infokiosk.dk

The wonder that is APG

2005-04-13T07:49:00.000-07:00

So.. Some days have passed, and I thought it was about time to make an update.
Yesterday the danish APG ( anti-pirate-group ) announced that they were sending out 200 letters with settlement offers to pirates from different networks. Worst case scenario is that 200 lives are shattered for a long time forward.
In my own humble way I did what I encourage all other concerned people to do. Donate money for www.piratgruppen.org
This organization is the accouseds best chance for getting some much needed help. It isn´t much, but I have begun sending them 100 kr pr month.
How I wish that the record-industry didn´t take this completely absurd aproach to saving their own way of buissness, and instead tried to renew themselves and keep up with the development of today.. for the better of all of us.
I couldn´t help laughing a little when I heard that APG claimed that they could see a decrease in the activity on p2p networks... Just MAYBE people are using other, more secure ways to get what they want, or just MAYBE it is a false calim, to justify their existence.
BTW, what we all have known for a long time, that their methods are absurd, and maybe even unlawfull, have been proven.
The essence of the story is that one of the lawyers who are in APG has been convicted of "Bypassing ordinary attourney conduct". As if it comes to a surprise to anyone who knows how they conduct their work

In other news today.
I can see that I am behind on my reading, work is taking alot of my time, but I am slowly working my way through "Code, and other laws of cyberspace" by Lawrence Lessig.

He just published an interesting link to a rapport by the OECD here
http://www.lessig.org/blog/
I have only had time to scim it, but I will get it read as soon as I get thee chance.

Im going political

2005-04-04T23:25:00.000-07:00

I would be lying if I thought that I would make much of an impact, but as more and more things are rubbing me the wrong way here in Denmark, I decided to join a political parti. I recieved the papers yesterday so I guess that I am now officially a member of a political parti. I spent some time looking into our danish partis political agendas, and decided that "Det radikale venstre" was the closest to my oppinions. This was decided from a broader overview, and not just form their oppinions concerning the matters I write about here.

I still spend alot of time scouring the net for information concerning MGM vs Grokster, Lawrence Lessig ( I recently learned he visited Denmark last year... Sadly I hadn´t opened my eyes to this cause back them. Damn I would have wanted to see him, thankfully the seance was taped and put online ) , Sony vs. Universal Studios aka the Betamax case.
I highly recommend checking out http://www.eff.org/ I am constantly amazed how much information is on this page. It´s a must to spend some time on it. It's huge, and therefore somewhat confusing at first, but give it time, and you will be richly rewarded.

My next hunt is for more information about what happened in regards with Bendt Bendtsen at the ministrial meeting a while back. Something definitly went wrong at the meeting, and Bendt Bendtsens actions where less than satisfactory, but something is bugging me about it.. I must know more 8) ... Thank god for the human couriosity.

And now for something completely different. I can definitly recommend an american series called "Lost". I have seen the first 11 episodes now, and they just grab you. I can´t wait to see the next episodes.
The plot is somewhat straightforward. A plane crashes on an tropical, deserted island. 48 people survive, and we follow them on the island.
The island, however, seems to hold many mysteries. There are polar bears, something big and nasty and a bunch of other strange things. It is extremely rare that I find a series that I wish to follow, but this one has that extra "something". so go on, check it out.

GuyB

My sources of information

2005-03-31T22:42:00.000-08:00

I gather my information from a large number of sites. The most inportant have been added to the right.
I will however list the ones I can remember here

http://www.infokiosk.dk/sw9430.asp Homepage for our danish ministry of culture

http://www.eff.org/ . The electronic frontier foundation, as described by themselves, is a nonprofit group of passionate people — lawyers, technologists, volunteers, and visionaries — working to protect your digital rights. The site is truly huge and incredibly informative

http://piratgruppen.org/ Danish organisation fighting for freedom in the digital world. Pretty big site with lots of information

http://slashdot.org/ A good newssite for people like me 8)

http://newz.dk/ Danish version of slashdot.org

http://www.copyright.gov/legislation/dmca.pdf For you americans, this is how things are at your home

http://techlawadvisor.com/induce/2005/03/dmcra-reintroduced.html The digital millennium copyright act(DMCA), has had an initiative taken against it. This blog follows the digital media comsumers rights act (DMCRA)

http://www.house.gov/boucher/internet.htm An american politician with some sound points of view, as far as I can tell. ( is still in the process of reading up on all the info on the site )

http://www.lessig.org/ Lawrence Lessig is an american lawyer and author. I can highly recommend his books. He is truly inspirational

There are many more but I will post interesting links when I stumble upon them.

Furthermore old Google is a trusty ally.
On rare occasions the daily press is also a source of information. I really find it to be a dreadful shame that so little time and effort is given by the press to cover all these events. It´s as if they aren´t aware of that anything is going on.
-- My best guess is that these controversies hasn´t reached the "common folk", so they wouldn´t care much for hearing about it, and when people don´t care, the press doesn´t care..
alas, that´s the way things are.

First info

2005-03-31T13:19:00.000-08:00

Sometimes people just need to put thoughts down in writing, and what better place to do this, than in a blog.

Hi. My name is Christian

A long time ago the world was wonderful.
While I was a kid, I sometimes taped music from the radio, and with my VCR I got some cool movies from the few danish channels.
Back then I didn´t know, or give a damn, about laws, copyright, p2p ect..
Partly because I was 11, and partly because those legislations and inventions didn´t influence my thinking..
That was then, and this is now.
I am 24 and since then I have grown up. The things that didn´t mean anything to me back then have now become an overwhelming interest. My interest in these fields doesn´t come from any particular event, it has just magically appeared. Today I spend a great deal of my free time reading litterature on these particular matters, follow current events and pull my hair out of my head in anger of the course that society is taking in these particular fields....

I could start this by saying that I am thankful that I live in Denmark, and not America where things are even worse than here, but I won´t. Maybe things are worse in gods own country, but to my dismay I find it to be a matter of time before things are equally bad here. ..

Bare with me, while I complain a little:

I live in a country where the ministry of culture is using the Anti-Pirate-Group aka APG( RIAA to you ) to create an "informative" folder to teach young people about the rights and wrongs about p2p, copyright ect. Unfortunately the "informative" folder is one big propaganda for the industry, and neglects to mention anything about alternatives like creative commons, copyleft and the likes. Rather it paints a picture of the record industry as the only solution to bring entertainment for the masses and labels pirates as foul people with no moral.. I am sad to live in a country where lobbyist organisations has so big an influence over laws and information. ( My views on piracy will be greatly expanded upon later )

I live in a country where a representative is sent to a meeting in the european minister counsil with a single message, chosen by a majority of our parlaiment, to remove the current proporsition for software-patents from the A-list ( If a new proporsition is on the A-list it will require a unanimous EU-parlaiment to throw the proporsition away, and the time until it will take affect will greatly decrease ) and demand is placed on the B-list ( which would pospone it for a long time, and maybe even get it rewritten/removed ), give a damn about his duty, and let it pass on to the A-list just because his own party is for this proporsition. I have both heard audio from the meeting, and read a transcript from it and there isn´t any doubt to me. That man shouldn´t be in politics.. . .. Apparently my country doesn´t agree with me since he didn´t even get a slap on the wrist for neglecting his dutyes.

All in all the way things are going fills me with dismay.