29 January, 2012

how many rules breaking how many games?

I have no place in my brain for this, so I'm spreading the suffering. Enjoy your Nicolas-Cage-based brain seizure.

Several scattered things today, because I'm too tired to rant about Google+ right now, as much as I want to continue. So, in no particular order:

An archived post from 2008 on the former Virtually Blind blog showed up on a separate search; what it says about copyright and DMCA violations is, unfortunately, still valid for Second Life several years later.

Over on Kotaku, there's a cosplayer who decided Deus Ex's protagonist, Adam, wasn't sexy enough, so gendershifted him. The pictures may be NSFW; they don't show nipples, but they do show breasts. (You'll see what I mean if you click the link.)

Meanwhile, Lifehacker has an article on simple things we can do if we have jobs where we sit a great deal of the time (*coughs*). None of them are exceptionally hard. Consider this the reminder for all of us to move more when we can, because yeah, sitting all day does take a toll on our physical health.

Steve Napierski came up with a beautifully ironic take on video game branding on Dorkly; Twitter wants to hire more people; and Iza Privezenceva is today's definition of awesome. (Also, she looks like the Grangers have a Russian branch of the family, but that misses the point that she's an astounding speed archer.)

In some positive Google+ news, a friend of mine sent me a link to Snorri Gunnarsson's Icelandic volcano photographs, which are breathtaking. (Though really, that could have been on any other service, including Facebook, and still have been breathtaking.)

Meanwhile, there's a 30/70 split on something (for at least me, opinion-wise) regarding MegaUpload. There's a group of people who have decided to band together to declare suit against the FBI because they lost their personal files and did not have backups for them. (Which, okay, look, I've used big file services too to save items I didn't have disc space for, but you have to back up your work, people. Seriously.)

That's the 30% for me; I think it's a good thing for them to band together and declare class-action suits. It improves their power position, and with enough voices (and enough donations, financially), they might be able to power that to a Supreme Court decision.

The 70%? Well, they're calling these groups Pirate Parties. Are you people insane? So, to establish clearly that they have valid concerns and have lost original work that was in no way violating anyone's held copyrights...they're going to identify with pirates?!?

Obviously, you did not think this through, people. Try again if you want people to take you seriously.

7 comments:

MichaelK said...

Aren't they talking about the political group, the Pirate Party? http://www.pp-international.net

They actually hold seats in some EU governments, I believe.

Emilly Orr said...

I'd forgotten about the political group, and that does make sense, but it doesn't change my basic point.

Either of the two commonly understood definitions of "pirate" (either terror of the high seas or hacker/data assassin/code thief) work against the stated goals behind the class-action suit.

And, unfortunately, Pirate Party International is still defining itself by virtue of what the organization exists to do politically (gather in general assembly once a year, elect chapter leaders, expand ranks in member countries), not what the members believe, collectively.

But beyond all that, isn't it in the best interest to push forward a court case that establishes, clearly and with no doubt, that piracy was not their intention? Identifying with pirate anything at this point pretty much ensures sound defeat.

MichaelK said...

Nope, because naming themselves the Pirate Party (after their genesis in the Piratebay) is a very intentional "Eff You!" at the people they're fighting against.

And if courts base their decisions on the names of the parties involved, we've got bigger problems.

Emilly Orr said...

We have bigger problems. We always have had. Up to the Supreme Court level, presentation, prestige and perception are huge in the court systems. (After that, it still has an impact, but mostly the Supreme Court justices look past that to what's actually being decided.)

Emilly Orr said...

kevin21,

Die on fire. No one wants your shoes and I have a fairly firm no-spam policy. (Though if you have something to contribute to the conversation, please make another comment.

(Which isn't about shoes.)

Edward Pearse said...

Names of groups (especially in politics) rarely have any bearing on the group's actions.
For heaven's sake our CONSERVATIVE party is called the Australian Liberal Party. Nothing liberal about them in the slightest.
Most of the PP political groups are European based and despite the US's jackboot applications, a lot of the EU countries are starting to get rather pissed off with it. I'm sure if they weren't currently being distracted by the GFC they'd be busy telling the US to keep it's nose out of their internet.

Emilly Orr said...

And in essence, you're right, save for the US part--while there were international losses of date with the MegaUpload takedown, there were more American losses, which means when the fight happens here (which I believe it will), they're going to be aiming at the highest court in the land as the eventual goal.

But to get there, they have to pass through all the lesser courts, who will take one look at "Pirate Party" and not even bother to verify. They'll simply assume that pirates--likely in league with China, which has this nebulous sort of "evil threat, but they're allies" status over here--are trying to get their data back to sell more copies of whatever DVD it was they lost.

These are judges, they will consider it more deeply, but initial impressions also count.

hide away, they say, 'cos we don't want your broken parts

Yeah, so...remember that thing I was recovering from? You know, last year ? Yeah. I did it again. So this is Em Faw Down Go Boom part ...