Good Grief, Charlie Brown! Peanutweeter Brings Peanuts Together with Twitter
From Angela Watercutte on WIRED’s Underwire:
Everyone has at least one funny person they follow on Twitter just for the lulz, but sometimes the things they say would be even more laughable if they weren’t constantly spewing from the same avatar.
Peanutweeter changes that. The @Peanutweeter Tumblr blog and Twitter feed fulfill a very simple idea: Matching somewhat random Twitter posts with less-random Peanuts comics. The results are hilarious.
“The site arose from the concept that the amusing and sometimes outrageous tweets out there would be even funnier or sometimes darker if they came from someone that everyone could identify with,” site creator T. Jason Agnello told Wired.com by e-mail.
Dancing at the Memorial of a Slave Owner
Photo: Prisonblues (CC)
Saturday, around 50 people held a demonstration through dance at the Jefferson Memorial in southern Washington, D.C., which overlooks the Potomac River. Over 2,000 people had testified on Facebook that they would show up, but these testimonials apparently turned out to be the Internet’s letting off steam.
A week before, U.S. Park Police arrested five protesters for silently dancing in the memorial, which they did in response to the April 12, 2008 arrest of Mary Oberwetter, a 28-year-old D.C. resident, who was eventually charged with “interfering with agency functions.”
The video of recent arrests received in its first 24 hours well over 100,00 views and, at the time of this writing, nearly 900,000. Russia Today journalist and 2010 House Candidate Adam Kokesh, a self-described Ron Paul Republican, found himself thrown to the ground and, briefly, even choked, last weekend for dancing, as he said, in celebration of the principles of…
Crikey! Aussies To Be Fined For Swearing
What the f*#^? The Sydney Morning Herald reports:
Australians may have a love of plain speaking but new laws are set to curtail some of their more colourful language with police issuing on-the-spot fines for obnoxious swearing.
The country’s second most populous state Victoria is due to approve new legislation this week under which police will be able to slap fines of up to Aus$240 (US$257) on people using offensive words or phrases.
Victorian Attorney-General Robert Clark said the penalties, similar to those issued for speeding or parking illegally, would free up police time.
“This will give the police the tools they need to be able to act against this sort of obnoxious behaviour on the spot, rather than having to drag offenders off to court and take up time and money in proceedings,” he said.
But even the state’s top lawyer admitted to swearing sometimes. “Occasionally I mutter things under my breath as probably everybody…
The Government’s War on Cameras (Video)
Via Reason TV:
Who will watch the watchers? In a world of ubiquitous, hand-held digital cameras, that’s not an abstract philosophical question. Police everywhere are cracking down on citizens using cameras to capture breaking news and law enforcement in action.
In 2009, police arrested blogger and freelance photographer Antonio Musumeci on the steps of a New York federal courthouse. His alleged crime? Unauthorized photography on federal property.
Police cuffed and arrested Musumeci, ultimately issuing him a citation. With the help of the New York Civil Liberties Union, he forced a settlement in which the federal government agreed to issue a memo acknowledging that it is totally legal to film or photograph on federal property.
Although the legal right to film on federal property now seems to be firmly established, many other questions about public photography still remain and place journalists and citizens in harm’s way. Can you record a police encounter? Can you film on city or state property? What are a photographer’s rights in so-called public spaces?
The Pirate Bay: ‘The Battle of Internets is About to Begin’
Ernesto writes on TorrentFreak:
Talks on implementing a Europe-wide firewall to censor and block ‘illicit’ websites has caused concern among many Internet users in recent weeks, and today one of the targeted sites has joined the discussion. Quoting one of Churchill’s most famous speeches, The Pirate Bay team is rallying the public to defend the free Internet and end the threat posed by the entertainment industries’ copyright lobby.
In February, a secret meeting of the European Union’s Law Enforcement Work Party (LEWP) resulted in a worrying proposal.
To deal with illicit sites on the Internet, the group suggested the adoption of a China-like firewall to block websites deemed ‘inappropriate’. The controversial proposal immediately met resistance from various sides, including ISPs who would be tasked with maintaining the blocklist. The copyright lobby on the other hand welcomes the initiative which they’ve been suggesting for years.
One of the sites that has a fair share of experience…
Freedom of Information Act Does Not Apply to ‘Known Anarchists’
Photo: Kashfi Halford (CC)
Site editor’s note: This post from D.J. Pangburn originally appeared on death + taxes.
Mo Karn, alias of a ‘known anarchist,’ filed a Freedom of Information Act requrest with the Richmond, Virginia police. The department delivered the documents, now they want them back.
Karn (a member of Richmond Copwatch) and others filed under the Freedom of Information Act to learn police procedures during protests, so that they could better plan and coordinate their efforts in direct action. According to Karn’s (she is a member of the anarchist collective The Wingnut), the group “wanted to get copies of the police protocols so we could know when the police are breaking their own rules.”
Perfectly legal, it would seem. We should all know when police are breaking their own rules or the law.
However, the documents weren’t merely standard police protocols but homeland security and crowd control guides. Essentially a how-to manual on how…
Public Domain Works In 2011: What Could Have Been?
In the spirit of the Disinfo film RIP! A Remix Manifesto, the Center for the Study of the Public Domain goes dreaming and takes a look at classic works which would be entering the public domain in 2011, but for the passing of 1976’s restrictive Copyright Act. Among the cultural items to become freely available for quoting, remixing, and all other use would be books such as Waiting for Godot and Lord of the Flies, movies including On the Waterfront and Rear View Window, and the songs ‘Mr. Sandman’ and ‘Mambo Italiano.’
Current US law extends copyright protections for 70 years from the date of the author’s death. But prior to the 1976 Copyright Act (which became effective in 1978), the maximum copyright term was 56 years (an initial term of 28 years, renewable for another 28 years).
YouTube Removes Pro-Palestinian/Anti-Motorola Video
Via River Front Times (YES, on YouTube while this post lasts…)
Two weeks ago, we told you about the local activists who busted out an anti-Motorola song-and-dance routine at the Best Buy and AT&T stores in suburban Brentwood — and we posted a video of the performance. That video quickly drew more than 35,000 hits:
The Best 40 Free Movies You Can Download Legally Online
An Australian technology blog has collected a list of 40 of the best free movies that have fallen into the public domain and are available online.
There’s two Christmas classics — a 1935 version of A Christmas Carol and Frank Capra’s Meet John Doe — plus Orson Welles’ “The Stranger,” and four Alfred Hitchcock movies. And you can also watch William Shatner’s legendary anti-racism film for Roger Corman, several Vincent Price classics and the original “Night of the Living Dead.”
These aren’t video clips, but entire movies, including one about a bank robbery that stars Johnny Cash. And if you want something even more offbeat, try the 1970s TV movie “Rescue from Gilligan’s Island” or — for Christmas — “Santa Conquers the Martians.”
Download Girl Talk’s New Album and ‘Rip: A Remix Manifesto’
All Day, the fourth album by mashup maestro Girl Talk, is his first album in two-plus years, and it’s available as a free download from his label’s official link. Fans should also check out Brett Gaylor’s mashup documentary Rip: A Remix Manifesto, which you can pay what you want to download.
South Park Sued For ‘What What (In The Butt)’ Parody
You have to love the way that Trey Parker and Matt Stone keep getting themselves into legal trouble for the scripts of South Park. Keep up the good work gentlemen! From the Hollywood Reporter:
Less than a month after South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker were forced to apologize for lifting material for a spoof of Inception from the website CollegeHumor, the show is again facing accusations of content theft. The producers of the animated hit, including Viacom and Comedy Central, are being sued for allegedly ripping off a copyrighted music video for the viral phenomenon What What (In the Butt).
The video was produced by Brownmark Films based on a song by Samwell. Released in 2007, it became a massive hit and was featured on PerezHilton.com and VH1’s Best Week Ever, and has been downloaded over 33 million times on YouTube. According to the site, it’s one of the…
Set Music Free: Orchestra to Record Copyright-Free Classical Music
An online music site has raised over $68,000 to hire a full orchestra to record royalty-free classical music. (”Although the actual symphonies are long out of copyright, there is separate protection for every individual performance by an orchestra,” notes one technology site.”)
MusOpen has reached their fundraising goal for both the orchestra and a recording facility, and will now record the complete symphonies of Beethoven, Brahms, Sibelius and Tchaikovsky. For every additional $1,000 raised, they’ve promised to add additional recordings.
TorrentReactor Buys and Renames Russian Town
Hard to believe this? Ernesto writes on TorrentFreak:
TorrentReactor, listed among the five most popular torrent sites on the Internet, has surprised friends and foes by acquiring a small town in central Russia. The town formerly known as Gar has reportedly been bought for the equivalent of $148,000 and was quickly renamed after the Russian-based torrent site.
The last time a torrent site attempted to buy some land, the plan miserably failed. Early 2007 The Pirate Bay launched its ‘Buy Sealand” campaign. The plan was to raise enough money so they could buy the micronation of Sealand and offer “high-speed Internet access, no copyright laws and VIP accounts to The Pirate Bay.”
Within a few weeks the campaign raised some $20,000 from potential citizens, but this wasn’t enough. Sealand turned out not to be an option as it was prized at 750 million euros, which equals to nearly one billion US dollars. Other…
Forgotten Verses From “This Land is Your Land”
In 2005, I published a book with Disinformation called 50 American Revolutions You’re Not Supposed To Know: Reclaiming American Patriotism.
Hope you like what you read, for more about me, please check out my blog at www.mickeyz.net.
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If you were to open your mouth and belt out the words “this land is your land,” you could rest assured that someone nearby would add: “this land is my land.” The chorus to Woody Guthrie’s 1940 classic is common knowledge … as are the first couple of verses.
But it isn’t until you get to the later verses — the verses often omitted from official versions — that you start comprehendin’ what good ol’ Woody (1912–1967) had in mind:
As I was walkin’ I saw a sign there
And that sign said “No tresspassin’”
But on the other side, it didn’t say nothin’
Now that side was made for you and me
In the squares of the city / In the…
FCC Gives Hollywood The Right To Break Your TV/DVR … Just ‘Cause
It is always disheartening when something is made illegal because you could do something naughty with it. Techdirt reports:
Photo: Mattl (CC)
For a couple years now, the MPAA has been asking the FCC to break your TV/DVR, and let them effectively put a type of DRM (by enabling “Selectable Output Control” or SOC) on video content, such that you will not be able to access the content via third party devices, such as your DVR or your Slingbox. Effectively, they want to break the ability of your equipment to work. You wouldn’t be able to legally record the movie that was playing on your TV. The MPAA’s argument here makes absolutely no sense at all — and when they’re called on it, the doubletalk comes out.
The MPAA’s argument is that if it could block people from recording movies, they could release the movies on things like PPV before they release them on…
‘Internet Enforcement’ Copyright Treaty Leaks Online
Cory Doctorow writes on BoingBoing:
Someone has uploaded a PDF to a Google Group that is claimed to be the proposal for Internet copyright enforcement that the USA has put forward for ACTA, the secret copyright treaty whose seventh round of negotiations just concluded in Guadalajara, Mexico.
This reads like it probably is genuine treaty language, and if it is the real US proposal, it is the first time that this material has ever been visible to the public. According to my source, the US proposal is the current version of the treaty as of the conclusion of the Mexico round.
I’ve read it through a few times and it reads a lot like DMCA-plus. It contains, for example, a duty to technology firms to shut down infringement where they have “actual knowledge” that such is taking place.
This argument was put forward in the Grokster case, and as Fred von Lohmann argued then, this is…
What Could Have Been Entering the Public Domain on January 1, 2010?
At right, the cover for the first edition of Ian Fleming’s Casino Royale, which featured the first appearance of that martini-drinking secret agent with a license to kill. (Photo gallery of Casino Royale’s various covers found on the Guardian). Here’s an excellent essay from Duke University’s Center for the Study of the Public Domain:
Casino Royale, Marilyn Monroe’s Playboy cover, The Adventures of Augie March, the Golden Age of Science Fiction, Crick & Watson’s Nature article decoding the double helix, Disney’s Peter Pan, The Crucible…
Current US law extends copyright protections for 70 years from the date of the author’s death. (Corporate “works-for-hire” are copyrighted for 95 years.) But prior to the 1976 Copyright Act (which became effective in 1978), the maximum copyright term was 56 years (an initial term of 28 years, renewable for another 28 years). Under those laws, works published in 1953 would be passing into the public domain on January 1, 2010.
What might you be able to read or print online, quote as much as you want, or translate, republish or make a play or a movie from? How about Casino Royale, Ian Fleming’s first James Bond novel? Fleming published Casino Royale in 1953. If we were still under the copyright laws that were in effect until 1978, Casino Royale would be entering the public domain on January 1, 2010 (even assuming that Fleming had renewed the copyright). Under current copyright law, we’ll have to wait until 2049. This is because the copyright term for works published between 1950 and 1963 was extended to 95 years from the date of publication, so long as the works were published with a copyright notice and the term renewed (which is generally the case with famous works such as this). All of these works from 1953 will enter the public domain in 2049.
