09:46
- Barbara and I are pretty much taking this week off. We've both
been working very hard, and now seemed a good time to take a break.
I've already completed the first milestone (two chapters) of one new
book, which wasn't due until 31 December, and I have plenty of time to
meet the two-chapter milestone on the other new book, which is also due
31 December.
The last time I took more than one day off in a row was six months ago,
so I figure I deserve a week to recuperate. Barbara and I will mostly
just relax around home, have dinner out with friends, and so on. I'd
like to say we'll sleep in, but with two dogs that's not likely to
happen. Border Collies never take a day off, and see no reason why
anyone else should, either.
C|Net reprinted an interesting article from the New York
Times, How
to tame an inflated entertainment budget. According to the article:
"Among
the affluent, the 20 percent of households with more than $77,000 a
year in pretax income, more money is spent on entertainment--$4,516 a
year-- than on health care, utilities, clothing or food eaten at home."
Or about $375 per month. So I decided to see how we stack up. Among the
categories the article listed:
$ 6.66 - basic cable television
$ 0.00 - premium channels
$18.95 - Netflix
$ 0.00 - TiVo
$44.95 - high-speed Internet connection
$ 0.00 - satellite radio and streaming music
$ 0.00 - iTunes music and video downloads
$10.00 - magazines
$ 0.00 - movie rentals
$ 0.00 - movie tickets
$ 0.00 - live shows
$ 0.00 - sporting events
$ 8.00 - cellphone and premium video and data content
Or about $90/month, including taxes. Call it 25% of the average. And
that $44.95 for cable broadband shouldn't be counted, because that's a
business expense for us, as are the magazine subscriptions and
cellphone service. That leaves us with an actual entertainment expense
of $25.61 per month plus tax, or about 7% of the average.
Of course, we spend quite a bit on books, which aren't even mentioned
in the article, and Barbara does buy quite a few music CDs, or at least
she used to until she resigned her BMG Music Service subscription.
She'll probably shift some of that expenditure to Magnatune and buying CDs directly
from the musicians. Still, I think it's safe to say that we're on the
far left end of the bell curve when it comes to how much we spend on
entertainment.
I've been thinking about the copyright mess. Copyright laws
are so far out of sync with reality that nearly everyone ignores them,
and that isn't likely to change. People have free-market ideas of what
correct behavior is, and laws can be enforced only if they correspond
closely to the collective judgement of the people to whom they apply.
Unrealistic laws are universally ignored, and passing them simply
engenders contempt for the law in general.
Set the speed limit on an Interstate at 10 MPH, for example, and 100%
of drivers will break the law, unless you also establish some
truly Draconian penalties and people believe there's a high degree of
certainty that they'll be caught. Set the speed limit at some realistic
level, say 85 MPH, and nearly no one will break the law, even though
the penalty for doing so and the likelihood of being caught may be much
smaller.
Our copyright laws, particularly for video and recorded music, are the
equivalent of setting that Interstate speed limit at 1 MPH. And, even
though the penalty for breaking copyright law can be $250,000 or more
per incident, almost everyone breaks copyright law, because there's
very little chance of being caught. There's a limit to how much more
severe the penalties can be. What's next? Will we start executing
people for knocking off a copy of The Sopranos? Even that wouldn't
eliminate copying, unless the government could also significantly boost
the probability of being caught.
Part of the problem, as I've said before, is that videos and recorded
music are different. There is no Constitutional basis for offering
copyright protection to them; the Constitution allows the federal
government to issue copyrights only "To promote the Progress of Science
and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors
the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries". The
Constitution says nothing about videos or recorded music, so in the
absence of a Constitutional amendment, the Federal government has no
power to issue such copyrights.
But it goes further. Even if one admits the validity of the dubious
copyrights issued for them, videos and recorded music effectively enter
the public domain once they are broadcast, at least with regard to
non-commercial copying. When PBS broadcasts an episode of Poirot, for
example, we have all paid through our taxes and contributions for the
perpetual right to watch that episode. We have the right to record that
episode and watch it later, as many times as we wish. If we have
friends over for the evening, we have the right to make a private
exhibition of that episode. We have the right to give or lend that copy
of our recording to our friends, and they (who have also already paid
for it via their taxes) have a right to make a copy for themselves.
But it goes still further. What if we want to watch a program that was
broadcast long ago on PBS, say Elizabeth R? We don't have it on tape or
DVD, nor do any of our friends. And yet, we paid our taxes and are
entitled to a copy of that broadcast program. So, we rent a copy of the
DVD and duplicate it, or download a copy via Bittorrent. We're within
our rights to do so. It's not the
physical media that we have a right to; we have the right to view that
content, to keep a copy of it, and to distribute that copy to others
who are likewise entitled to a copy of their own. The physical media is
immaterial.
I'm talking about moral rights here, of course, not legal rights. And
that's because the law is completely out of sync with reality.
I got two email messages this morning that I at first thought were
phishing attempts. Here's the first.
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Your Account Has Been
Updated |
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Dear Robert,
We
are sending this email to let you know that your shipping address has
been changed. To review or change your account information, please
visit Your Account.
-Your Friends at Netflix
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SRC: SM_RegChange
This message was mailed to [*removed*]
Use of the Netflix service and Web site constitutes acceptance of our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
(c)1997-2005 Netflix, Inc. 970 University Ave., Los Gatos, CA
95032
And here's the second.
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Shipping Address Updated |
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Dear Robert,
We hope you're enjoying your Netflix membership. Our goal is to provide
you with great service and fast delivery.
In order to ship your DVDs to you as quickly as possible, we routinely
update our shipping information using the latest information from the
U.S. Postal Service. Recently, a change was reported in your current
address. Please verify that the new address listed below is correct.
If this address is correct, you do not need to take any further action
as our records have already been updated. If this new address is NOT
correct, please update your Address Information
(http://www.netflix.com/Address) as soon as possible to avoid
interruptions in your service.
We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. If you experience
any problems, please call us at 1 (800) 290-4518 so that we may assist
you. We can be reached Monday through Friday from 6:00 AM to 7:00 PM
Pacific Time and on Saturday and Sunday from 6:00 AM to 2:30 PM Pacific
Time.
-Your Friends at Netflix
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SRC: SM_AddChange
This message was mailed to [*removed*]
Use of the Netflix service and Web site constitutes acceptance of our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
(c)1997-2005 Netflix, Inc. 970 University Ave., Los Gatos, CA
95032
But when I looked at the message source, expecting to find that the
links shown in the messages actually pointed to a malicious server
somewhere, I found nothing like that. They pointed at Netflix. So I'm
forced to conclude that Netflix rather stupidly sent out actual email
notifications that appear to be phishing messages. A sheep in wolf's
clothing, as it were.
Tuesday,
22 November 2005
00:00
-
Wednesday,
23 November
2005
12:23
- I haven't done a bit of work so far this week. Yesterday, I
spent messing with our current PCs and organizing our DVD collection.
That'll be growing as we record Mystery
and Masterpiece Theater
programs, which reminds me that I need an easy way to edit the .vob
files that our DVD recorder produces. I understand that .vob files are
basically just .mpeg files, and I need an easy-to-use Linux editor
that'll allow me to trim off the excess material before and after the
program that we've recorded.
The video quality of the recordings we've made with the CyberHome
recorder seem to be broadcast quality. Not as good as a pressed
commercial DVD, perhaps, but as good as the original cable TV signal,
and much better than VHS. Good enough that I have no qualms about
archiving them in our library. I think our regular practice will be to
use only DVD+RW discs in the CyberHome recorder. Anything we want to
keep, I'll copy to DVD+R discs and then recycle the DVD+RW discs just
as I would have a VHS tape.
Thursday,
24 November
2005
00:00
-
00:00
-
Saturday,
26 November
2005
00:00
-
00:00
-
Copyright
© 1998,
1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 by Robert Bruce Thompson. All
Rights Reserved.
