Copyright insanity

Today I logged on to Youtube to check a video that I had added to my favourites list. To my utter amazement, I got a red bar at the top of the screen telling me that due to copyright issues I needed to sod off, basically. At first I thought that my account had been suspended, but on further examination no, it seems to be yet another "highly unusual" youtube-ism.

This can mean either of two things: 1/ it's a new bug in 2.0 channels, or 2/ they're serious. I certainly hope it's the former. For quite a while I've felt that Youtube have been bowing to the more insane elements of the copyright brigade. Insane copyright enforcement as we know it began with Walt Disney.

One does not have to look very far to find evidence. Yes, the suits at Walt Disney are very active indeed, engaging in such petty behaviour as threatening legal action against preschool creches. Only a couple of years ago a local creche was threatened over showing a Walt Disney video to under - 5's. I also recall in the recent past a school's Christmas play revolving around 'Snow white and the seven dwarfs' ( man, is that politically correct?! ) having to be abandoned due to the same copyright jackboot approach.

Now I can well understand what copyright is all about, and God knows, Ireland is a copyright theft zone at the best of times. There are people, regardless of how much money they have, who will never pay for something if they can help it. We live in a culture where - and it has to be said the internet has not helped - intellectual property is seen as being there for the taking. The most startling example is probably Music.



I remember when the big debate was about putting a levy on blank Cassette tapes ( technically speaking, recording from the radio is illegal ). In fact our own U2 were among the biggest promoters of this levy idea. The arguement, however, is twofold. For far too long the music industry has been ripping people off, and the oft - wheeled out example of the needy artist in justifying this is a bogus one ( the music industry takes them for a ride too, regardless )

The simple fact of the matter is that Copyright, to my mind anyway, is to stop people who can afford something from stealing it. It should not be for protecting markets to a greater than fair financial end, nor should it be about keeping poorer people who can not afford something ignorant. Both instances are called 'Greed' not 'Copyright'.

Youtube have, over the past number of months, been actively disabling sound on the most grainey rubbish - quality recordings due to copyright. It makes no sense. If they had any sense they would get together properly with all concerned, and put out a 30 minute quality preview of something which is 90 minutes, as per 'journeymanpictures' ( great channel ). This would whet people's appetite and make them feel like buying it. What seems to have happened is that Youtube and the movie / music industry are at the point of mild flirting at best.

Another daft idea is that of "algorithmically demoting" videos which contain profanity. The only problem for youtube is that these videos are consistently at the top of the most viewed / favourited / commented, and making a most viewed video not most viewed is profoundly dishonest. It either is or isn't. The youtube partner progam is practically impossible to join, as everything is a copyright infringement in youtube's ultra - vague 'rulebook'. Last but not least, they are promoting some truly rubbish videos from some of those who do succeed in becoming partners, like a girl showing eveyone her apartment.

As we all know - though I wonder if youtube have been told - things move fast in the tech. industry. Apple twigged it and came up with 'itunes'. This latest youtube annoyance is one of many ( see my previous post ). If they don't get their act together and come up with something workable soon, they will drown. Youtube has already been around for 4 years - a very long time in the internet context. That should mean that they have another 18 - 24 months left, if the rise and fall of the vast majority of previous ventures is anything to go by.

In short, common sense has to prevail. Preventative measures never work, but working with people and giving them options at a FAIR price does. I often wonder if, in two years time, I will be sitting here (no doubt a little more grey) and watching a new youtube type service from Asia or India, after the original youtube had tied itself in knots and lost all credibility. It is already three quarters there.

IQPrize winner: Decisions for what?

Alas the time has come and gone ... as per my previous post I didn't win the €10k. prize in this competition run by a Dublin I.T. consultancy firm. The whole idea, just to re-cap, was that someone would forward an idea which would "kick start the economy".

The winning idea, 'Decisions for Heroes', amounts to glorified Excel. It has innovations, but no one thing that I can see which is truly outstanding ( other than the fact that it's a noble thing to do - probably not lost on the founder when entering the competition ) Even the name is a rip - off of 'Help for Heroes', a British charity founded in 2007.

Of the other 8 shortlisted 'ideas' we had 'Our Writers Bloc'. This idea cuts out the middleman in online publishing: the writer publishes via this site, and readers pay to read it. Only one problem: IDG launched exactly the same thing a couple of years ago ( blurb.com).

Myhotel.ie was apparently an amazing way to book hotels, but no detail was given so I will have to fall back on the default position of assuming it's more of the same. The other entries comprised of stockmarket investing online, mental games for the mentally challenged, paperless bills filing service, and 'Plink'.

The idea behind Plink is a bit confusing, but it does sound exciting. It has to do with mashups, and garnering information to link to, for example, a photograph taken ( pertaining to the subject ). Sounds very interesting, but would probably cost a fortune to develop, not to mention the possibility of legal action from Plink.com - a social networking site parked since 2006. It always pays to check these things!

In a nutshell, as I said before judges in some of these competitions set out with a rough idea of what they want before anyone even enters. I also suspect that this competition had more to do with personalities and gloss than real ideas. I didn't think that I had the best idea - I didn't think I would win either to be honest - but I would have fancied my chances against a data entry product which relies on the goodwill of users to build a database!

I was keen on the idea of some feedback on my site - www.deadpc.net - from the people who ran the competition, but now I'm not so keen. I got an email telling me to register by the 24th. if I wanted 15 minutes of opinion. As an added bonus, the founder of 'Decisions for Heroes' will also be on hand to give advice. I feel that taking advice from someone who can't think of an original name is beneath me.

YouTube changing the rules ... again

Youtube has come a long way since 2005, and is now facing that mid - life crises which recently hit Facebook: reinventing itself, namely. Money. In the case of Facebook they got a serious rap on the knuckles for wanting to hold on to commercially valuable personal information pertaining to users, and backed down. In the case of Youtube, it's more in - your - face, or perhaps, in you 'interface'.

These new 2.0 'Beta' channels are crap. Hopefully the delay in implementing them is a reflection of some serious second - thoughts on the part of Youtube ... I really hope so. Lots of people have lots of different complaints, but as someone who is not heavy into the 'Director' end of Youtube I have to say there's one really annoying aspect to the whole thing which jumps out straight away.

Once upon a time, you hit on a user and see that they have nothing but favourites. No problem. With these new 'Beta' channels being forced on everyone, we now have the latest 'favourite' being given the same prominence as someone having uploaded a video of their own. You see video first, favourite second as opposed to favourite first and video second. This dilutes the creativity of getting off your ass and making a video.

I accept that youtube has to make money: no such thing as a free lunch and all of that. What I don't understand is why they seemingly don't understand phased development. Roll things out gradually, get a consensus, and mould it into a commercially viable system rather than using the sledgehammer approach. While Youtube has to make money, they also need to keep an eye on the fact that without users, there's no advertising revenue - in other words, money.

This is not the first Youtube weirdness cloudburst. I recently put together a 16 minute video. I thought it would be fine to upload, because I had taken a look and saw videos up to 30 minutes on there. Not so. Under the "Grandfather rule" Youtubers who joined before a certain date can upload long videos, but more recent Youtubers can't for copyright infringement reasons. Therefore all older Youtube users do not abuse copyright, and new ones do. Makes sense ... on second thoughts, no it doesn't.

It strikes me that Youtube, in the middle of it's arrogance, would do well to remember it's a fad. It will pass. In the late 1990's, Napster ruled the world. Ask most kids now what Napster is, and they'll probably shrug and say something like "an online retailer of nappies?" Remember that, youtube!

IQPrize shortlist announced - I'm not on it!

Well, the shortlist for the 'IQPrize' ( an Irish internet company promoting innovative start ups with €10,000 prize money ) has recently been announced. My site didn't make the cut. I didn't start out my site to win it, and I won't be reviewing my options or anything in light of my 'failure'.

I always knew it was going to be an uphill struggle to qualify for the shortlist anyway. 8 entrants out of 249 were chosen - the original "approximately 10" number was downgraded to 8, though they go on to say that the shortlist could have been filled "4 or 5 times over". Makes you wonder why they chose 8 then!

I have a theory about these things. Years ago I did a film course. It was great fun, though I also met some of the most immature people ever on it. I took it seriously though, and went out and bought a professional camera - off RTE, the national Broadcaster, no less. The next thing was to find someone to collaborate with and make a film.

I soon discovered that everyone wanted to make a pop music video, get "really really famous" and "make loads of money". The responses invariably were "your ideas are boring, I'm not interested", put nicely. No one would work with me. The ideas weren't boring at all, but the processes they involved were. But guess what? - that's creativity! Regardless of whether you act, paint, design web pages or make films, it's 90% boring 'behind the scenes' work, 10% fun and glamour.

I had a notion that these IQPrize people were out with a predetermined mindset. I was right. The 8 shortlisted entries contain 3 which I would consider worthy, and one which is really excellent. The rest are either generic - sounding, and / or would cost a fortune to set up. Only one entrant has seemingly gone to the trouble of creating a functioning website, with a few pages. My website already has over 200 pages - I'd consider that a type of 'innovation' in itself.

I never expected to win the competition, but I did think that I had a good shot at making the shortlist. My computers museum is the first in Ireland, a pretty sad reflection of our supposed 'lead' in the World of technology for the past couple of decades. The term 'innovative' to me means creating the enviornment for others to go on and satisfy their interests ( I'm thinking youth ) thereby creating great things, as much as anything. Just because my site does not wear lycra knickers does not mean it is no good, to be blunt!

All in all, it was a good experience to actually have to sit down and define what I am doing, and what way I want to grow my vintage computers website. Strangely, out of those 249 entrants I was one of only 2 people to enter online! Does that make sense? - an I.T. company looking for I.T. ideas and two people apply via the internet?

Here's to keeping 'rockin' and 'rollin' with my site. It may not be sexy enough for these guys, but it'll be around next year, and the year after that.

IQ Prize

It's been a hectic couple of weeks. I happened to hear about a competition being run by iqcontent, an Irish web company, and decided to enter. The lure? - 10,000 euro prize for the best internet startup idea. Entering involved answering about 7 key questions and putting together a 5 page business plan. Though the competition is now closed, I get the impression that it might by an annual event. The site is: http://www.iqprize.ie

This is just what we need in Ireland right now. If I see one more bad re-hash of Carzone.ie or cbg.ie I will go mad - sites offering to sell your second hand car. How many have sold so far this year? 9? Though 10k. for 5 pages sounds easy ( and in a way is ) nothing can add or subtract from one thing: the core idea and the drive to do something with it.

As you might have guessed, I entered. I entered my site, the namesake of this blog, www.deadpc.net. I have no idea if I will win or not, but no matter. I love what I do and it was good to get my brain into gear, even if the syncromesh slipped here and there! Seriously, sitting down with a list of 7 points and writing something that makes sense over a maximum of 5 pages is not that easy.

I also put together a PowerPoint presentation, just in case I manage to get shortlisted. I'd forgotten how much fun and how powerful PowerPoint actually is. It's one of the most fun and rewarding programs out there in my opinion, yet it gets litte press. Maybe it needs to commit homocide on Excel and Access or something in a bid to raise it's profile.

Well, that's that. Brain excercise for a change, rediscovering PowerPoint after years, and now all that remains is to wait.

Internet Exporer 8 - total rubbish

I must be one of the few people left in the World who writes a heading like that. To normal people it is abbreviated to 'IE8', but there you go. Whatever to call it, I am far from impressed. This latest incarnation of Explorer has left me completely dumbfounded.

I downloaded IE8 a couple of weeks ago, and for one reason mainly: it's current. I have a longstanding fear of anything Microsoft not being bang 'up to the minute' for security vunerability reasons. Download went fine, and so did installation.

The problems began when I started using it. It will not start up without crashing once, and man, it truly crawls when it does decide to work. Microsoft have added one signifigant new feature too: when selecting something from the drop - down list of visited web addresses, you accidentally delete it off the list.

This seems to happen readily with everything except - strangely - Microsoft's own Hotmail. It's like MS took a good look at IE and went "so what can we do to improve it? - I know, let's disimprove it!". Explorer 7 was ( mostly ) fine, but this is a landfill incarnation of the browser.

I find myself using Firefox more and more these days, and suddenly Google Chrome - which I have to admit I liked already - is beginning to look a whole lot better. From my experience of the whole 'MSN Live' thing, I think Microsoft have given up altogether.

Never - ending innane websites

Okay, my website ( www.deadpc.net ) is never going to rival Ebay or YouTube, I accept that. There are, however, two things I can honestly say. Firstly, I take my website very seriously, and secondly, I work very hard at it. In other words, I do my best.

It seemed, in the run - up to the dot com bust of 2000, that every Tom Dick and Harry ( and Harriet ) was on the internet. I'm thinking of the plethora of truly vomit - inducing 'personal pages' in particular. You know the ones: "Hi I'm Jim and this is my beautiful wife, my 2.2 children and oh, this is my Ford Focus".

For some reason an awful lot of people seemed to think that the World was interested in their sad lives to the point of seeing pictures of an ordinary man, an ordinary woman, and countless pictures of ordinary cars and houses along with the occassional resume, just in case employers might have nothing to do but surf for lost ordinary people on the web.

Thank God for Facebook et al, for they have vacuumed most of these idiots off the main cyberspace. If you want pornographic boredom, you now know where to go and Facebook serves it well. Thank God for so much less of these 'Sites' that always began with "thanks for dropping by" ( the corniest line since "Do you come here often?" ) and "check back soon for updates" ( always accompanied by: 'last updated 12th. March 1998' or something like that ).

Now that the Web has died and has come back, the Irish experience would dictate that it is in danger of becoming a hoare again. Worried about mumps? - no problem. Just visit mumps.ie. We now have websites for events, websites for developments of new houses, websites for every kind of crazy non - reason you could shake a stick at. Are these the new 'personal page' rubbish of the future? - I think so.

What will happen when mumps become less sexy, when the developments of badly built and hard to sell houses are falling apart because the economy is in the toilet? What, more specifically, will happen to the joke websites? It seems everyone is registering names, regardless of how long or obscure and putting up largely pathetic - looking 'websites'.

I can only hope that Google develop their search - engine to cope with this. Otherwise, the web will be full of deadwood in a few years' time. I guess in a way the success of the web has come home to roost - and not for the first time. Victim of it's own success, and all that.