This isn't lost USB sticks - this is USB sticks that were lost and weren't reclaimed long enough to end up in a transit authority auction.
There's another sample out there of sticks that WERE encrypted, or DID have useful data on them that were recovered by their owners. IE they were USB sticks that nobody gave a shit about. Why would we be surprised that there's malware on them and that there was no sensitive data. The other sticks were likely reclaimed.
What's interesting if you read the complaint is that some of it is predicated on enforcing the EULA that's presented when logging into PSN and when downloading firmware updates. Have these ever been tested before in US courts?
Every last one of these acts will have a twitter / facebook / forum etc... at least a couple of them are going to be people who interact with their fans on there in person.
Most photographers in my field who've been open enough to discuss it with me are on a 50/50 deal with their agency. So this is a pretty poor offer.
It's a particularly odd turn of events in concert photography. Whereas those of us who do it with a pass are tied to 3 (or less sometimes) songs, no flash, from a particular shooting position and potentially restrictive contracts, the kid who sneaks an SLR in, or happens to get good shots can apparently now license their images in a way that wasn't authorised and as pros we wouldn't be allowed to.
Maybe they'll crack down on cameras at concerts. Who knows?
The fundamental problem with Lost
on
Lost Ends
·
· Score: 1
What the audience wanted : answers What the writers wanted : to make more episodes of Lost
The two being pretty much mutually exclusive until the point that the series was scheduled to end is what made it such a frustrating experience.
God no, they're not interested in publicly available photos for fans at all. They'd perhaps be interested in using your photos on their website (without having to pay you) if you happen to get a spectacular shot.
I should say that most events *aren't* like this, but the bigger the name, the harder the access, and the more likely a rights grab, it seems.
Speaking as a photographer, you have to keep in mind that they may well be limited as to what they can do.
The photo of Halle Berry was clearly taken by a professional who may very well not be at liberty to CC the image even if they wanted to. They may have been given permission to take photos for a certain use only, and Wikipedia might fall outside that. At worst, they may even have been forced to give away their copyright and line themselves up for damages by letting you use it (Jane's Addiction, I'm looking at you... http://www.aphotoeditor.com/2009/07/17/concert-photographers-asked-to-transfer-copyright-to-janes-addiction/). I didn't shoot Steven Segal, but I believe his contract bought all your photos for $1 and then exposed you to $1,000,000 of damages if you broke the contract. Here's the PDF of the release the photographers had to sign to shoot him - http://www.blackshadow.com.au/releases/seagal.pdf
Personally, I've been in a position where I'd like to donate better images of bands which I've taken professionally to Wikipedia, but at the end of the day, I may not have the right to do so as it falls outside the remit I was given when I took the photo, and I'm not prepared to potentially expose myself to any liability to help out.
In my opinion your best bet genuinely is a talented amateur who wasn't tied to any contract when they took the shot, and can CC license the shot with impunity.
Not the same Sony who didn't see anything wrong with Manchester Cathedral being used in Resistance, despite the church itself complaining? Not that I think either should be grounds for a game to be pulled, but there is the faint stench of double standards...
I do agree about these things being practically unenforceable. But if you're the legitimate recipient of promos, be that because you're a journalist, blogger, whatever, then if it's one of the majors, they certainly do have the power to make your life a little bit worse by denying you access to interviews, advance copies etc... while I know there's a benefit to them (of publicity) there's no shortage of other media outlets, and unless you're a massive national publication, they're not going to think too hard about cutting you off.
Selling (and uploading of) promos also leads to the horror of the 'listening party' where assembled journalists are stuck into a room and forced to ruminate on the new magnum opus by, say, Madonna, on the strength of one listen. Or crappy portable CD players are sent out with the CD tray glued shut and the headphones glued in place. Yuck.
Quite right, but then they're not beholden to send you the next release by *insert name of big band you care about here* and you find your publication doesn't have it in time for going to press, or has it several weeks after *insert name of rival here*.
(Yes, yes, I know, you could just download it and review it that way, but as happened in the Counting Crows Incident of '08, record companies get very snippy about you reviewing things that promos haven't been sent out for!)
While I agree that it should be possible to sell promos (I'm a record collector as well as a former music editor for a college magazine, and I've been in the employ of a major label - you should have seen the amount of promos we literally just destroyed as worthless)
They already do. I have a number of promotional CDs which explicitly state "This CD remains the property of MUSICCOMPANY and we can request that you return it at any time."
In practical terms, they never actually do ask for it back, but presumably it gives them the option.
In the UK, it will be available on Pay As You Go (obviously for more money than the contract) - O2's website currently says PAYG iPhone is coming in July. This could be bought, unlocked, no contract.
So the choice is the trade off, do you take the subsidy, or pay for the phone in full and unlock it?
How To Be A Complete Bastard caused a minor furore in the UK after it was included on the cover-mount cassette of Amstrad Action magazine in the late eighties - it was the complete game and the magazine had a wide audience of children... I would have been 7 or 8 at the time and it was quite odd to be playing a game about farting and pissing!
When I was at university writing for the music section of the newspaper, we used to fairly regularly receive CDs from the likes of BMG (Tom McRae's "Just Like Blood" arrived like this in Jan of 2003, the earliest example I remember, but it may predate that) these had individual serial numbers and names, and claimed to be watermarked to us as individuals, lest we dare leak the music. I always assumed it could be defeated by a bit by bit comparison against the retail copy - presumably the difference would be the watermark, and I don't see why that wouldn't also be true here?
I gave them three pounds for it. To me, that was a reasonable price, in that I've lost interest in their work of late and wouldn't have ordinarily gone out and bought the CD, but for a small amount, I'll take a chance. If it's good I'll end up buying the CD anyway when it's released next year - if it's not, I've not lost much. Win/Win.
Jane Siberry has been doing this for years without anyone paying her much attention - to the point that I the last show I went to she had an honour system even at the merchandise desk - you took an EP, you paid what you thought it was worth.
It's quite easy for Trent to say this - because if he never saw another penny through record sales, it wouldn't hurt him - he's making his money touring and his money from selling merch. Increasingly, that's where the money is for the artist. And as long as folk are turning up at the shows, the sales of the record don't matter so much, because often they're not where the artist's payday is, that's on the road.
Well, let's see
1) The invite has a picture of a guy with an iPod on it
2) There's a US event too
3) The tag line for the event is "The Beat Goes On..."
Yeah, it's the European iPhone launch.
Slashdot Mirror
This isn't lost USB sticks - this is USB sticks that were lost and weren't reclaimed long enough to end up in a transit authority auction.
There's another sample out there of sticks that WERE encrypted, or DID have useful data on them that were recovered by their owners. IE they were USB sticks that nobody gave a shit about. Why would we be surprised that there's malware on them and that there was no sensitive data. The other sticks were likely reclaimed.
Is http://www.pcpro.co.uk/blogs/2011/07/28/obscene-whitehall-it-spending-or-sloppy-journalism/
Basically, they took something out of context and sensationalised it.
False positive from a rarely used AV package - detects the same thing in an empty folder on a clean machine.
http://www.f-secure.com/weblog/archives/00002133.html
What's interesting if you read the complaint is that some of it is predicated on enforcing the EULA that's presented when logging into PSN and when downloading firmware updates. Have these ever been tested before in US courts?
Every last one of these acts will have a twitter / facebook / forum etc... at least a couple of them are going to be people who interact with their fans on there in person.
Do they know that this is being done in their name? We know that songs are http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitol_v._Thomas#The_24_songs so let's start asking them the question...
Most photographers in my field who've been open enough to discuss it with me are on a 50/50 deal with their agency. So this is a pretty poor offer.
It's a particularly odd turn of events in concert photography. Whereas those of us who do it with a pass are tied to 3 (or less sometimes) songs, no flash, from a particular shooting position and potentially restrictive contracts, the kid who sneaks an SLR in, or happens to get good shots can apparently now license their images in a way that wasn't authorised and as pros we wouldn't be allowed to.
Maybe they'll crack down on cameras at concerts. Who knows?
What the audience wanted : answers
What the writers wanted : to make more episodes of Lost
The two being pretty much mutually exclusive until the point that the series was scheduled to end is what made it such a frustrating experience.
God no, they're not interested in publicly available photos for fans at all. They'd perhaps be interested in using your photos on their website (without having to pay you) if you happen to get a spectacular shot.
I should say that most events *aren't* like this, but the bigger the name, the harder the access, and the more likely a rights grab, it seems.
Speaking as a photographer, you have to keep in mind that they may well be limited as to what they can do.
The photo of Halle Berry was clearly taken by a professional who may very well not be at liberty to CC the image even if they wanted to. They may have been given permission to take photos for a certain use only, and Wikipedia might fall outside that. At worst, they may even have been forced to give away their copyright and line themselves up for damages by letting you use it (Jane's Addiction, I'm looking at you... http://www.aphotoeditor.com/2009/07/17/concert-photographers-asked-to-transfer-copyright-to-janes-addiction/). I didn't shoot Steven Segal, but I believe his contract bought all your photos for $1 and then exposed you to $1,000,000 of damages if you broke the contract. Here's the PDF of the release the photographers had to sign to shoot him - http://www.blackshadow.com.au/releases/seagal.pdf
Personally, I've been in a position where I'd like to donate better images of bands which I've taken professionally to Wikipedia, but at the end of the day, I may not have the right to do so as it falls outside the remit I was given when I took the photo, and I'm not prepared to potentially expose myself to any liability to help out.
In my opinion your best bet genuinely is a talented amateur who wasn't tied to any contract when they took the shot, and can CC license the shot with impunity.
I thought you meant an adaptation of 16-bit platformer Fire & Ice... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oRAaI5HrDw
Not the same Sony who didn't see anything wrong with Manchester Cathedral being used in Resistance, despite the church itself complaining? Not that I think either should be grounds for a game to be pulled, but there is the faint stench of double standards...
Selling (and uploading of) promos also leads to the horror of the 'listening party' where assembled journalists are stuck into a room and forced to ruminate on the new magnum opus by, say, Madonna, on the strength of one listen. Or crappy portable CD players are sent out with the CD tray glued shut and the headphones glued in place. Yuck.
Quite right, but then they're not beholden to send you the next release by *insert name of big band you care about here* and you find your publication doesn't have it in time for going to press, or has it several weeks after *insert name of rival here*. (Yes, yes, I know, you could just download it and review it that way, but as happened in the Counting Crows Incident of '08, record companies get very snippy about you reviewing things that promos haven't been sent out for!) While I agree that it should be possible to sell promos (I'm a record collector as well as a former music editor for a college magazine, and I've been in the employ of a major label - you should have seen the amount of promos we literally just destroyed as worthless)
They already do. I have a number of promotional CDs which explicitly state "This CD remains the property of MUSICCOMPANY and we can request that you return it at any time." In practical terms, they never actually do ask for it back, but presumably it gives them the option.
When the copyright holder finds that photograph and sues them for using it without permission... ;)
In the UK, it will be available on Pay As You Go (obviously for more money than the contract) - O2's website currently says PAYG iPhone is coming in July. This could be bought, unlocked, no contract. So the choice is the trade off, do you take the subsidy, or pay for the phone in full and unlock it?
How To Be A Complete Bastard caused a minor furore in the UK after it was included on the cover-mount cassette of Amstrad Action magazine in the late eighties - it was the complete game and the magazine had a wide audience of children... I would have been 7 or 8 at the time and it was quite odd to be playing a game about farting and pissing!
When I was at university writing for the music section of the newspaper, we used to fairly regularly receive CDs from the likes of BMG (Tom McRae's "Just Like Blood" arrived like this in Jan of 2003, the earliest example I remember, but it may predate that) these had individual serial numbers and names, and claimed to be watermarked to us as individuals, lest we dare leak the music. I always assumed it could be defeated by a bit by bit comparison against the retail copy - presumably the difference would be the watermark, and I don't see why that wouldn't also be true here?
Why not actually finish making the game before releasing it? It's a mess.
Movie sucks? Don't screen it to the press and hope you make some cash before the negative word of mouth gets round.
I gave them three pounds for it. To me, that was a reasonable price, in that I've lost interest in their work of late and wouldn't have ordinarily gone out and bought the CD, but for a small amount, I'll take a chance. If it's good I'll end up buying the CD anyway when it's released next year - if it's not, I've not lost much. Win/Win.
Jane Siberry has been doing this for years without anyone paying her much attention - to the point that I the last show I went to she had an honour system even at the merchandise desk - you took an EP, you paid what you thought it was worth.
It's quite easy for Trent to say this - because if he never saw another penny through record sales, it wouldn't hurt him - he's making his money touring and his money from selling merch. Increasingly, that's where the money is for the artist. And as long as folk are turning up at the shows, the sales of the record don't matter so much, because often they're not where the artist's payday is, that's on the road.
It comes with a dock adapator - and a cloth to polish your penis, sorry, iPod touch with according to the Apple Store.
Well, let's see 1) The invite has a picture of a guy with an iPod on it 2) There's a US event too 3) The tag line for the event is "The Beat Goes On..." Yeah, it's the European iPhone launch.