Michael Polák ( )
Přečteno 171191x, 25 komentářů, rubrika: (en) Archive

Well, many people think that Jon Johansen, author of DeCSS utility, which lets you to play DVD on any platform including Linux, and later to compress them on conventional CD-ROM using DivX, is very close to becoming real hero of all hackers and crackers...

Article in Wired News mentions many interesting facts, including the one, that police has seized all electronic devices owned by Jon Johansen, including his cellphone charger - well, this is the only piece of equipment that police has already returned to him ;-).

If you are looking for some hero-hacker to admire, Jon Johansen will definitely fit your needs ;-) And I think it is ok: what he has done is really intellectual challenge for entire civilisation, not a crime.

Now, e-zine 2600 is going to be sued by Hollywood for spreading the source code of DeCSS utility. Electronic Frontier Foundation is going pay legal fees for 2600.

Now, let me explain what is my personal definition of intellectual property piracy: it is activity, when you make unfair profit selling copies of certain information, with profit ending in your own pocket. Consumer of the information pays some money, but the original author of the information doesn't get reqrded. This is what is real music, movie or software piracy, and I don't feel very sorry for people who pirate information for profit.

The story of MP3 files, DVD hacks, Napster, Scour, Gnutella, Freenet, etc. is VERY DIFFERENT. What they do, is free transfer of information. Compared to them, all the recording and entertainment industry are pirates themselves! Internet is chance for artists to distribute their work independently all over the world - no "entertainment industry" will be needed anymore, everyone will be allowed to become a "hero just for one day". World doesn't really need any superstars making bazillions of dollars, and hackers are just catalysing this change...

Ok - I don't think, that from a long term view, unauthorized access and copying of information, which was designed just to entertain masses, is big deal. We should rather concentrate on ways how to compete Holywood, rather then pirate it - find some ways, how to support independent artists, and make their work available on Internet perfectly legally and with their permission. Arachne Labs already started certain project for independent Czech musicians, which is planning to distribute income from advertising banners to those artists, who have induced it. It is in very early phase of development now, but it cannot really fail - it is not dependent on venture capital or money from stock exchange. We cannot really fail or bankrupt - we can just get better...

Personaly, I appreciate what people like Jon Johansen are doing - but you can damage big corporations even more, if you show everyone, how these corporations are in fact weak, stupid, useless and incapable of real inovation: this is what Linus Thorvalds managed to do with Linux, and Richard Stallman with GNU C compiler. They haven't pirated existing software - their wrote their own. Now, I am waiting for independent application software programmers, musicians, book writers and film makers to find some way how to follow them... watching Hollywoods moovies on computer screen is cool, but what about trying to make your own movie and offer it for download ?

I have certain ideas about what is going to be done by someone. Let's say, that special computer tricks used to require very expensive equipment, which no independent artist could afford. But think about distributed computing - forget about RC5 crack, look at Popular Power for more contemporary example. Using distributed network rendering, internet movie makers can create just unlimited special effects... and again, movie making team can be spreaded all over the world, which can result in scenes of different exotic landscapes to appear in the movie, without need for anyone to travel just a single mile. Internet allows such powerful concepts as homeworking, and no corporation, forcing their employees to go to the work every day, can really compete this. BTW, if you are interested in making such global movie, you can write me an e-mail (but I will not have enough time or equipment to participate in such project until end of this year). BTW, Arachne Labs all already funding simillar project, Radio 16, which allows many different home studios from all over the Czech Republic (but theoreticaly all over the world) to become temporary sources of single, permanent MP3 stream, with permanent address for end listeners, permanent homepage, etc. This gives us chance to offer acutally much better content, than old-fashioned centralized studios. The effect is reverse to classical media: they spreaded information from single central point to many targets. Our new media won't have any central source: they will rather result in democratic distributon of broadcasting time among anyone willing to broadcast.

I am going to post also comment about latest plans of Microsoft to deploy their Microsoft.NET. Latest news resembles George Orwell's "1984" vision - cameras connected to Microsoft.NET will watch all your actions ;-) I am going to post separate articles with some links.