Holes in Space-time, and Piracy

First, the fun stuff. Two new comics! As usual, click on the images to full screen.





Second, I thought I'd publish a forum conversation I started on The Pirate Bay. Those of you who know me know that media piracy is a favorite topic of mine. Let me know what you think.

Explain to me something about the ethics of piracy.
Hey folks. I just got finished watching "Steal this Film" and thought I'd come over to talk to the stars of the show about something bugging me. This started out as a quick question and became something of a rant/question, so if you aren't interested in reading a wall of text feel free to escape now.

In the interest of full disclosure, I want to say that I do use the Pirate Bay. I visited the site last week to download the install disc to Civilization IV, a game that I had bought years back but lost the CD for. That generally is the way that I operate with torrenting - I download something for which I already have a physical, legal copy.

That being said, I feel unconvinced by some of the arguments in support of file sharing. I'm not talking about the legality of the Pirate Bay - the fact that I'm writing on these forums now proves that the PB servers exist in a legal grey area, at least for now. I'm talking about the morality of file sharing, especially when it comes to piracy. I'm hoping you fine folks will be able to clear something up for me.

To my mind there are two concepts of file sharing. One is about the idea of a culture of sharing music, and the other is about a culture of downloading files nobody ever intended to be shared. I'm all for the first one, but the second I can't help but think is wrong.

I'm happy when I hear the people on this forum talk about a culture of file sharing. It's a beautiful concept. As someone who publishes music online for free and runs a webcomic, I'm happy to share my media with people all over the world. The operative word here, of course, is "share". The people who are pissed off at Pirate Bay aren't the people who chose to give away their music, they are the people who plan to sell their music for profit.

I've read a lot of arguments on this forum about how the music industry loses less money than they claim to lose, or that Hollywood pulls on strings to get Washington to enforce copyright laws, or that musicians make most of their money on tours, or that the music industry will survive file sharing just as it survived the gramophone. These arguments could be completely true and wouldn't make stealing media justified in my mind. To me these sort of arguments just go to how unpopular the big corporations are... to make the argument that the people who own the music industry are bad, therefore stealing their music must be good. That's a moral fallacy. Even exploitive rich people have rights, and it diminishes us as a people to ignore that.

The real heart of the matter is this: the people who create media do so in order to sell it and make money. We may resent how much they charge for their product, or the DRM that they slap onto it, but ultimately we have two moral reactions to their choice: to pay for the product and use it, or not to pay and not to use it. Spin it any way you like, but the third option, to not pay for media and to download it anyway, just amounts to theft.

Clearly some of you folks disagree, and I'm sure you feel moral about this decision. So I'm interested - why it is not theft to torrent something that one hasn't paid for? Why is media ok to steal when jewelery or TVs or clothes are wrong to steal?

Perhaps its something to do with what that one fellow in the beginning of "Steal this Film" was talking about - that ideas are free and not material objects? Pshaw, I say. The film showed an awful lot of the Matrix - did they forget the scenes when Morpheus about "what is real"? The Matrix was real even though it didn't "exist" in the real world because one could sense it, feel it when one was plugged in. Music is the same. In my life I will never be able to "touch" the music that touches me, but I don't assume that the rules surrounding it and all other products are different. Pirates talk about a new era of thinking, but I can't help but find it backwards to argue that the incoporeality of music removes it from equations of just conduct.

Maybe at the end of the day I just get irritated that people rail against big evil Hollywood while in the same breath torrenting the biggest block busters. For a whole bunch of pirates, the Pirate Bay isn't about ideology, its about cheap movies. There's really nothing too impressive about that.

I hope I've made a fair point. I'd be interested in hearing your perspectives.

I feel pretty at odds with my generation on this topic. Hopefully either I or the rest of you guys will come around. I'm too young to be a cantankerous, contrary old man!

Derek's Epic Audiocast - Episode #01

Because Blogging and Twitter just aren't cutting it in my efforts to get Google searches to pay attention to me, I've decided to create a webcast. In Episode 1 of Derek's Epic Audiocast (cue trumpets) I talk about my attempts to meld two songs together that have each been looping around in my head. After experimenting a bit, I came up with something that I think is halfway decent. Take a listen!



Let me know what you think. The two songs that I mixed are Zero 7's "Simple Things" and Little People's "Above the Clouds."

After this experience, I think it'd be fun to do a podcast with a few friends. Anyone want to form a group to talk about politics for half an hour or so? Drop me a comment.

A $1700 dollar error and the most beautiful music ever made

I'm an atheist, which means that I don't believe in any God or gods. Even so, this week's events provide a compelling case that at least the irony gods are alive and kicking! Apparently they operate on a hair trigger, too. Whence came this revelation, you might ask? I have a story for you all.

I am a senior in my last semester at Suffolk University. On Wednesday I came to the realization that I never took a second c1ass in science, which is required to graduate. We are of course now well beyond the add-drop deadline, so I was facing the prospect of having to take summer courses! This would be terrible, not only because I have to work, but because I am applying to graduate schools for the fall. They tend to like their applicants to, you know, actually have graduated from college.

To make a long story short, the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences is a queen among women. I came to her with my plight and immeadiately came to the rescue. Her solution? Bend the rules and allow me to enter the only not-yet-full-to-the-brim science course. "Great," say I. "What's the course?"

"Quantum mechanics," says she. "Specifically, Nanomaterials and Energy Problems."

Ha!

I've been reading Steven Hawking's book, A Brief History of Time. Just the day before, I had mentioned this to my roomate and said something to the effect of, "Thank God I'll never need to understand Quantum Theory!" The Irony Gods must have overheard this, and, since like a fool I didn't knock on wood, swooped down to punish me. I am now well and truly theirs to do with as they will.

So, I am officially enrolled in a Quantum theory course, mid semester. I will need to catch up on six weeks of lectures this weekend to be prepared for our lecture on Monday. To top it off, taking the course has me overenrolled, so the cost will come out to $1734. I have taken a loan out from my parents and will pay it back gradually over the summer.

This easily could be very depressing, but I'm working to be content about it. All the eastern philosophy I've been studying recently counsels that it is a waste of time to devote energy to wishing things were other than they were. This seems very wise. Instead of moping I am focusing on making the choice of being happy, revelling in the positive aspects of the situation. My family loves me and will support me through my errors. I am going to graduate on time. I'm even somewhat interested in the subject - if I never got involved in politics, delving into the nature of the universe through science would be the next best thing.

One other thing to be happy about: MUSIC. I found this incredible artist Zoe Keating that you all absolutely must experience. She is a cellist who creates music through loop patterns, playing one track over another and another to compose incredibly moving, sweeping musical pieces. With the help of a loop pedal, one cello becomes sixteen! I highly recommend checking out Tetrishead, The Legions and Time is Running Out.

It's a simple premise taken to a wonderful level of complexity. I've purchased two of her CDs and have been listening to them all day!

In other news, I presented my Senior Thesis, the Nuclear Policy of a Rational Iran. It was accepted! I think that this means I can graduate summa cum laude, which would make me very happy indeed.

How is everyone else's week treating them? I your week has been as interesting as mine! Odd that "may you living in interesting times" is a curse in Japan.

Peace, all.

Yarr! Anti-Piracy Webcomic

Don't worry, I'm not nagging. Today I'm showing off my most recent Repiphany! strip: Anti-Piracy. Its taking a topic that's near and dear to my heart and making it into a joke, which is very soothing.

A full-scale version is available here.

I'm really getting into drawing this webcomic. I get to throw down some ideas that interest me, and its very satisfying to see them coalesce into something funny. Or at least, somethingI think is funny.

Piracy - Nag Your Friends!

On a personal note, I'd just like to say that I had a great night last night. Yesterday I handed in my undergraduate thesis - "The Foreign Policy of a Rational Iran," - I went on my first date in 9 months, and had a fantastic evening watching Cirque du Soleil and Pinky and the Brain with a pretty girl. Life, friends, is very good.

But let us now focus upon grimmer topics. Satisfied smiles are lame.

There's recently been quite a lot of contention over the subject of DRM. Folks are quite rightly getting angry by the fact that companies like Microsoft, EA, and Steam are limiting their use of games that they have legitimately purchased. Steam, for example, requires that a player be online in order to run some software. EA made retail-purchased Spore games very difficult to install on multiple machines. These and other instances illustrate a gaming environment that is increasingly limiting to the honest consumer. The honest consumer deserves to be upset.

Here's the caveat, though - we should be pissed off at our peers, not the companies. Let's not forget the purpose of DRM is not to screw over the consumers, but to defend against from piracy. It's a source of shame for me that my generation is so casual with theft - most of my friends pirate music, television programs, and games whenever they find a product that they want but don't wish to pay for. The old chestnut that piracy a "victimless crime" is as false as it is trite; according to Gamespot news, EA sold 700,000 copies of Spore while nearly 2 million copies of the game were torrented online. Every game pirated is quite literally taking money out of the pockets of the people who worked to create our entertainment.

I can't say that I'm entirely innocent of wrongdoing - I'll accept a music CD from a friend and watch the occasional episode of Scrubbs online. But I've recently made a conscious effort not to download expensive products to which I don't own the rights. I sleep better knowing that my dollars are going towards the inustries I want to support.

Voice your concerns to the game businesses. Urge them to create a copy protection system that doesn't harm the people actually supporting their industry. But then, please turn around and tell your friends to shut down the torrent client. Apart from being illegal, it hurts every one of us who are actually playing by the rules.

*end rant.

Speaking of the Future

 

 

xboxrulz  just posted a blog about how we are now living in the future. I agree, and my thoughts are directed to more than just videogames. In particular I'm thinking of the recent advances of the music industry. For once I do not refer to my unyielding and probably unhealthy yearning for an iPhone - no, this time I am thinking about Pandora, the brainchild of the Music Genome Project. I believe the website represents a shift in the "radio" paradigm - and to be honest, I don't see how traditional broadcast towers are going to stand for long against it.

Pandora's specialness comes from the way it selects what music to play. The site chooses songs based off user-generated criteria. A lot of websites and applications do this, but in a limited way. Whereas iTunes and Winamp allow the user to pick only the genre of his or her music preference, Pandora searches through hundreds and hundreds of musical categories; from music signature, to whether the song features solo vocals, to whether the song features clips of other music, etc.

Here's how Pandora describes the process.

"Together we set out to capture the essence of music at the most fundamental level. We ended up assembling literally hundreds of musical attributes or "genes" into a very large Music Genome. Taken together these genes capture the unique and magical musical identity of a song - everything from melody, harmony and rhythm, to instrumentation, orchestration, arrangement, lyrics, and of course the rich world of singing and vocal harmony. It's not about what a band looks like, or what genre they supposedly belong to, or about who buys their records - it's about what each individual song sounds like."

The translation of all this is that the music a person ends up hearing through the software is entirely specialized to his or her particular taste. What is more, its a fairly simple process to start - the user simply names a given song or artist of preference, and the site takes it from there, producing a varied playlist of multiple artists with songs that share your selection's musical traits. The user refines the playlist by approving or disapproving of a given track. Pandora analyzes these decisions to improve its understanding of what the user is looking for. 

The process is sharp enough that after providing imput for eight songs I no longer had to approve or disapprove anything - the software was able to predict exactly what I was looking for. As time passes, the website more and more accurately predicts my taste.

Some downsides - you can't select a specific song to play because that violates copyright law. If you're looking for one particular tune you may be out of luck - Pandora even stops you from skipping through songs willy nilly in order to find a given track. But considering that listeners of normal radio have the exact same problem, I believe that we can all restrain our collective fist shake.

A plus - Pandora pays for a music license, meaning that big name bands will be available. Lesser known bands can also get access if they contact Pandora directly. If you're looking for mainstream music, the site can help you.

The thing I really want to emphasize is how wonderful this website is for seeking out new artists to listen to. I found out about the website last week and already lready I've discovered several groups whose sound really suits me and whose work I'd consider buying. When you tire of iTunes or your friends' suggestions, check out Pandora - it will expand your horizon.

Right now, the only thing traditional radio has on this website is that it is portable. Even that edge is disappearing. Those of you with an iPhone can download Pandora as an application, I believe. (Lucky bastards.) Hopefully it wont be long before internet radio becomes commonly handheld. In the meanwhile, you and I can enjoy this little glimpse of the future, and listen to some great music to boot.