On this episode of Spark: Copyright reform, responsive architecture, and India’s unsung inventors. Click below to listen to the whole show, or download the MP3 (runs 54:00).
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Fair Comment
When it comes to comments at news sites, how do you promote thoughtful, productive online discussion, and discourage trollish, abusive comments? Nora talks to Kaila Hale-Stern of Gawker Media, and Joshua Benton from The Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard University about media websites, comments, and the value of anonymity. (Runs 15:22)
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C-32 and Canadian copyright reform
Under current Canadian copyright law, it’s illegal to rip a CD to your MP3 player. Or to record a TV show on your PVR. This week, the government introduced Bill C-32, which would reform Canadian copyright. Nora talked to Peter Nowak, CBC.ca’s senior science and technology writer, for the details. (Runs 8:05)
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- CBC: Copyright bill would ban breaking digital locks
- Bill C-32
- Video: Tony Clement on CBC’s Power and Politics show
Are moms stupid?
“It’s so easy, your mom could use it.” What’s up with that? Why do writers and marketers equate tech that’s easy with “tech for moms?” Nora wrote about this last month, and follows up with members of the broader Spark community for their thoughts. (Runs 4:55)
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- Nora’s blog post: Are Moms Stupid?
Hylozoic Ground and responsive architecture
Nora visits the studio of Canadian experimental architect Philip Beesley to talk about Hylozoic Ground — an enormous, computerized, crystalline forest that moves in response to visitors walking through it. Philip will represent Canada at this year’s Venice Biennale of Architecture. He talked to Nora about the trend of responsive architecture. (Runs 12:04)
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Honey Bee Network
Anil Gupta is searching for India’s unsung inventors. More than twenty years ago, he founded something called the Honeybee Network. Anil works to bring the innovations of people from urban slums and isolated villages to the wider market. (Runs 9:06)
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Episode Details
Music and sound effects used in this episode:
- “Countdown” by Corsica_S
- “Gruyere” by Podington Bear
- “One Never Says ‘Verbal’ When One Means ‘Oral’” by Good Old Neon
- “rushing crocodiles (ft. musetta)” by airtone
- “These MCs (Instrumental)” by DJ.E-State
- “atortuousyear” by _i
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[Original images by altemark, Horia Varlan, Todd Huffman, miss karen]
Regarding your interview with Peter Nowak, Peter initially suggested that bill C-32 allows backing-up of DVDs, but all commercial DVDs are digitally locked.
A huge number of parents back up DVDs before giving children access to the discs; but under C-32, this would be illegal. It also means format shifting purchased DVDs is illegal.
The only way a law can be fair is if Fair Us trumps digital locks, not the other way around.
Mr. Nowak is right. You would think Copyright law would be the driest thing in the world, yet somehow it makes for a riot.
While I won't discount the issues copyright itself presents, perhaps copyright worry is becoming a surrogate for a series of other worries beyond its reach, like corporate feudalism or extreme institutionalization? You know, those buzzwords people don't actually like using?
We, the people, (not you MSM) need more trollish, abusive comments, What you did here is a propaganda piece designed by servants of the Superclass to assist in instituting more repression and silencing the voice of reform and the voice of the masses.
The MSM is a mass organized lying machine and the applied instrument of the power elite who own 95 percent of the wealth and have a fascist domination of our lives and of the economy.
This site itself is part of that machine because the CBC bosses are appointed by the Government through a system of political and economic patronage.
We need more than comments approved by the servants of the machine. We needed ownership.
I encourage the whole world to dump mass abusive trollish comments on the system until we, the people have what belongs to us, not only our freedom of expression but ownership of the means of expression.
In no way should any of those in the pay of the organizations of the elite be in control of what is appropriate for the people to comment. in the MSM until the MSM belongs to Democratic process.
Hi Nora,
I listened to your segment on C-32 on my way back from a meeting this morning, and felt an urge to weigh in on the subject of DRM anti-circumvention. I haven’t brought this up to my MP yet because I haven’t had the confidence that I could express it succinctly enough, and I haven’t heard it said especially eloquently elsewhere.
The fundamental issue I and others see with DRM is that it is a fantasy. It operates completely at odds with economics and indeed with physics, and it sets a precedent which I submit to be corrosive to the very notion of private property. I see this as a slippery slope with all digital media, software and software-driven devices, but DRM turns this gentle grade into a cliff.
The fantasy happens in the decoding of a DRM-protected data segment for use. Simply put, you have to add more to the system in order to protect it, and that system has to voluntarily cooperate. The data has to show up somewhere in the clear to be of use to anybody, and where it does, that’s where it gets intercepted. Further, since any software system can reliably be fooled about its operating environment, it will always be cheaper to circumvent than to enforce. DRM is a quixotic arms race against economic, mathematical and physical reality.
This is where the moniker of “digital lock” becomes more agenda-serving than an unbiased attempt to reconcile an understanding of what exactly is proposed. We understand that we place locks on our property to signal our intent to keep people out of it. We have laws that prevent people from circumventing (e.g. cutting, picking) them. The cost of protecting a piece of property is borne on the person who sees fit to protect it. Furthermore, all methods of circumvention cost the interloper extra effort and nearly all of them (save for picking) cost the target in the very least the price of a new lock.
In contrast, the cost of enforcing somebody else’s DRM is overwhelmingly borne by consumers, in the form of extra hardware, extra complexity in software and the severely underappreciated liability that comes with possessing an object that, under the auspices of being property, can in fact betray its putative owner and instead obey somebody else. We see this already with locked mobile phones and HD cabling boondoggles. It does not benefit the consumer one iota to have these locks in place.
I can understand a content producer signalling its intent to exercise rights over its property, but an anti-circumvention legislation would achieve that at the cost of my rights to my property. That, or make me a criminal to cause the hardware I work hard to pay for to behave exclusively according to my interests and nobody else’s.
Regarding your piece on “Fair Comment”, I ‘m copying a comment I put on the Q blog in Feb 2009 on a similar topic… which is relevant here – - not that I want to recycle the comment – but I think it works here too. I think anonymous comments are as good as the names of the people who stand behind those comments. Being able to say what you want without the conviction of putting your name to it just makes the comment worhthless and the source suspect as far as I’m concerned…..
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I would like to see news providers being more selective about which stories include the option to leave comments. I would also prefer that people leaving comments not be able to be anonymous – OR…. in the alternative, that anonymous and non-anonymous comments be segregated into different sections or such. Some sort of preference ought to be given to people who can be verified as people who are prepared to take responsibility for their words. Too often the comments sections are filled with the random thoughts of people who apparently feel that, because they *can* say something, then that means that they *should* say something and that they have some sort of right to be heard. If a website chooses to publish anonymous “comments” then the owner of that site should take legal responsibility for the content – and be absolved of responsibility for non-anonymous content.
Frankly, when I go to read comments, I’m hoping for some relevant discussion that somehow enhances the story or opinion piece – but the bulk of comments often seem like a flood of junk mail followed by a tsunami of lunatic ravings.
The podcast included some ruminating over whether a lack of anonymity would be a hit against freedom of speech/expression. My take on the concept of freedom of speech/expression is that such laws are meant to protect people from govt regulation of their expression and prevent govts from punishing people for the expression of their ideas. When expression is anonymous, who is there to protect against such actions of the state? Who is there to take responsibility for the potential damage that some speech can inflict? It leaves me wondering whether *anonymous* expression should be protected at all.
Re: "Fair Comment"
CBC Online has terrible comments. I have yet to be further educated by any of the comment threads. Instead I'm either annoyed, offended, or (most of the time) both.
I've read many blogs, including this one, that have respectful commentators that actually add to my understanding of the topic. But this has not happened at CBC Online.
I think one reason that people who write comments on blogs are more respectful is that they feel that the author of the post will actually read their comment. There is no such feeling at a news source, where the article might have come from any news organization, and the writer probably is not even aware their work is on CBC Online. So naturally the comments become more like the sarcastic comments at the back of a meeting than anything of any substance.
Hope CBC can find a solution, it is the one downside of an otherwise terrific service.
Wow you're really asking Gawker about their commenting system? Gawker is horrible! Their new system attracts sycophants and they habitually 'disemvowel' or even ban any commenter who expresses dissent about their site(s). Kotaku, for example is horribly misogynistic and rumor-mongering but if a commenter expresses this they are quickly silenced. The result is a very skewed comment system as people just seek to get 'promoted' and fear being 'demoted' for expressing any contrary opinion or exposing and journalistic bias.
A number of sites have done commenting better but Gawker is one of the worst. It's the kind of system I imagine Fox News employing.
When I read a really great post I go ahead and do some things:1.Share it with the close friends.2.Bookmark it in all my favorite social bookmarking sites.3.Make sure to visit the blog where I first read the article.After reading this article I’m really concidering going ahead and doing all three…
I appreciate your piece of work, appreciate it for all the interesting posts .
This is a nice episode of SPARK… its getting me eddicted now…
when I go to read comments, I'm hoping for some relevant discussion that somehow enhances the story or opinion piece – but the bulk of comments often seem like a flood of junk mail followed by a tsunami of lunatic ravings.
Great Art work nice sharing thanks …