This latest attack isn't the newest or most severe Second Life has experienced. In October 2006, a glut of attacks followed a vague "terrorist" threat uttered by self-replicating objects. In April 2006, three major attacks took place. Almost a year ago today, Linden Lab blocked a DoS attack by deploying a giant virtual firewall in-world, but I don't think that method is still used. Linden Lab had suggested earlier this year it would bring DoS attackers to the attention of law-enforcement agencies, but the results (if any) have not been publicized.
Ah, I'm confused. The Slashdot story linked to my original Tringo article, which was written last month prior to the licensing deal.
The more recent story, posted yesterday, discusses the licensing issues. I have edited this one to clarify the licensing arrangement.
Hi, I'm the author of Clickable Culture. I did report about the "low five figures." I didn't mention Keir retains the in-world rights. Whoever posted the Slashdot story should have just linked to the WSJ source (as I did). I certainly didn't break news on this one, although I reported on and described Tringo last month.
I'm going to edit the post over at Clickable Culture to add the missing info. It was an oversight, thanks for pointing it out.
Independent producers get paid. ZeD submitters don't.
Both independent producers and "ZeD submitters" produce saleable content, i.e. semantics aside, they are both content producers. The ones that are getting paid are getting paid to license or give up certain rights. The ones that aren't getting paid are also losing the ability to control their work. No cash, no reward. In perpetuity.
But how is ZeD really any different than Slashdot, for example, and how Slashdot deals with contributions?
That's a great point, and one I hadn't considered. The fact that I hadn't considered it feeds back into one of my main points of contention, which is that nobody reads the fine print. OSTG, Slashdot's parent company, has a virtually identical contract with its users. Who knew? I rarely post here, and now I'll post here even less. As with ZeD, there is no good reason for the extent of OSTG's legalese other than exploitation.
The key difference (in my estimation) between the CBC and OSTG is that it would be fair to say that most Slashdot contributors are not submitting creative works, while ZeD contributors are creating "art." The CBC definitely thinks the contributions to ZeD are works of art--that's why the CBC requires artists/contributors to waive their moral rights in the submission.
Ethically, I have less problem with what OSTG is asking of "contributors" (probably better described as "commentors") than what the CBC is asking of contributors (aka "artists"). What OSTG is asking for is almost to be expected. What the CBC is asking for is "uncool," wrapped in a "cool" wrapper.
Great post! I can only really respond to about half of it, since the other half isn't directly related to the issues I raised.
You have to take a step back and look at the big picture. First off, cbc and profit, two diametrically opposed concepts, do not belong in the same sentence without a negative modifier.
Well, you can look at the big picture if you like. I don't have to. CBC is a financial disaster, it's true. But it would love to make money if it could. One way to minimize your losses is to hire cheap labour. Or invite people to give you free content that you can then resell.
Zed is a step toward a more open system, a recognition of a new concept.
It's definitely one of the most interesting shows on the CBC. What is the "new concept" that is being recognized?
when the cbc broadcasts content, they take more than credit for it, they also accept liability for that content
IANAL, but this snippet from the ZeD Terms seems to cover that base pretty well: "The CBC is not responsible for the content submitted by users of this site. The CBC does not endorse or in any way contract the user-contributed content submitted to the site. All users who wish to contribute to the site must do so at their own risk, without expectation of any type of compensation or legal protection from CBC." Liability might be directed at the CBC, but it seems they can easily pass the buck.
Besides, the CBC has been dealing with independent content producers for years. How are ZeD's contributors any different?
If the experiment works, the concept can be re-visited by legal, and then they'll invest the time/effort/money in better ways of dealing with the situation.
So, is the experiment working yet? It's been just under 3 years. The Terms are still the same as far as I can tell.
It's great that the ZeD CMS has been open-sourced. But does releasing the code really indicate that a "truely open system" is on the way? Are you suggesting all of CBC's content will soon be open-sourced? I'd love to see that, but don't see how it would be possible...
Oh wait, it *is* possible! All of ZeD's content can be freely sublicensed.
There's a difference between making sure you have broadcast rights and exploiting contributors. ZeD's Terms could have been limited in a number of reasonable ways, for example the license could expire after a reasonable about of time, or the license could exist for X number of broadcasts. It's just that the CBC didn't want to be bothered keeping track of individual licenses. Which is understandable (even though it already does this for many artists and companies), but is still a raw deal for web-based contributors.
The solution, as you mentioned, is to not submit your work if you don't like the contract. What I'm saying is that most people don't read the contract-- they might read the summary, but that doesn't paint an accurate picture. It's not necessarily intentionally misleading, but it fails to mention the points most creators of original content are concerned about. Which is why, for example, a cartoon segment for ZeD's inaugural broadcast, was ditched at the last minute--the creator of the cartoon saw the contract for what it is: crap.
Yep, it's definitely worth a mention. And it's also reasonable to believe that the CBC would never exploit user-submitted material. But the legal language makes it possible. The Terms are not sufficiently limited in favour of artist control of the work, and I think that's a shame.
There's a big difference between ZeD's intention and ZeD's contract with the content creator (I guess that'd be the spirit vs. the letter of the law). ZeD invites users to submit content. It requires them to agree to the Terms. As we know, most people don't pay attention to the Terms, and I personally know artists who were surprised to find out what they'd actually agreed to when they submitted to ZeD.
To make matters worse, there is a summary of the Terms atop the actual Terms-- this is a "plain language" interpretation of the legalese, but it doesn't properly explain the extent of the contract. It could, but doing so would probably dissuade contributions. Why? Because it's a bad contract.
If the content was so open, you'd be able to copy, distribute, and rebroadcast ZeD TV episodes. But you can't. Because ZeD is protected by copyright.
In submitting your work to ZeD, you are not offering it up as open content. You are licensing it specfically to the CBC. It's still protected by copyright. Only you and the CBC have the right to re-license and sublicense the work. Read the Terms.
The rights demanded by ZeD's Terms are unecessarily excessive and do not reward the contributor adequately. This is disrespectful towards content creators. Additionally, it undermines the efforts of smaller Canadian TV production companies trying to get their shows on the CBC. Why would the CBC pay for professional content when it can grab content for free? One of the original cartoons advertised as airing on ZeD's pilot (the product of a pro animation company) was killed because the CBC's contract was unreasonable.
"Zed has championed the open source concept since its inceptions."
Well, it's called itself open source TV. But that's just marketing blather. How has ZeD "championed" open source from its inception, exactly? The show/site is not and was never free to copy. The content of the show/site was and is protected by copyright.
They've open-sourced their CMS. But that's 3 years after the show was developed.
It's too bad ZeD still has "grabby" Terms and Conditions. Basically when you submit work to the ZeD, you're giving the CBC the work to use forever, in any medium, without restriction, for profit, and you're giving CBC the right to license your material to third parties. Canadian submitters even waive their moral rights, which means that the CBC can bastardize the contributor's work with impunity. It's all in the fine print. And we all know how many people read that.
Contibutors don't get paid. The CBC is a for-profit corporation. So if you're submitting, for example, a song to CBC's ZeD TV, just be aware that the CBC can use it as the title track for a new TV show, and never pay a cent in royalties. You're not even guaranteed credit for the work--credit is displayed "where applicable."
Basically for the cost of producing the low-budget ZeD TV, the CBC has built themselves a huge library of content which they can repackage and resell without restriction until the end of time.
Excerpt from ZeD Terms below
===Content may be used by CBC=== By voluntarily submitting or uploading content or material to the website (the "Submission"), you expressly consent to the use by CBC of such Submission on any CBC website, CBC television/radio program, CBC recording, and CBC marketing material or other paraphernalia related to CBC programming. You grant CBC a royalty-free, perpetual, non-exclusive, irrevocable, unrestricted, worldwide license to: (i) use, reproduce, store, modify, make derivative works from, transmit, distribute, publicly perform or display such Submission for any purpose, and (ii) to sublicense to third parties the unrestricted right to exercise any of the foregoing rights. In addition. you agree to: (i) waive all moral rights in any Submission in favour of CBC, (ii) consent to your name, address and e-mail appearing as the contributor of any Submission, where applicable, and to the disclosure and/or display of such information and any other information which appears in or is associated with a Submission, (iii) acknowledge and agree that CBC is not responsible for any loss, damage, or corruption that may occur to your Submission, and (iv) acknowledge and agree that any Submission you provide for display on the Website will be considered non-confidential.
I hope White Wolf takes a bite out of Sony for this one. When I saw the trailer a few weeks back I knew it stank of Eau de Ripoff.
Would it really have cost Sony that much to flip White Wolf a few bucks for licensing before making Underworld? Think of the PS2 spinoffs... ahh well, I guess it's war from here on in. Sony gets to play the Vampires.
Back in the 80s and early 90s, it was primarily pen-and-paper and board games that made the leap to the computer game arena (and not the other way around). These include the obvious Dungeons&Dragons games, but also one or two Games Workshop titles and a couple of offerings by Steve Jackson games-- Ogre and Car Wars ("Autoduel").
Later on we started to see conversions go the other way (as a previous poster pointed out).
First he gets sued by the RIAA, then his personal web site gets Slashdotted.
Already been done...
on
Games on Demand
·
· Score: 2, Informative
We Canadians are geniuses... http://www.gamesmania.com/display.do? jsp=/jsp/home.jsp&lang=en
No idea how this Gamesmania service is doing, but this is actually the second such service our major telco (yes, Bell Canada) has tried to launch. The first one, Software Lane, was about a year in the planning, but never even went fully live. That was back in about 1999 to my recollection.
As a former freelance contributor to Shift (the Sims "Big Mac Attacked" author), I am horribly pained by your comments:)
As much as you think Shift was ass, it was the only decent mass-media outlet in Canada for exploration of digital culture issues. Shift had a long and rocky history, having nearly died at least once before, but the writers, editors, and artists behind it were dedicated, enthusiastic, and (debatably) insightful.
The big question for me at this point is who will fill the void for a uniquely Canadian view on the intersection of culture and technology? We don't have half as many mags up here as in the U.S., and there really aren't any alternatives at this point. I'm not sold on dead-tree publications, so if there are some outstanding Canadian web-based mags out there, I'm all ears.
Slashdot Mirror
This latest attack isn't the newest or most severe Second Life has experienced. In October 2006, a glut of attacks followed a vague "terrorist" threat uttered by self-replicating objects. In April 2006, three major attacks took place. Almost a year ago today, Linden Lab blocked a DoS attack by deploying a giant virtual firewall in-world, but I don't think that method is still used. Linden Lab had suggested earlier this year it would bring DoS attackers to the attention of law-enforcement agencies, but the results (if any) have not been publicized.
Ah, I'm confused. The Slashdot story linked to my original Tringo article, which was written last month prior to the licensing deal. The more recent story, posted yesterday, discusses the licensing issues. I have edited this one to clarify the licensing arrangement.
Hi, I'm the author of Clickable Culture. I did report about the "low five figures." I didn't mention Keir retains the in-world rights. Whoever posted the Slashdot story should have just linked to the WSJ source (as I did). I certainly didn't break news on this one, although I reported on and described Tringo last month. I'm going to edit the post over at Clickable Culture to add the missing info. It was an oversight, thanks for pointing it out.
Independent producers get paid. ZeD submitters don't.
Both independent producers and "ZeD submitters" produce saleable content, i.e. semantics aside, they are both content producers. The ones that are getting paid are getting paid to license or give up certain rights. The ones that aren't getting paid are also losing the ability to control their work. No cash, no reward. In perpetuity.
But how is ZeD really any different than Slashdot, for example, and how Slashdot deals with contributions?
That's a great point, and one I hadn't considered. The fact that I hadn't considered it feeds back into one of my main points of contention, which is that nobody reads the fine print. OSTG, Slashdot's parent company, has a virtually identical contract with its users. Who knew? I rarely post here, and now I'll post here even less. As with ZeD, there is no good reason for the extent of OSTG's legalese other than exploitation.
The key difference (in my estimation) between the CBC and OSTG is that it would be fair to say that most Slashdot contributors are not submitting creative works, while ZeD contributors are creating "art." The CBC definitely thinks the contributions to ZeD are works of art--that's why the CBC requires artists/contributors to waive their moral rights in the submission.
Ethically, I have less problem with what OSTG is asking of "contributors" (probably better described as "commentors") than what the CBC is asking of contributors (aka "artists"). What OSTG is asking for is almost to be expected. What the CBC is asking for is "uncool," wrapped in a "cool" wrapper.
Great post! I can only really respond to about half of it, since the other half isn't directly related to the issues I raised.
You have to take a step back and look at the big picture. First off, cbc and profit, two diametrically opposed concepts, do not belong in the same sentence without a negative modifier.
Well, you can look at the big picture if you like. I don't have to. CBC is a financial disaster, it's true. But it would love to make money if it could. One way to minimize your losses is to hire cheap labour. Or invite people to give you free content that you can then resell.
Zed is a step toward a more open system, a recognition of a new concept.
It's definitely one of the most interesting shows on the CBC. What is the "new concept" that is being recognized?
when the cbc broadcasts content, they take more than credit for it, they also accept liability for that content
IANAL, but this snippet from the ZeD Terms seems to cover that base pretty well:
"The CBC is not responsible for the content submitted by users of this site. The CBC does not endorse or in any way contract the user-contributed content submitted to the site. All users who wish to contribute to the site must do so at their own risk, without expectation of any type of compensation or legal protection from CBC." Liability might be directed at the CBC, but it seems they can easily pass the buck.
Besides, the CBC has been dealing with independent content producers for years. How are ZeD's contributors any different?
If the experiment works, the concept can be re-visited by legal, and then they'll invest the time/effort/money in better ways of dealing with the situation.
So, is the experiment working yet? It's been just under 3 years. The Terms are still the same as far as I can tell.
It's great that the ZeD CMS has been open-sourced. But does releasing the code really indicate that a "truely open system" is on the way? Are you suggesting all of CBC's content will soon be open-sourced? I'd love to see that, but don't see how it would be possible...
Oh wait, it *is* possible! All of ZeD's content can be freely sublicensed.
There's a difference between making sure you have broadcast rights and exploiting contributors. ZeD's Terms could have been limited in a number of reasonable ways, for example the license could expire after a reasonable about of time, or the license could exist for X number of broadcasts. It's just that the CBC didn't want to be bothered keeping track of individual licenses. Which is understandable (even though it already does this for many artists and companies), but is still a raw deal for web-based contributors.
The solution, as you mentioned, is to not submit your work if you don't like the contract. What I'm saying is that most people don't read the contract-- they might read the summary, but that doesn't paint an accurate picture. It's not necessarily intentionally misleading, but it fails to mention the points most creators of original content are concerned about. Which is why, for example, a cartoon segment for ZeD's inaugural broadcast, was ditched at the last minute--the creator of the cartoon saw the contract for what it is: crap.
Yep, it's definitely worth a mention. And it's also reasonable to believe that the CBC would never exploit user-submitted material. But the legal language makes it possible. The Terms are not sufficiently limited in favour of artist control of the work, and I think that's a shame.
There's a big difference between ZeD's intention and ZeD's contract with the content creator (I guess that'd be the spirit vs. the letter of the law). ZeD invites users to submit content. It requires them to agree to the Terms. As we know, most people don't pay attention to the Terms, and I personally know artists who were surprised to find out what they'd actually agreed to when they submitted to ZeD.
To make matters worse, there is a summary of the Terms atop the actual Terms-- this is a "plain language" interpretation of the legalese, but it doesn't properly explain the extent of the contract. It could, but doing so would probably dissuade contributions. Why? Because it's a bad contract.
Thanks for clearing that up.
Is it fair to say that Crown Corporations are interested in making as much money as possible? I think so.
If the content was so open, you'd be able to copy, distribute, and rebroadcast ZeD TV episodes. But you can't. Because ZeD is protected by copyright.
In submitting your work to ZeD, you are not offering it up as open content. You are licensing it specfically to the CBC. It's still protected by copyright. Only you and the CBC have the right to re-license and sublicense the work. Read the Terms.
The rights demanded by ZeD's Terms are unecessarily excessive and do not reward the contributor adequately. This is disrespectful towards content creators. Additionally, it undermines the efforts of smaller Canadian TV production companies trying to get their shows on the CBC. Why would the CBC pay for professional content when it can grab content for free? One of the original cartoons advertised as airing on ZeD's pilot (the product of a pro animation company) was killed because the CBC's contract was unreasonable.
"Zed has championed the open source concept since its inceptions."
Well, it's called itself open source TV. But that's just marketing blather. How has ZeD "championed" open source from its inception, exactly? The show/site is not and was never free to copy. The content of the show/site was and is protected by copyright.
They've open-sourced their CMS. But that's 3 years after the show was developed.
It's too bad ZeD still has "grabby" Terms and Conditions. Basically when you submit work to the ZeD, you're giving the CBC the work to use forever, in any medium, without restriction, for profit, and you're giving CBC the right to license your material to third parties. Canadian submitters even waive their moral rights, which means that the CBC can bastardize the contributor's work with impunity. It's all in the fine print. And we all know how many people read that.
Contibutors don't get paid. The CBC is a for-profit corporation. So if you're submitting, for example, a song to CBC's ZeD TV, just be aware that the CBC can use it as the title track for a new TV show, and never pay a cent in royalties. You're not even guaranteed credit for the work--credit is displayed "where applicable."
Basically for the cost of producing the low-budget ZeD TV, the CBC has built themselves a huge library of content which they can repackage and resell without restriction until the end of time.
Excerpt from ZeD Terms below
===Content may be used by CBC===
By voluntarily submitting or uploading content or material to the website (the "Submission"), you expressly consent to the use by CBC of such Submission on any CBC website, CBC television/radio program, CBC recording, and CBC marketing material or other paraphernalia related to CBC programming. You grant CBC a royalty-free, perpetual, non-exclusive, irrevocable, unrestricted, worldwide license to: (i) use, reproduce, store, modify, make derivative works from, transmit, distribute, publicly perform or display such Submission for any purpose, and (ii) to sublicense to third parties the unrestricted right to exercise any of the foregoing rights. In addition. you agree to: (i) waive all moral rights in any Submission in favour of CBC, (ii) consent to your name, address and e-mail appearing as the contributor of any Submission, where applicable, and to the disclosure and/or display of such information and any other information which appears in or is associated with a Submission, (iii) acknowledge and agree that CBC is not responsible for any loss, damage, or corruption that may occur to your Submission, and (iv) acknowledge and agree that any Submission you provide for display on the Website will be considered non-confidential.
The thief is hungry.
The Subservient Chicken h4x0rz.
I hope White Wolf takes a bite out of Sony for this one. When I saw the trailer a few weeks back I knew it stank of Eau de Ripoff.
Would it really have cost Sony that much to flip White Wolf a few bucks for licensing before making Underworld? Think of the PS2 spinoffs... ahh well, I guess it's war from here on in. Sony gets to play the Vampires.
Back in the 80s and early 90s, it was primarily pen-and-paper and board games that made the leap to the computer game arena (and not the other way around). These include the obvious Dungeons&Dragons games, but also one or two Games Workshop titles and a couple of offerings by Steve Jackson games-- Ogre and Car Wars ("Autoduel").
Later on we started to see conversions go the other way (as a previous poster pointed out).
In this millenium, Steve Jackson games created a board game based on the FPS *genre* (not a specific computer game). The game is called "Frag" and has a number of expansions. There's more on Frag in an article I wrote for Shift.com last year and of course, at Steve Jackson Games' Frag page.
First he gets sued by the RIAA, then his personal web site gets Slashdotted.
We Canadians are geniuses...? jsp=/jsp/home .jsp&lang=en
http://www.gamesmania.com/display.do
No idea how this Gamesmania service is doing, but this is actually the second such service our major telco (yes, Bell Canada) has tried to launch. The first one, Software Lane, was about a year in the planning, but never even went fully live. That was back in about 1999 to my recollection.
As a former freelance contributor to Shift (the Sims "Big Mac Attacked" author), I am horribly pained by your comments :)
As much as you think Shift was ass, it was the only decent mass-media outlet in Canada for exploration of digital culture issues. Shift had a long and rocky history, having nearly died at least once before, but the writers, editors, and artists behind it were dedicated, enthusiastic, and (debatably) insightful.
The big question for me at this point is who will fill the void for a uniquely Canadian view on the intersection of culture and technology? We don't have half as many mags up here as in the U.S., and there really aren't any alternatives at this point. I'm not sold on dead-tree publications, so if there are some outstanding Canadian web-based mags out there, I'm all ears.
Original article located here. Maybe their servers are more robust...l
http://shift.com/content/web/425/1.htm
http://shift.com/content/web/425/1.html
and thre aint nouthibn wrng wuith my cde!