Avast! It’s Talk Like A Pirate Day! September 19, 2006
Yes, that very special day is upon us once again, International Talk Like A Pirate Day! This is the one day of the year that you can sound sane while making comments like:
“Arrrr, that be my mp3 now, ye scally wag, Ye’ll ne’er get me buried booty!“
“Avast! ye filthy bilge rat. That be my intellectual proparrrrty ya have tharrr“
and
“Aye, who needs t’ pillage and plunder when ya can sue land lubbers by the tens o’ thousands? Aye, me parrot concurs.“
These are dangerous times. Having the skills necessary to communicate with pirates is critical but there are some very good resources to help you learn. Happy TLAP Day!
30 Days of DRM with Michael Geist September 18, 2006
Michael Geist (Canada Research Chair of Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa) has spent the last month posting “some of the exceptions and limitations that should be included in the event that a Canadian DMCA is introduced.” On each of the last 30 days he posted about one of the many pitfalls that DRM and DMCA-like laws cause for society including issues like anti-circumvention, time-shifting, educational institutions and libraries access to media, and backup archival copying. If you want a good over view of the problems with DRM read the the 30 Days of DRM.
FreeCulture.org at University of Southern California September 9, 2006
FreeCulture.org is growing with the latest chapter at the University of Southern California. This monday USC is holding their inaugural meeting at University of Southern California, Annenberg School lobby on Monday, September 11 at 6:30PM. This makes USC the 39th chapter with more on the way. Check out this map on the Freeculture.org site to find out if your school has a chapter and if it doesn’t, start one!
Anti-DRM day is October 3rd September 1, 2006
Defective by Design is organizing Anti-DRM Day on October 3. They are asking for ideas and handing out prizes for things like Best Idea, Best Action, Best Team Action, Best Photo, Best Blog, Best Video and more.
“Clear your schedule for a world wide day of action against DRM. On Tuesday October 3rd we will all be taking action to raise the stakes and attempt to increase awareness to the threats of DRM – in a very significant way.”
There are some good ideas up already like a Post-it Plague and Get arrested for violating your own copyright. You can even do something as simple and easy as print an anti-DRM image on a plain piece of paper and tape it to your car window.
