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Camera Phone As High-precision Scanner
christchurch writes "The software, developed by NEC and the Nara Institute of Science and Technology (NAIST) in Japan, goes further than existing cellphone camera technology by allowing entire documents to be scanned simply by sweeping the phone across the page. As reported, an A4 sized page takes only 3 to 5 seconds to scan, and it is causing copyright concerns."
"Nothing to see here, move along"
:)
Is that irony?
This sounds like those 60s spy movies where they would use the miniature tie-camera to take spy photos
This isn't new; I've seen James Bond copy pages by photographing them with one of those tiny cameras. This is only different in that it's digital, and built into a cellphone.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Bah.
+5 Insightful, really!
According to NEC, their software is designed to sound an alarm when being used, to avoid any copyright conflicts. The company claims that any attempts to mute the device somehow or plug in headphones will not affect the audibility of this alarm.
I can understand their reason for doing that, but that doesn't really endear me to using mobile phones 'as portable faxes or scanners that can be used any time'. I personally feel kind of awkward when my phone's camera makes that little clicky noise. I don't think i would ever use it if it sounded an alarm.
Give me a break. How can this be a threat to copyright? It's no different than someone snapping a picture of something now. There have ALWAYS been high-resolution scanners...thin ones now too!
This smells a lot like when people were all upset that cd's were getting 'too cheap' and nobody was going to buy another CD. Well...maybe that KINDA happened.
My
This is another nail in the coffin of corporate's insane fantasy of "copyright is our right to deprive the public of their rights", leading them to try to push DRM and anti-fair-use legislation.
Looking at them reminds me of a drowning man trying to grab at anything to stay afloat. Unfortunately, they're more like the infamous 800 lb. gorilla-octopus which is making it unpleasant for me to live during their death throes.
Sounds really fucking annoying. Can you imagine any time you need to scan a page or text an alarm sounds. Either it won't be loud enough to alert people across a bookstore (and what will they do if they are alerted?) or it will be loud enough to annoy nearby persons and make even legitamate uses (say in a buisness meeting recording documents passed around) problematic.
How long do you think it will be before a competitor cellphone company comes out with a phone with the feature or just 'oversight' which allows this to be easily disabled?
Besides the entire idea is really stupid. Clicking to get one page of text is hardly the big scary threat that publishing companies need to be wary about. If the magazine is good enough to buy in the first place it will have many interesting articles and that will be too annoying to scan in a bookstore for a couple dollars.
I mean be realistic here plenty of people buy text copies just because they don't like reading online. The real problem that faces paper publishers is the rise of e-readers and the same threat that faces the music industry.
If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too:
uh huh.
/. that fits along these lines?
that's why in japan they banned camera phones and the like in magazine shops.
the bribers erm i mean lobbyists who "talk" to congress, all spout this same garbage.
everything that can potentially record any data, analog or digital, is a terrorist tool.
how many stories have you heard of just on
they want to get rid of the analog hole. that is their ultimate goal, at least in the short term. in the digital domain, it is far easier to restrict access and functionality than can ever be imagined in the analog realm.
every year i keep seeing draconian new laws being introduced under the guise of security and in relation, copyright "protection" (apparently the law is not the protection..). one of those laws, the DMCA, won't even allow you to talk about "security" issues. and now that virtually every country is getting its own version... the frog seems to be coming along nicely.
every little issue, seemingly unconnected and unrelated is in fact another piece of the DRM foundation.
it's a pattern. sometimes it's more difficult to see unless you connect the dots.
the underlying message that the "copyright issue" in this story (regardless if from the article or the editor) is that they don't want you to control the ability to copy. what implications does that have? where is the next step? these are important matters, especially for the geek crowd who value cheap and easy copying/access to information in the digital age.
Science : Proprietary , Knowledge : Open Source
As reported, an A4 sized page takes only 3 to 5 seconds to scan, and it is causing copyright concerns.
Really? It only takes one second to photograph an A4 size page with a film camera. Even worse, I hear that anyone can make a film camera with just a cardboard box and a pin. We'd better keep an eye out for info-terrorists running around with Improvised Photographic Devices!
"The newly born animals are then whisked off for a quick run through a giant baking oven." --heard on Food Network
"copyright gives you the right to use a copyrighted product in any way you choose."
This is not just a gross over-simplification of the issue. It's downright untrue. Copyright is not just there to protect consumers, it is there to protect writers and producers of intellectual property. When you buy a book or magazine, you are paying for a single copy of it, not a license to reproduce it, not even for personal use. Copyright law allows for limited reproduction, such as for quoting, provided the original source is referenced, with exception if the text states you can copy more (eg open source) or less (eg 'Confidential'). The consumer/reader's right to make copies is limited by the law and the copyright statement.
The 'copyright' generally belongs to the publisher or author. It's like software, when you buy it, you pay for a license to have x copies and use it for y purposes for z time and according to other conditions. When you buy a text, or even if you don't, you are subject to similar conditions. You don't own the text. Even if the license/copyright on a text allows you to make copies of it, a publisher is not obliged to make it easy for you (unless specified in the copyright). THEY own the copyright. If they engineer it so you have to re-type the whole text in order to discourage illegal copying, that's THEIR right, and likewise for whoever produces the copying software and hardware.
If people would actually start respecting intellectual property and people's right to earn an income from their work then such preventative measures would be unnessecary. Alas, people take what they haven't paid for, which makes life more difficult - and expensive - for people who do the right thing (more theft -> less sales -> higher prices). If people were less dishonest, useful technology like this could be less inhibited.
You're not seriously telling me that photographic copying is a surprise to these people?
I'm sorry, but consumer-level digital computers are 30 years old. Electronic computing in general is at least 60 years old. Photography is over 160 years old. If you haven't figured out by now that Copying Happens, then you're a complete, blithering idiot. Seriously. Grow the hell up now; the world isn't going to stop for you, and the ulcer you save may be your own.
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
from the article:
According to NEC, their software is designed to sound an alarm when being used, to avoid any copyright conflicts.
Doesn't look like a non-issue to me. Sounding an alarm when I use their product? Excuse me?? Technology is driving us toward a turning point in the history of sharing ideas. Eventually people are going to question whether the benefits of intellectual property rights laws are worth the enormous costs of enforcing them. For that to happen, ordinary people who normally wouldn't understand let alone care about intellectual property issues are going to have to get really annoyed by the enforcment. Personally I think building a little electronic conscience into every media device to tell people they're committing immoral acts is a great way to start turning that tide.
Nice comparison several people are making with film cameras here. I'm sure this would work for copying an article to read on the train, provided your journey takes an hour and a half, and the train has a one hour photo lab in first class.
Similarly, photocopiers? Yeah, you just need an extension cord, sneak it up to the newsstand, and hit copy when nobody's looking.
Making up copyright concerns before the device is even released? Nope. Camera phones are already being used to copy articles, so if an improved text-recognition function is being added to phones, it's only reasonable to consider the consequences.
Fair use? Doesn't look like it to me. Extracting a portion of a work for criticism or satire, yes. Because "It's my right to be entertained for free", no.
The stupid alarm feature is the result of NEC protecting itself from its users.
Next time some industry relying on copyright goes asking for stricter legislation, they have all they need to prove the sky is falling in. If people want fairer copyright, that means completely boycotting those that oppose it - simply not paying for their stuff only makes their argument stronger.
No. A "cruel and unusual" punishment would be your hand being chopped off. Or dismemberment, rape, being dropped off a 120-story building.
Being held to the floor by some judo black belt dude while waiting for the police to arrive is not "cruel and unusual". Mind you, I don't believe it's right to do those things over 'copyright', but it's not cruel and unusual.
You inadvertently have pointed out a tension of the modern age which must be faced. Each society must strike a balance between high wages and benefits for its workers and low prices and availability of its goods and services. You cannot have both, unless every competing country agrees to your wage and employee treatment standards. The solution to this fundamental tension is not obvious, but it implies that in a zero-sum game, we will have a race to the bottom.
The fact is, the Chinese and Indians are hungry for our jobs, just as the Japanese were. We are getting lazy and complacent. We need to put resources into education and try to pump up engineers and sciences in general, but instead we glorify consumption and entertainment. Therefore, we will squander our wealth and end up with little of substance while the Chinese and Indians win the prize in about 10-20 years.
Note that to wring your hands about the lack of US manufacturers of cheap cell phones, mention offshored plants, then demand higher wages for workers shows the incoherence of your mental processes. Try to see the big picture.
I recommend Thomas Friedman's book, http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0312 425074/qid=1127143355/sr=8-2/ref=pd_bbs_2/102-9994 916-3919362?v=glance&s=books&n=507846>The World is Flat.
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