Now You Have Two Ways To Go Blind … Lazer Tits!
According to the movers & shakers of the internets, this is the new trend sweeping the web …
You are forewarned, I am not responsible for blindness resulting from viewing of these (many NSFW) pics. LazerTits says:
For centuries the female bosom has been wrongfully held in the prison of maternal duty and manboy motor-boating … It’s time to get ZAPPED!!!!
What will YOU say when your kids ask where you were during the revolution? Don’t burn your bra, BLAST IT!!!
Could Hitler Serve in the United States Senate?
Here’s what Hitler would look like minus his mustache and with a flag lapel pin added: basically, ready to sit in Congress next to Orrin Hatch.
Fear And Loathing On Sesame Street
Poor Count … One, two, three … via All That’s Interesting:
We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. I remember saying something like “I feel a bit lightheaded; maybe you should drive…” And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and diving around the car, which was going about a hundred miles an hour with the top down to Las Vegas. And a voice was screaming: “Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?”
— Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Glenn Beck Creates His Own Shepard Fairey-Inspired Obama ‘Hope’ Poster, Featuring…
Hmm … I tend to think this particular Founding Father would NOT be happy with Glenn Beck using his image … but he’s been dead for a long time. I bring that up for legal reasons, because helps to define what we call the “public domain.”
So actually, even though Shepard Fairey’s Obama art is legally problematic, I do wonder if Beck can do this under “fair use.”
Legal scholars, your opinion is welcome. (And those who have something to say about Glenn Beck…)
P.S. Glenn Beck “paints”?!?
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.
100 Years of Big Content Fearing Technology — In Its Own Words
This is a great article on ars technica from Nate Anderson:
It’s almost a truism in the tech world that copyright owners reflexively oppose new inventions that do (or might) disrupt existing business models. But how many techies actually know what rightsholders have said and written for the last hundred years on the subject?
The anxious rhetoric around new technology is really quite shocking in its vehemence, from claims that the player piano will destroy musical taste and the “national throat” to concerns that the VCR is like the “Boston strangler” to claims that only Hollywood’s premier content could make the DTV transition a success. Most of it turned out to be absurd hyperbole, but it’s interesting to see just how consistent the words and the fears remain across more than a century…
Shepard Fairey Responds To The AP: Yes, I Lied. But It Was Still Fair Use.
Jason Kincaid writes on TechCrunch:
We reached out to Shepard Fairey about the AP’s release this evening claiming that he had admitted lying about which image he used as the source image for his iconic Hope poster. He sent us a response (reproduced below), which effectively confirms what the AP says.
Tonight’s admission focuses on the photo that Fairey originally claimed to use during his creation of the ‘Hope’ poster — he claimed to use an image other than the one the AP claims to own, and then lied and deleted evidence when he realized he was wrong. Both were taken at the same press event. The one Fairey originally said he used showed Obama next to George Clooney, the one he really used was a close-up. The AP has succeeded in character…
Blow-Up Over Artist’s Blow-Up of Obama Stipple Drawing
David Kravets writes in Wired’s Threat Level:
Pablo Picasso once said, “Good artists copy, great artists steal.”
But Wall Street Journal illustrator Noli Novak says Spanish artist Jose Maria Cano engaged in outright plagiarism in producing a large painting that meticulously duplicates Novak’s stipple portrait of President Barack Obama, including the surrounding text that ran on the front page of the Journal last year.
Jose Maria Cano’s giant hand-painted copy of Noli Novak’s Obama drawing “He copied it dot by dot,” Novak said.
Cano, who could not be reached for comment, has produced an entire series of paintings copied from the Journal’s signature stipple portraiture — all of them several times larger than the newspaper clippings from which they’re derived.
In a Tuesday blog post accusing Cano of misappropriation, Novak wrote that the attorneys for the Journal —…
‘2012′ Remixed As A ’70s Exploitation Flix
Garrison Dean writes on io9.com:
Every so often I feel a film is just being marketed poorly. This is often laziness and misdirection on their part. Occasionally it is arrogance when they think there is more to their film than is actually there. So, in my own arrogance, I try to help them along. Last year I felt Hulk needed some help. Today my mission is one that blends swimmingly with my own love of Disaster.
Shatner/Beatles Mashup: Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds
As a Beatles fan, did read earlier in the week on the passing of Lucy Vodden at age 46, the inspiration behind the classic song.
If William Shatner had a chance to perform with the Fab Four, I hope Lucy would enjoy this:
