December 10, 2006

Retrospective term extension

The day after the Gowers Review issued perhaps the most sensible document about IP produced by a government related entity in the 20th or 21st century — the report, remember, that after a careful review of the evidence, concluded that as a matter of principle, the copyright term of existing works should never be extended — 4,000 artists signed an advertisement in the FT calling for “fair play for musicians” by extending the copyright term for recordings from 50 to 95 years. As CNN reports,
Without a change in the law, the catalogue of McCartney’s Beatles could be up for grabs from 2012 and 2013, including early hits like “Love Me Do” and “I Want To Hold Your Hand”.

What they don'y tell you is that, if you read the list, you’ll see that at least some of these artists are apparently dead (e.g. Lonnie Donegan, died 4th November 2002; Freddie Garrity, died 20th May 2006).

Yes, they're lying to you. Read more about it here.

December 05, 2006

The Free Ryzom Campaign


Ryzom is a Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG) developed by the French company Nevrax. It is based on the NeL game engine (also from Nevrax), which is GPL'd already.

As "due to market conditions and other unforseen cirucumstances, a request to begin bankruptcy proceedings has been filed at the commerce tribunal", the Free Ryzom Campaign has formed with the aim to buy the source code and game data and release it under the GPL:

Help us make Ryzom a Free MMORPG! Donate now to help us purchase the source code, artwork and other game data associated with Ryzom, so we can breathe new life into it as an open, democratically run player project.

They've even set up a Social Contract (modeled after the Debian Social Contract) which states among other things that "Ryzom and all materials produced by the Free Ryzom Project will become and remain 100% Free Software".

If you want to support the project, you can make a donation pledge (used to convince the official presiding over the liquidation process). No real donations are possible at the moment.

More info/material on the game:

I'm looking forward to the day where I can apt-get install ryzom and play a fully free MMORG...



(via Uwe H.)

December 04, 2006

Tick


Tic, Tac, Tic, Tac...
I look to the void
Tic, Tac, Tic, Tac...
Still void
Tic, Tac, Tic, Tac...
Nothing yet
Tic, Tac, Tic, Tac...
Something's missing
Tic, Tac, Tic, Tac...
Void
Tic, Tac, Tic, Tac...
black
Tic, Tac, Tic, Tac...
The clock keeps
Tic, Tac, Tic, Tac...
moving
Tic, Tac, Tic, Tac...
I look to the void
Tic, Tac, Tic, Tac...
Something's missing
Tic, Tac, Tic, Tac...
Who's there?
Tic, Tac, Tic, Tac...
Void.