Year: 2007 (Page 3 of 8)

Beyond Tomorrow was the title of a science fiction anthology edited by Damon Knight. I was already a fan of TV science fiction and a fan of comic books. That was the anthology that made me fall in love with science fiction and it has been a lifelong love afair. It introduced me to Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, and Clifford Simak to name a few. “Desertion” by Simak is probably my favorite story from that anthology. It is certainly the most memorable followed closely by Don A. Stuart’s “Twilight”. Stuart was John W. Campbell’s pen name.

More nostalgia later. I thought of using that title for a new podcast. I’m already doing the Conestoga podcast to help promote the a science fiction convention. I’m not as plugged into science fiction as I once was. I am not a voracious reader. I read what I read. There may be months between novels. I’m slightly more plugged into movie and TV sci fi. What I’m saying is that if I do this podcast, I will not be on the cutting edge of “literary SF.” And I’ll be committing the big sin of nostalgia. And you know what? That’s OK by me.

After going through a lot of names I came up with Escape from Cubicle 17. It sounds cool but it doesn’t really hint at what it is. I have several episodes up. It will eventually be a variety podcast show. We’ll interview guests, we’ll entertain, we’ll talk about stuff. It’s not intended to be a sampler. It’ll be what interests me.

Note – I’m clearing out my backlog of wordpress post drafts and this one seemed done enough to publish.

This is a quick essay and I’ll need to flesh it out and links but here is my take on the mess.

I’d never heard of Scribd until I heard about the big stink caused by some DCMA takedown notices issued by the SFWA VP Andrew Burt. Cory Doctorow and Jerry Pournelle have already weighed in on this. After looking at Scribd and doing a quick search I did find several copyright violations. So what happened? SFWA screwed up. Scribd screwed up. And neither side of the argument is completely right. Scribd’s Terms of service do say the right thing about protecting copyrighted work and the DCMA. DCMA is a flawed law but does have some useful provisions.

One side, Doctorow is saying Andrew Burt issued fraudulent takedown notices. Scribd’s lawyer who works for the EFF says that SFWA issued improper notices and that they need to be in a certain format for them to take action. Scribd did take down a lot of stuff that was not infringing. It is my understanding that SFWA is supposed to be acting on behalf of authors to protect their works. So I think Mr. Burt was trying to do the right thing but he screwed up. Big time. Did Mr. Burt consult SFWA’s lawyer before issuing the notices or have the lawyer issue them? I get the impression he did not. Where is SFWA’s lawyer in all of this and what does he or she have to say? Pournelle seems to think that SFWA has blinked and can no longer be trusted. As for suggestions that Doctorow sue SFWA is a very bad idea. SFWA does far more good than harm.

It is interesting to note that you can upload stuff anonymously to Scribd. This certainly defeats the spirit of of their TOS if not in practice. They should make uploaders affirm that to the best of their knowledge they are not infringing on copyrighted material. There should be some burden on the uploaders.

Technology makes it very easy to abuse and infringe copyright. I’m no fan of DRM (digital rights management) but there needs to be a way to track the source of infringement. Digital signatures perhaps? It’s going to take time to sort this out. Society and laws are playing catchup to the technology. At this point SFWA needs good legal counsel to get themselves on the right track.

Update (9/17/07) — The best discusion about this can be found at Teresa and Patrick Nielsen Hayden’s Making Light blog: SFWA: DCMA abusers.

Update (1/11/08) — A lot has happened in the last few months. SFWA had an exploratory committee on how best to protect copyright. Jerry Pournelle seems more reasonable in his update and Scribd seems to have implemented real protections. A lot of the stuff I could find before are no longer there. So all in all things seem to be moving in the right direction. I’ve found a few more things about the situation and I may link those later.

I’m currently a big fan of the programming language Python. It has a great community. I’ve been to two PyCon’s and hope to attend many more. I use to think Perl was the bomb until I started web programming. PHP took care of that. I like PHP but Python definitely has the edge. The problem I’m running into is though I’d like to use a Python based blogging tool or CMS none of the webhosts that I’m willing to pay for support it. Python based web solutions require it to run as a process. Well, can’t do that with this host. Also, if I were to run Plone it’s not supported.

Now I’m learning Django. I was torn between learning Django and TurboGears and I’m still a little torn, but Django has the edge as far as I’m concerned. Neither are CMSes (content management systems). They are web frameworks like Zope which Plone sits on top of. Zope is the 800 pound gorilla of web frameworks. At least in Python anyway. I’m not getting up to speed on Django as quickly as I would like. I’m frustrated for two reasons. Zope has a steep learning curve, so I thought well I’ve already been through this before it should not take quite as long. I have a better graps of Python because of Zope, but the learning curve for Django is steeper than I expected. Also Django is advertised as something you can use to throw a robust website together in mere hours. It’s ready to rock and roll out of the box.

It’s probably just me. Once I figure out Django and get rocking with it I’ll be able to look at other web host providers. The one I’m using is decent but doesn’t support newer versions of Python or Python processes. Also, I’ll be able to get away from PHP. WordPress is awesome and keeps getting better. I think in the long run I’ll be better of with a Python solution but none of the Python based solutions are ready for prime time. At least not for me.

I still have high hopes for Django, but I can always fall back on Plone though Plone is a little heavier duty than I really need.