list of persons who must not be allowed to leave Guatemala, pending investigation of Rosenberg's assasination.

* Someone has created a phony Banrural Twitter account.

* PHOTOS: At top, Jean Anleu as he is handcuffed and taken into jail. Below: Anleu's mother observing his sentencing today. Both images courtesy of Flickr user Surizar (cc), more in this photo set. Here is a more upbeat photo of Anleu, as he is met by Twitter friends at jail.

Previously:

Boing Boing Gadgets' Steven Leckart on the radio

Posted: 14 May 2009 05:26 PM PDT

Yesterday, KALW Public Radio's Crosscurrents interviewed Boing Boing Gadgets' Steven Leckart! The fun segment is available online. From the episode description:

Whether you have a gizmo attached to your ear while you're driving, or a doodad that scrambles an egg inside its shell, or a thingamajig that plots your trajectory on a digital map, gadgets are more and more a part of our lives. And some of the first people to get their eager hands on the newest new thing are the bloggers at Boing Boing Gadgets. KALW's Roman Mars went to the San Francisco home of Steven Leckart, a contributing editor of Boing Boing Gadgets, to find the latest doohicky he can't possibly live without.

Gadgets You Can't Live Without

Nine-year-old plays Ozzy

Posted: 14 May 2009 04:17 PM PDT

My 3-year-old son and I love watching the YouTube clip of 6-year-old guitarist Quinn Sullivan playing "Twist & Shout" on the Ellen DeGeneres show. Joel just pointed me to the above Ellen clip from this week featuring 9-year-old Yuto Miyazawa tearing up Ozzy's Crazy Train.

Was 1971 the best year to be born a geek?

Posted: 14 May 2009 01:06 PM PDT

Raph Koster makes a pretty good case for 1971 being the perfect year to be born geek. I'm biased (born: July 17, 1971), of course:

* It meant I got to see Star Wars in the theater, 13 times, at age 8 and 9, exactly when it would overwhelm my sense of wonder.
* I got an 8-bit computer at exactly the age when boys get obsessive about details, and I spent days PEEKing and POKEing and typing in listings from magazines and learning how computers actually worked.
* It meant at least half the new games I played were actually new ideas.
* And yet I got to play real pinball machines.
* In real arcades.
* New Wave science fiction was the used paperbacks laying around, and I got to read cyberpunk and steampunk as they were invented, and see SF when fandom was not yet a media circus.
* I got to play D&D from as close to the beginning as most anyone.

The perfect geek age?

Can't see the video? Click here

Stross on the future of gaming

Posted: 14 May 2009 01:03 PM PDT

Here's Charlie Stross's stirring address on the future of video games, a world in which everyone ends up being a gamer:

If this sounds like a tall order, and if you're wondering why you might want to go for the sixty-something hardcore gamer demographic, just remember: you're aiming to grab the share of the empty-nester recreational budget that currently goes in the direction of Winnebago and friends. Once gas regularly starts to hit ten bucks a gallon (which it did last year where I come from) they'll be looking to do different things with their retirement -- the games industry is perfectly positioned to clean up.
And then there are the younger generation. Let's take a look at generation Z:
The folks who are turning 28 in 2030 were born in 2002. 9/11 happened before they were born. The first President of the United States they remember is Barack Obama. The space shuttle stopped flying when they were eight. Mobile phones, wifi, broadband internet, and computers with gigabytes of memory have been around forever. They have probably never seen a VHS video recorder or an LP record player (unless they hang out in museums). Oh, and they're looking forward to seeing the first man on the moon. (It's deja vu, all over again.)

HOWTO do writerly self-promo in the 21st century

Posted: 14 May 2009 01:01 PM PDT

Here's some great self-promo advice for writers in the 21st century from Jeff Vandermeer, excerpted from his forthcoming book Booklife: Strategies and Survival Tips for 21st-Century Writers:

A writer usually has little direct effect on marketing or sales, but can have a huge impact on publicity. To be most effective, you must:
- Understand your audience and the commercial or noncommercial appeal of your creative project. Selling a thousand copies of a nonfiction collection might be an excellent result, while selling a thousand copies of a mystery novel might be seen as a huge failure.
- Understand the relationship between PR efforts and sales, PR and your reputation. The simple fact is, your PR efforts can greatly enhance your reputation without having as large an effect on your sales. Good PR is as much about setting you up for future opportunities and making sure you stay in the public eye as it is about readers making purchases. Studies show that readers may need to hear or read about a book as many as seven times before deciding to purchase it. Thus, a strong PR effort will influence sales over time, but the primary impact is to position you in other ways.
- Make sure to fit the scale of the PR to the scale of the project. You don't send copies of your saddle-stapled 42-page chapbook on armadillo farming to Publishers Weekly. Nor do you send a techno-thriller to the book reviewer at Armadillo Farming Quarterly. (Except, of course, in the remote eventuality that armadillos play an integral role in the plot.)

Booklife: Strategies and Survival Tips for 21st-Century Writers (via Futurismic!)

Open Video Conference, NYC Jun 19-20

Posted: 14 May 2009 12:58 PM PDT

Dean from the Participatory Culture Foundation sez,

In less than five weeks, the first ever Open Video Conference is happening in New York City (June 19-20). It will address issues surrounding free speech, innovation, and the future of cultural engagement in video.
What's up: Internet video is approaching a major crossroads. The terms of cultural engagement and free expression are being set: will we have a permissive media ecosystem that allows widespread participation, or will we continue in a tradition of consolidated media empires? A number of legal, technological, and business challenges could keep the medium from reaching its full potential. Open Video is the movement towards a more open, democratic, and decentralized video environment, one that highly values innovation and free speech.
Speakers include: BB's Xeni Jardin, NYU's Clay Shirky, DVD Jon, Lizz Winstead the co-creator of the Daily Show, EFF attourney Corynne McSherry, and lots more! Also participating are hackers from free and open source software projects, including: Firefox, VLC, GStreamer, Xiph/Ogg/Theora, Miro, Boxee, Cinelerra and many more. See the full lineup here.
Registration is filling up fast, so make sure you sign up soon!

Open Video Conference (Thanks, Dean!)

(Disclosure: I am proud to serve as a volunteer member of the Board of Directors for the nonprofit, charitable Participatory Culture Foundation, the hosts of this conference)

Notebooks made from punchcards

Posted: 14 May 2009 12:55 PM PDT

Ben sends us these Geekbooks, "Neat little pocket notebooks made from vintage computer note cards."

Geek Books (Thanks, Ben!)

Boing Boing t-shirts, made by GAMA-GO!

Posted: 14 May 2009 12:16 PM PDT

We're thrilled to introduce our new line of Boing Boing merchandise, designed by Boing Boing and made by our pals at GAMA-GO! Our plan is to create a small collection of wonderful products, from t-shirts to limited edition artwork, shiny gee-gaws to curious knicknaks. Folks from the happy mutants universe will do the designing and GAMA-GO is handling production, fulfillment, and customer service. We're also benefiting from GAMA-GO's helpful design suggestions, gentle nudges, and years of experience, to finetune our curious concepts. They're our co-conspirators in bringing Boing Boing's product pipe dreams into the physical world.

We're starting modestly, with a selection of three simple t-shirt designs:

• Jackhammer Jitters: See our Jackhammer Jill mascot as she sees you, vectorized, highly-caffeinated, and resonating with the high weirdness of the world. Mark and I came up with this art during a conference where we probably should have been paying attention to other things. But isn't that what Boing Boing is all about?

• Logorhythmic: This is the only shirt of the three that incorporates the familiar Boing Boing logo in the design. Joel said, if we're going to make a logo tee, why not go all the way?

• Get Illuminated! 20th Anniversary Edition: In 1989, the first pages of the bOING bOING print 'zine spewed forth from a copy machine. To celebrate our 20th anniversary, we've reissued the original bOING bOING t-shirt, featuring Mark's 1990 illustration of Kata Sutra, the cybervixen who whispered in our ear until Jackhammer Jill made the scene. Like the original t-shirt graphic, this one glows in the dark!

The t-shirts are available in men's and women's sizes for $24/each. If you buy two shirts, or just spend more than $25 at GAMA-GO on any of their fine products, domestic shipping is absolutely free. We hope you dig the new Boing Boing line, designed by us, made by GAMA-GO. We'll bug you from time to time with info about new products, reminders, and other details. Thank you for your support!

Boing Boing t-shirts from GAMA-GO

Vida Inc: La Pelicula

Posted: 14 May 2009 11:15 AM PDT

Douglas Rushkoff is a guest blogger.

This is what I love about the Internet. Two days after we posted Janine Saunders' Life Inc: The Movie, Carlos Boyle - author of De Revolutionibus Orbium Argentum - has created a subtitled version on his website for the Spanish speaking (and reading) audience.

Reflexiones Siesteras - Life Inc subtitulada en español

Ten Beautiful Computers

Posted: 14 May 2009 10:52 AM PDT

Over at the newly redesigned BB Gadgets, dig the gorgeous gallery of "Ten Beautiful Computers." Seen above, the legendary Cray 2 and Jeffrey Stephenson's Ingraham. "Ten Beautiful Computers"

Can't see the video? Click here

Guatemalan Twitter User Arrested for "Inciting Financial Panic," First Arrest of its Kind in Central American History

Posted: 14 May 2009 09:48 PM PDT

UPDATE: More on this story here, posted May 14, 10pm PT.

Amid protests in the streets and on social networks calling for Guatemala's president to step down after the assasination of a whistleblower attorney, Guatemalan police have arrested a Twitter user for "inciting panic" through tweets. In the capital city today, police raided his home and confiscated his computer.

Above, the tweet for which Guatemalan I.T worker Jean Anleu ("jeanfer"), was arrested.

Quick background follows. The Guatemalan bank Banrural is at the center of the country's current political crisis: the recently assassinated attorney Rodrigo Rosenberg represented a finance expert, Khalil Musa, who was said to have refused to participate in corrupt transactions involving that bank. Musa was assassinated in March. After continuing to make statements about alleged government complicity in that murder, and in the financial crimes Musa protested, Rosenberg was himself shot to death this past Sunday. Days before his murder, Rosenberg recorded a video saying he believed he would soon be assassinated by forces acting at the orders of Guatemalan president Álvaro Colom. After his death, the video spread virally on YouTube, sparking widespread protests on and offline.

Today, Twitter user "Jeanfer" was arrested for suggesting in a tweet that people who had money deposited in Banrural should remove those funds, and by doing so, break the control that "corrupt people" have over the state-controlled financial institution.

Below, my clumsily translated snip from a report in the Guatemalan newspaper Prensa Libre about the arrest, which as far as I know is the first time anyone in Guatemala, or Central America, period, has been detained over something they posted to Twitter:

The police today detained Jean Ramses Anleu Fernández, an information technology worker, for having incited financial panic on the social network Twitter, after having written this Tuesday a comment on Twitter which called for a united force to take funds out of [the Guatemalan bank] Banrural, as a result of the information transmitted in a video recorded by the attorney Rodrigo Rosenberg before his assassination.

Jean Anleu Fernández, known on the microblogging social networking website Twitter as "Jeanfer," was arrested today during a police raid of his residence in zona 8 of Guatemala City, in which the police took his computers at the order of the Guatemalan government's public ministry division in charge of banks.

The head of the banking system, Genaro Pacheco, told reporters that Mr. Anleu admitted that he made this comment about Banrural on Twitter.

Mr. Anleu Fernández wrote on Tuesday May 12, at approximately 2pm, a commentary ("post") in which he expressed, "The first action people should take is to remove cash from Banrural, and break the banks of corrupt people," along with the hashtag #escandalogt, which is known by Twitter users as a way of classifying posts related to the Rosenberg assasination case.

Inset photo: Twitter user "Jeanfer" being fingerprinted as police take him to jail in Guatemala City. Photo: Prensa Libre/ Carlos Sebastián

Discussion of Rosenberg's assassination, and related calls for an investigation and/or removal of Colom from power, continues undaunted on Twitter -- and is easily followed with the #escandalogt hashtag. As one might imagine, there is a great deal of outcry against @jeanfer's arrest today. One Twitterer said just now (translated from Spanish): "The capture of @jeanfer appears to me to be a smoke curtain to divert attention from the accusations against president Colom."

Below, screenshot of another form of online protest: en masse, Guatemalan Twitter users are re-tweeting the comment that led to @jeanfer's arrest.

Previously:

Can't see the video? Click here

Ben Franklin's DEATH RAY

Posted: 13 May 2009 05:55 PM PDT

Douglas Rushkoff is a guest blogger.

Nate Dimeo, an NPR reporter, has been creating some fascinating audio at a site he called The Memory Palace. These are highly textured historical narratives about stuff we might not know or remember.

My favorite is a piece on a widespread fear among the British that Franklin had invented a lightning-bolt gun - and such rumors led many to shun lightning rods on their homes, in turn leading to countless unnecessary fires.

The Memory Palace

Recently at BBG

Posted: 13 May 2009 10:51 PM PDT

• The "getting-ready-for-marriage" bra: counts down until the big day AND plays the wedding march.

• The MSI X340 X-Thin netbook reviewed. Click here for the verdict.

• Twitt jr = what happens when you pump your Twitter stream through an IBM PCjr with a 4.77MHz processor and 16-color monitor.

• Find out why the latest wi-fi internet radio from Vtech is kind of a snoozer.

• Back in the day, young home chemists didn't wear safety gear We have proof..

• A gorgeous folding bike from Areaware (yes). That costs $2,250 (oof).

• The covers of back issues of science journal Advanced Materials are crazy beautiful.

• A wooden version of the Amazon Kindle that's only $61. They call it "Kindling."

• Wigs and hairpieces need purifiers?

• Rugged flip-flops fit for a ninja or ninja turtle.

• The Mossad Pen writes with visible ink that disappears when hit with a hairdryer.

Can't see the video? Click here

RIAA/MPAA hit men private enforcement site indexed by Google

Posted: 14 May 2009 06:00 AM PDT

Salim sez, "Techdirt are reporting that the data collection systems ued by BayTSP (the company appointed by the RIAA and MPAA to deal with p2p infringers) is wide-open. Thanks to BayTSP's inability to write a robots.txt file, Google has indexed just about every page on their server. You can get a good idea of the kinds of things that the company are seanding C&Ds for, including items like this which are neither movies nor music. Techdirt suggest that this information might be used by phishers seeking to impersonate BayTSP, however a more obvious notion is that it could be used by law-firms who want to know the names of everybody that BayTSP has threatened. A smart lawyer could make a great deal of money from a class-action."

Thanks, Sal!)

Can't see the video? Click here

Kindle owners start to lose text-to-speech on purchased books -- how do DRM-free Kindle books work?

Posted: 14 May 2009 05:25 AM PDT

Back in February, the Authors Guild, a lobby group representing less than 10,000 writers, argued that the Kindle's ability to read text aloud infringed on copyright (it doesn't -- and even if it does, the infringement lies not in including the feature, but rather in using it; this is the same principle that makes the VCR legal). Amazon folded and agreed to revoke the feature.

Now comes some news about how they're doing this, from the Knowledge Ecology International site:

Beginning yesterday, Random House Publishers began to disable text-to-speech remotely. The TTS function has apparently been remotely disabled in over 40 works so far. Affected titles include works by Toni Morrison, Stephen King, and others. Other notable titles include Andrew Meachem's American Lion, and five of the top ten Random House best-sellers in the Kindle store.

I've been trying to get a statement from Amazon about this since February: how does disabling text-to-speech work? It appears that there's a text-to-speech "flag" in the Kindle file-format that the Kindle looks for and responds to, disabling the feature if it's set to 0 (a perl script called mobi2mobi can reset the bit to 1).

But what no one at Amazon will tell me is what other flags are lurking in the Kindle format: is there a "real only once" flag? A "no turning the pages backwards" flag?

I'm specifically interested because Amazon has announced a "DRM-free" version of the Kindle format and I'd love to sell my books on the platform if it's really DRM-free. To that end, I've put three questions to Amazon:

1. Is there anything in the Kindle EULA that prohibits moving your purchased DRM-free Kindle files to a competing device?

2. Is there anything in the Kindle file-format (such as a patent or trade-secret) that would make it illegal to produce a Kindle format-reader or converter for a competing device?

3. What flags are in the DRM-free Kindle format, and can a DRM-free Kindle file have its features revoked after you purchase it?

I've sent these questions repeatedly to my contact at Amazon for months with no response. I've tweeted about it. I've sent in requests on behalf of the Guardian newspaper to their press office without even getting an acknowledgement. And I've asked a major publisher that is working with Amazon to release DRM-free versions of its books to put the question to their Amazon rep, and they haven't gotten a response.

I love Amazon's physical-goods business. I buy everything from them, from my coffee-maker to my DVDs. I love their consumer-friendly policies, and their innovative business practices. I just wish their electronic delivery business was as good as their physical goods side. I have a lot of hope for a DRM-free Kindle format, but it's downright creepy when no one at Amazon will even respond to three simple, basic questions about it.

Kindle 2 vs Reading Disabled Students

Previously:

Three strikes proposal for print

Posted: 14 May 2009 05:08 AM PDT

On the news that the French Assembly finally rammed through a "three strikes" rule for the French Internet (if you're accused of infringement three times, you lose the right to access the Internet), Princeton prof Ed Felten has proposed that this should be extended to other media, like print.

My proposed system is simplicity itself. The government sets up a registry of accused infringers. Anybody can send a complaint to the registry, asserting that someone is infringing their copyright in the print medium. If the government registry receives three complaints about a person, that person is banned for a year from using print.
As in the Internet case, the ban applies to both reading and writing, and to all uses of print, including informal ones. In short, a banned person may not write or read anything for a year...
Next on the list: three-strikes systems for sound waves, and light waves. These media are too important to leave unprotected.

I like it, but I have to admit to being sentimental about my proposal (stolen from Kevin Marks) to cut corporations off the Internet if they send out three false copyright accusations.

A Modest Proposal: Three-Strikes for Print

Previously:

Friday, May 15, 2009

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