Matt Read, Weblog

So I received a response from the NDP regarding Bill C-11. Basically it is a Canadian version of the American's DMCA. Should this bill pass it would make me a pirate for copying all my CD's into FLAC files on my computer; Not only that, but anyone who circumvented "digital locks" to make copies for personal use would be breaking the law.

So on Linux watching a DVD using the free decoding libraries (libdvdcss2) you would be performing a criminal act. Many of you don't know this, but if you watch a DVD on your computer you paid royalties to the movie industry to do so when you bought your DVD player software. Furthermore, if you use free ones, like VLC, you would now be breaking the law and would be prosecuted in Criminal Court.

It's good to see at least the NDP is taking a stance against this specific part of the Bill, and is actually, it seams, listening to the people. Too bad they form a minority in the House of Commons. Here is their response:

Thank you for taking the time to write regarding Bill C-11, An Act to amend the Copyright Act. We appreciate having the benefit of your comments and the opportunity to let you know more about our work on a number of these legislative concerns.

New Democrats want updated copyright laws to balance the rights of artists, consumers and rights-holders. We believe that Canada needs effective legislation to ensure artists’ royalties are protected; long-distance education opportunities aren’t hindered; and that young people aren’t subject to unfair, expensive fines.

That’s why we will not be supporting Bill C-11 unless the government is willing to amend the digital lock provisions and restore royalty provisions for artists. The blanket provisions for digital locks will allow corporate interests to decide what legal rights you may or may not exercise. This unbalanced approach will ultimately hurt artists, educators and consumers.

New Democrats also think that it is time to strike a balance in Canada’s copyright law that will properly recognize the cultural community for its valuable contributions to our society. Going forward, we will continue to work hard to improve this bill and press the Harper government to adopt the best copyright laws for the 21st century.

Please find below a letter from NDP Copyright and Digital Issues critic Charlie Angus that further explains our position on Bill C-11.

Again, thank you for taking the time to register your views.

Sincerely,

Nycole Turmel, M.P.
Interim Leader of the Official Opposition
New Democratic Party of Canada

Charlie Angus, M.P.
NDP Copyright and Digital Issues Critic

So my cousin has got his new blog up and running. It's a new site about his life as a Dad. He definately does more blogging than me, so I thought I would link him a bit. He's going to be doing reviews and giveaways. Apparently he's got some products coming up, for free, to review then give away. There is already a chance to win a $25 Gift Certificate from Marks.

It's looking to be a good read, so head over and give him some traffic, eh?

Back in the day when I used to use Firefox, I fell in love with the Tomfox extension. It allowed you to create a new Tomboy note using the currently selected text of the webpage you were browsing, using the title for the title of the note and referencing the url as the source. This was great for me to document all the code and Linux commands I'd find scattered around the net.

Eventually, though, I got tired of Firefox, especially it's load times, and switched to Chromium. You guessed it, Chromium sucked too. So back to Epiphany I went, and with the 2.30 version it is really quite a nice little browser.

Epiphany extensions are now done with Seed, the GTK javascript bindings, making it really easy to write new extensions. Plus, it has almost a complete GTK implementation via GObject Introspection. So getting my tomboy note maker dohicky back was really not that hard --aside from the lack of documentation .

And thus, Ephyboy is born. It's really quite simple:

1. Download the tarball, or zip.
2. Install the extension.
3. Enable the extension (no restart required!).
4. Select some text to add in your note.
5. Hit CTRL+Shift+B; Or, add the Tomboy Note button to the toolbar and click the button.

The extension will then create your note and open your note in Tomboy for review and/or further editing.

There is one thing to note. The extension works by making a DBus call to Tomboy to create the note so you have to have Tomboy open and connected to the bus for this to work. Usually not a problem as I have Tomboy start on log in.

Version 3.0 of my theme, Oceanus, is now live. This time I went all out space age with CSS fonts and CSS text effects, like text-shadow and opacity. Inspired mostly by Chris J. Davis.

I also went for HTML5, which, obviously, required a little MSIE hack. I found the semantics of HTML5 well thought out; Can't wait till it becomes reality, especially the audio/video stuff. Goodbye Flash!

You'll notice the pinstripe background, which may make it harder to read, but this time I went for beauty over usability. Yes, I committed a sin, don't hate me please. I've played with some transparent containers for the content, but I think it looks better as is. Although, I still have a fluid layout and flexible font sizes.

I've also implemented a "notification area" at the top. Logged out, you will see the extra panes that include the less used stuff, that I would call clutter. Logged in, some additional things appear, like alerts for when you have comments awaiting moderation, etc. Sort of an admin bar built in.

When I get all the code sorted out, and the options pages going, I plan on releasing this revision of the theme. But don't hold your breath.

I apologize for this, but thought it would be fun. I hacked my own site! I must be good! I did this using an exploit found in a plugin for Habari. I plan on fixing this plugin very soon. If you are worried use my Contact Form to contact me about it, and I'll let you know which plugin it is. Even better, if you feel like fixing something, let me know and you can fix it for me .

Update 2: This has now been fixed in the AutoSave plugin. The exploit could allow any cracker to post to the vulnerable site without being an authenticated user. So if any anyone is using AutoSave, you should update now.