this could actually be pretty good news. the 1984 Sony decision said that video recorder users had a right to "time-shift" media content like television without risking copyright violation.

all the p2p cases have failed in trying to analogize time-shifting to place-shifting, the idea that if you own/have license to content you should be able to watch it where- in addition to whenever you want. thing is, all the p2p cases (napster, etc) have been brought against services that allowed open access, and basically failed on that point- the court calling bullshit on the proposition that people were only using napster/kazaa/whatever to access files they had a right to.

this is one of the first cases that i'm aware of in which technical protections exist restricting file access to personal use by the individual who has legitimate license to it. because the case is about file storage/remote access- and not sharing- there's a good chance EMI has overstepped their bounds.

from a technical/legal standpoint there's not much difference between accessing a network share through a VPN and accessing it via the web- if anything this service is more restrictive- and yeah, while it's easy to circumvent access restrictions, that's gonna be a hard argument for EMI to analogize to p2p networks since there's already legal protection in place to keep that from happening- the DMCA.

that said, it's hard to know if that's really what's going on, since there's no link to any actual court documents.

(obviously this post seeks to provide information & is commentary on a recent news piece. it doesn't offer advice and shouldn't be relied upon- probably not even in light conversation).

fyi, here's a sweet piece of software allowing you to listen to your home music collection from another computer: http://www.jinzora.com obviously using it without discussing the implications with your favorite copyright lawyer is a terrible idea. in fact, forget i even mentioned it.

actually, portraying Disney characters as dope fiends & perverts was held not to be fair use by the 9th circuit:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Pirates#Lawsuit

...however there's been lots of Barbie litigation won by the good guys:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbie_Girl#Mattel.27s_lawsuit

http://www.aclu-sc.org/News/Releases/2000/100174/

see also:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use#Fair_use_and_parody

(and as before, you'd clearly have to be a lunatic to take wikipedia links as legal advice. information only.)

Couple of minor errors in the article- duration for new works is life + 70, not 75; however that's only effective as of the '76 act with some retroactive effect for works that had valid copyright as of its enactment or were previously unpublished... so a 100 year old photo (eg: pre-1923) would be in the public domain if it had ever been published.

Here's a handy chart to sort out duration issues in copyright:
http://www.copyright.cornell.edu/public_domain/

Also, the issue of whether works posted to the Internet are "published" is not nearly as settled as the author makes it sound. Standards are different for writings, sculptures, and a/v works and a lot of this is still grey areas.

That said, Simon's article is nonsense & it's good to see some rationality in the discussion- Meredith's piece is right on in all the places it matters.

(this comment is legal information, not advice, and should not be relied upon for any reason whatsoever by anyone, anywhere).

bear mountain would be a good test destination in NY, good coverage, easy hikes, and a crowd of upwardly-mobile cityfolk hikers who are marginally less likely to be totally offended by your inability to set aside the tech addiction than would real backcountry types.

'course, the way to do this is not to bring a laptop, but a well designed smartphone with a good keyboard and a spare battery or solar charger.

funny thing though, spend enough time living in a tent and you start to gain perspective, all of the tech suddenly seems less important. you might actually find yourself full of a new appreciation for the earth and all the natural things around you, coupled with a realization that you'll never be able to put the experience to text for a bunch of strangers with complete accuracy. might even find yourself closing the laptop voluntarily and just enjoying the pure joy of, say, drinking some cool water or being alone with yourself, distraction-free.

if you want to write a post about camping & geekery, better starting point than overpriced, oversized go-bags might be all the cool hiking geekery itself: poke around the ultralightweight community and you'll find titanium sporks, carbon fiber collapsible hiking poles, at least three flavors of high-tech hammock, homemade tyvek rainwear, all kinds of DIY LED lighting systems, lunatic GPS rigs, and an entire cult of homemade alcohol-fuel jet stoves. that said, be aware that some backpacking purists find even wearing fluorescent colors to be an offensive intrusion of artificiality in their wilderness experience, so tread lightly (in every sense).

Vinyl-playing truck is aka Soundwagon: http://soundwagon.jp/top.html

There are a bunch of YouTube clips of the thing.

Invisible Skratch Picklz (I think) used to have a promotional one sold through TurntableLab (I think). Turntablists like them 'cause they're an easy way to preview music found digging through vinyl bins, like at your local flea market or thrift store. Only other truly portable non-vintage option is the Vestax Handy Trax.

all this generalized griping about Microsoft is pretty rude, you guys.

on the other hand, Windows Mobile as a specific product actually sucks. I had a Motorola Q and returned it as quickly as possible. terrible interface, frequent glitches, poor system performance and generally horrible usability. not just the motorola design, but using the Windows taskbar metaphor on a mobile screen is a bad, bad idea. switched to a Palm and life got better.

that said, BB's tendency in recent years to latch on and obsessively repeat some concept until they've run it into the ground is longstanding, might as well make some money from it. mashups, katamari, gama-go, steampunk, windows mobile... whatever. the value here is always in the incidentals.

agreed, kraken.

of course, there's only one way this conversation could possibly go: highlighting The KLF Burn A Million Quid.

i got curious, so i checked w/ lexis & westlaw. the actual cite is 18 U.S.C 333.

only case that ever seems to have actually been litigated on this point offers up some reasoning- specifically that a bank note is basically a wee little contract, so when the note is altered the modification could be seen as an attempt to modify the terms... or something.

maybe someone w/ a better knowledge of property/finance can validate a different idea- maybe the deal is that when you hold a dollar bill, you own the dollar in an abstract sense, but the treasury still owns the physical paper? i could be way off on that one.