coffee.geek.nz

Q: why do baby clothes have pockets, but women's clothes do not?
A: bebe can carry my cellphone for me.

The verdict is out in the case of numerous media/entertainment companies versus an ISP over in australia.

The entertainment companies wanted a ruling that an ISP is responsible for the actions of their customers - so they sued an ISP for "allowing copyright infringement to occur".

Now, we can't have that. If someone breaks copyright then they should be responsible for their own actions, not their ISP, not the mail service, not the maker of the fax machine, not the people who built a photo sharing website.

Commonsense prevailed, and the judge ruled in favour of the ISP. The entertainment companies now must pay the ISPs legal costs.

I've picked some of that commonsense from within the judge's ruling:

In summary, in this proceeding, the key question is: Did iiNet authorise copyright infringement? The Court answers such question in the negative for three reasons: first because the copyright infringements occurred as a result of the use of the BitTorrent system, not the user of the internet, and the respondent did not create and does not control the BitTorrent system; second because the respondent did not have a relevant power to prevent those infringements occurring; and third because the respondent did not sanction, approve or countenance copyright infringement.

On the incorrect use of the word "theft" to describe copyright infringment:

thanks to the ninjas who migrated geekspeakr.com from Drupal5 to Drupal 6, and to a happier server during LCA2010

quote from Liz Henry, who really enjoyed the hackfest:

It was like Christmas – I hung out with kick ass open source people all day long, heard great talks, gave a talk and asked for more coding and development with other women, and then got to do that very thing with people I greatly admire!

and thanks to Catalyst for the use of their boardroom and intarwebs.

Tonight i defend my claim to a sparkly pink tiara at Bloggers Predict 2010
Thursday 28 January 2010
5:30pm - 8:00pm
Where: Wellington Regional Chamber of Commerce, level 28, The Majestic Centre, 100 Willis Street

The 2010 lineup
Brenda Wallace (@br3nda) Current tiara-holder, Brenda was UP Visionary of the year for 2009, can she defend her title in 2010? The Capital City’s geek girl extraordinaire and queen bee of the software community, Brenda is to mobile technology and open source what honey is to brown bread, she makes it taste better! Brenda blogs on Coffee.geek.nz about coffee, gadgets, opensource, wellington, new zealand, music, and above all things: freedom.
Philip Fierlinger (@skyrize) From Silicon Valley to Silicon Welly, Philip’s web design expertise and has been eagerly sought after by online businesses and conference-goers alike. Currently design chief at Xero, blogger at Turntable Media Philip’s passion for web usability also led him to establish his own consultancy.
Mauricio Freitas (@freitasm) Geekzone head honcho and microblogging enthusiast. If there’s a new gadget being launched you can be sure Mauricio has an opinion about it. Been renovating his kitchen for last 6 months and has forgotten how to cook, however is on first name basis with all the (good) cafe owners in town. Possibly Wellington’s most avid “Tweeter”.

Br3nda and tiny, originally uploaded by Liz Henry.

a photo of me @ Drupalsouth :-)

"10 Ways to Destroy your Community" - Josh Berkus - at #lca2010

1. Insist on difficult tools
2. Maximise the impact of poisonous community members
3. Prevent documentation
4. Make attending meetings impossible
5. Use lots of legal agreements NDA licensing etc
6. Bad liaison person
7. Obfuscated governance arrangements (complex diagram)
8. Screw around with licences
9. Allow no outside code committers
10. Ignore the community - be silent

(very very much based on tweets by @colinjacksonnz)

Brooklyn Mist, originally uploaded by sebastia88.

pretty photo of Brooklyn in the fog.

OLPC giveaways, originally uploaded by Br3nda.

Mary has a great suggestion:

Way back at linux.conf.au 2008 there was a large OLPC XO giveaway, but with the rider "do something wonderful with this, or give it to someone who will."
....
If you are similarly (morally) bound by the linux.conf.au 2008 giveaway conditions, aren't doing anything wonderful with your XO, and are going to linux.conf.au 2010 or can get your XO there, you could do likewise. You could drop off to Tabitha Roder at the education miniconf, the OLPC stand at Open Day or otherwise get in touch with her. (You probably want to let her know yours is coming anyway, so she has a sense of whether to expect one or two, or a truckload.)

born 6:17am on 10th December 2009.

more photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/taniwha/sets/72157622988101788/

something eye opening -- checkout where you rank on the Global Rich List (and report back in the comment is you'd like to share)

With that in mind, here's where i acquired the few gifts we're sending this year:

https://www.kiva.org/
Kiva is micro loans -- you can loan amounts like US$25, to an individual on some of the world's poorest regions. You get a small window into their life, seeing what they do with the funds. I've loaned to help buy more stock for shops, to buy a motorcycle taxi, and to repair a home of someone who has a steady job but no access to funds needed.

http://www.oxfamunwrapped.org.nz/
Oxfam unwrapped lets you buy livestock (pigs, goats, donkeys) or training (midwives) or equipment (mosquito nets, soap) that instead of receiving, it will be sent to someone/somewhere that really needs it.

Today is the 20th anniversary of the Montreal Massacre

Today we remember our dead, killed for being women and daring to attend Engineering School.

Geneviève Bergeron
Hélène Colgan
Nathalie Croteau
Barbara Daigneault
Anne-Marie Edward
Maud Haviernick
Maryse Laganière
Maryse Leclair
Anne-Marie Lemay
Sonia Pelletier
Michèle Richard
Annie St-Arneault
Annie Turcotte
Barbara Klucznik-Widajewicz

We got a new copyright act in New Zealand late last year - any regular reader of my blog will already know this.

Amongst the many changes, the new copyright act finally allowed "format shifting" - for example copying your music from your CD collection into your ipod.

However, this was limited to sound recordings only. - You cannot copy that movie or tv show you have recorded into your ipod.

Here's a quote from NZ's Ministry of Economic Development FAQ explaining exactly that:

Why is there a format shifting provision and why is it limited to sound recordings?

The new format shifting provision responds to the concern that people want to transfer music they have legitimately bought onto different devices to take advantage of new technology. It also recognises this has been common practice for a long time.

The markets for audio visual works and music are evolving, they are different. There are numerous business models for audiovisual works that do not apply to music. Theatrical release, commercial rental (both physical and online models), free-to-air TV and pay TV do not have counterparts of any significant extent for music. It is also unlikely that consumption of audio visual works "on the move" using mp3 players and the like will ever be as ubiquitous as for music. It is not, therefore, possible to simply apply the conclusions reached about music to audio visual works.