And now for the bad news...
WIPO meets to screw up podcasting, Barcelona, June 21
The United Nations' World Intellectual Property Organization has called a last-minute meeting on June 21 in Barcelona, out of the normal diplomatic venues to try to ram through the Broadcasting Treaty. This treaty gives broadcasters (not creators or copyright holders) the right to tie up the use of audiovisual material for 50 years after broadcasting it, even if the programs are in the public domain, Creative Commons licensed, or not copyrightable.
The Barcelona meeting brings together lots of latinamerican broadcasters -- who no doubt love the idea of a new monopoly right that they get for free merely for broadcasting a work. Bringing these casters in is a way of undermining the effective opposition to the treaty that's come from countries like Brazil and Chile.
No public interest groups are on the bill to give a counterpoint (of course not -- WIPO is the kind of place where public interest groups' handouts are thrown in the toilets' trashcans).
I'm still really hazy on how you cold possibly put the copyright in the hands of those that transmit the material as opposed to the creators. It just seems... well... stupid. On so many levels.
Labs Compete to Make New Nuclear Bomb
The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the San Francisco Bay area and the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico are competing to design the nation's first new nuclear bomb in two decades.
Scientists at both facilities are working around the clock on plans that will be presented to the Nuclear Weapons Council, a federal panel that oversees the nation's nuclear weapons. The council will choose a winner later this year.
"I have had people working nights and weekends,'' said Joseph Martz, the head of the Los Alamos design team. "I have to tell them to go home. I can't keep them out of the office.''
And by "better" I bet they mean, smaller, more portable and just as deadly as the old, clunky version. And does it bother anyone else that the scientists involved are portrayed to be excited about this? Where is the Oppenheimer-esque shock at what they are doing?
(For anyone who doesn't know--and I hope there aren't a lot of your out there, Oppenheimer was one of the big brains behind getting the first atomic bombs to work. To quote him:
We knew the world could not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried. Most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad Gita: "I am became Death, the destroyers of worlds." I suppose we all thought that, one way or another.
He was a brilliant man. Read more of his quotes here.)
Imagine if the money being spent on that project was diverted to other things--like, maybe, fusion research or other alternative energy study programs or *gasp!* maybe even a social program or two.
The United Nations' World Intellectual Property Organization has called a last-minute meeting on June 21 in Barcelona, out of the normal diplomatic venues to try to ram through the Broadcasting Treaty. This treaty gives broadcasters (not creators or copyright holders) the right to tie up the use of audiovisual material for 50 years after broadcasting it, even if the programs are in the public domain, Creative Commons licensed, or not copyrightable.
The Barcelona meeting brings together lots of latinamerican broadcasters -- who no doubt love the idea of a new monopoly right that they get for free merely for broadcasting a work. Bringing these casters in is a way of undermining the effective opposition to the treaty that's come from countries like Brazil and Chile.
No public interest groups are on the bill to give a counterpoint (of course not -- WIPO is the kind of place where public interest groups' handouts are thrown in the toilets' trashcans).
I'm still really hazy on how you cold possibly put the copyright in the hands of those that transmit the material as opposed to the creators. It just seems... well... stupid. On so many levels.
Labs Compete to Make New Nuclear Bomb
The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the San Francisco Bay area and the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico are competing to design the nation's first new nuclear bomb in two decades.
Scientists at both facilities are working around the clock on plans that will be presented to the Nuclear Weapons Council, a federal panel that oversees the nation's nuclear weapons. The council will choose a winner later this year.
"I have had people working nights and weekends,'' said Joseph Martz, the head of the Los Alamos design team. "I have to tell them to go home. I can't keep them out of the office.''
And by "better" I bet they mean, smaller, more portable and just as deadly as the old, clunky version. And does it bother anyone else that the scientists involved are portrayed to be excited about this? Where is the Oppenheimer-esque shock at what they are doing?
(For anyone who doesn't know--and I hope there aren't a lot of your out there, Oppenheimer was one of the big brains behind getting the first atomic bombs to work. To quote him:
We knew the world could not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried. Most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad Gita: "I am became Death, the destroyers of worlds." I suppose we all thought that, one way or another.
He was a brilliant man. Read more of his quotes here.)
Imagine if the money being spent on that project was diverted to other things--like, maybe, fusion research or other alternative energy study programs or *gasp!* maybe even a social program or two.