Author: Carsten Agger

Hvem ejer din iPhone og din computer?

Det gør du selv, mener du måske (hvis du har nogen af disse ting). Men balladen omkring Amazons Kindle-læser viser, at det måske ikke lige præcis er dig der ejer disse ting i den forstand, at det er dig, der bestemmer, hvordan du kan bruge dem eller hvilke ting, du må have på dem. Farhad Manjoo beskriver situationen i en artikel i Slate:

The worst thing about this story isn’t Amazon’s conduct; it’s the company’s technical capabilities. Now we know that Amazon can delete anything it wants from your electronic reader. That’s an awesome power, and Amazon’s justification in this instance is beside the point. As our media libraries get converted to 1’s and 0’s, we are at risk of losing what we take for granted today: full ownership of our book and music and movie collections.

Most of the e-books, videos, video games, and mobile apps that we buy these days day aren’t really ours. They come to us with digital strings that stretch back to a single decider—Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, or whomever else. Steve Jobs has confirmed that every iPhone routinely checks back with Apple to make sure the apps you’ve purchased are still kosher; Apple reserves the right to kill any app at any time for any reason. But why stop there? If Apple or Amazon can decide to delete stuff you’ve bought, then surely a court—or, to channel Orwell, perhaps even a totalitarian regime—could force them to do the same. Like a lot of others, I’ve predicted the Kindle is the future of publishing. Now we know what the future of book banning looks like, too.[…]

In The Future of the Internet and How To Stop It, Harvard law professor Jonathan Zittrain argues that such “tethered” appliances give the government unprecedented power to reach into our homes and change how our devices function. In 2004, TiVo sued Echostar (which runs Dish Network) for giving its customers DVR set-top boxes that TiVo alleged infringed on its software patents. A federal district judge agreed. As a remedy, the judge didn’t simply force Dish to stop selling new devices containing the infringing software—the judge also ordered Dish to electronically disable the 192,000 devices that it had already installed in people’s homes. (An appeals court later stayed the order; the legal battle is ongoing.) In 2001, a company called Playmedia sued AOL for including a version of the company’s MP3 player in its software. A federal court agreed and ordered AOL to remove Playmedia’s software from its customers’ computers through a “live update.”

Mine fremhævelser. Modtræk? Nægte at bruge apparater og medier, der anvender nogen form for kopibeskyttelse, også når man sælger e-bøger og online-film. Insistere på, at alt skal kunne håndteres ved hjælp af fri software. Boycot iPhones og brug Android og andre GNU/Linux-baserede telefoner i stedet.  Afvis tanken om, at producenten skal bestemme, hvad man kan gøre ved eller have liggende på sine egne ting.

Link: Why 2024 will be like Nineteen Eighty Four

Kommentarforfalskning

I går var der en ukendt kommentator, der i denne tråd indsendte en falsk kommentar,  idet kommentaren gav sig ud for at være skrevet af pastor emeritus Ricardt Riis.

I virkeligheden var kommentaren ikke lagt på af Riis selv, men af en mig ukendt person, der havde sakset et indlæg fra Kristeligt Dagblads religionsblog, der også rummede en kommentar til Alaa al-Aswanys bidrag til debatten om Vesten og islam.

Jeg vil gerne understrege, at vi her på bloggen ser alvorligt på, at man skriver falske kommentarer i andre menneskers navn. I det her tilfælde gjorde den anonyme forfalsker Riis en bjørnetjeneste, fordi indlægget forholdt sig til ting, der ikke var omtalt i det indlæg af al-Aswany, som jeg selv henviste til, så det kom til at stå lidt underligt i sammenhængen.

I andre tilfælde kan det være langt mere alvorligt. Ud over den sædvanlige kommentarpolitik vil jeg gerne understrege, at der er absolut nultolerance overfor folk, der skriver kommentarer i andres navne. Sker det igen, vil det som minimum medføre anmeldelse til vedkommendes internetudbyder.

Vi har allerede vore mistanker om, hvem der i dette tilfælde kan have forfalsket pastor Riis’ underskrift, men vil foreløbig lade sagen hvile indtil næste gang – som forhåbentlig aldrig kommer.

Mediernes vrængbillede af islam

Den ægyptiske forfatter Alaa al-Aswany (som du givetvis har hørt om, hans bøger er over det hele) skriver i dagens Guardian om de vrængbilleder, der florerer i mediernes dækning af de islamiske lande og påpeger de meget let gennemskuelige interesser, der ligger bag den vrængen verden på hovedet:

This western double standard is widespread, and there are countless examples. Elections recently took place in Iran and the winner was President Ahmadinejad. But there were allegations of vote-rigging. Western governments were up in arms, issuing strongly worded statements in support of democracy in Iran.

Yet Egyptian elections have been rigged regularly for many years and President Mubarak has taken office through rigged referendums, so why hasn’t that provoked such anger? The outcry is not to promote democracy but rather to embarrass the Iranian regime, which is hostile towards Israel and trying to develop its nuclear capabilities, which are a threat to western imperialism. The Egyptian government, on the other hand, in spite of being despotic and corrupt, is obedient and tame, so the western media overlook its faults, however horrendous they might be.

When the young Iranian woman called Neda Soltan was shot by an unknown assailant, her death quickly became global headline news. Western politicians were so moved that even President Obama, close to tears, said that it was heartbreaking. A few weeks later in the German city of Dresden, an Egyptian woman called Marwa el-Sherbini was attending the trial of a man who racially abused her because she was wearing a hijab. Fined €2,800 for insulting her, the extremist then went on a rampage, attacking Marwa and her husband with a knife. Marwa died on the spot.

The murder of Marwa and the murder of Neda should be seen as crimes of equal barbarity and of equal impact. But the murder of the Egyptian woman in the hijab did not break Obama’s heart and did not receive front-page coverage in the west. The murder of Neda incriminates the Iranian regime, whereas the murder of Marwa shows that terrorism is not confined to Arabs and Muslims – a white German terrorist kills an innocent women and tries to kill her husband simply because she is Muslim and wears a hijab. The western media do not care to convey this message.

Al-Aswany gør dog opmærksom på, at mange muslimer bærer et betydeligt medansvar for denne skævhed.

Det er fuldkommen rigtigt, at der kun er én eneste forklaring på, at mordet på Marwa el-Sherbini ikke har udløst lige så stort et ramaskrig som morden på Neda Soltan gjorde, og det er: Galopperende hykleri.

Og der er kun én eneste forklaring på, at diktaturets valgsvindel i Iran vækker forargelse, mens det tyranniske regimes valgfusk i Ægypten forbigås i stilhed, og det er: Galopperende hykleri.

Men samtidig er de reaktionære, bagstræberiske og med oliepenge velforsynede wahabitter og fanatiske fundamentalister i færd med at tage millioner af almindelige menneskers mere fredelige tro som gidsler – og som al-Aswany påpeger, er disse millioner af almindelige muslimer selv ansvarlige for at tage den tilbage:

If an ordinary westerner decided to find out the truth about Islam through what Muslims do and say, what would he find? Osama bin Laden would look out at him, as though emerging from a medieval cave to announce that Islam ordered him to kill as many western crusaders as possible, even if they are innocent civilians who have done nothing to merit punishment. Then the westerner would read how the Taliban has decided to close girls’ schools, arguing that Islam bans the education of women on the grounds that they are as intellectually and religiously deficient.

After that, the westerner would read statements from those who call themselves Islamic jurists, saying that a Muslim who converts to another faith must repent or have his throat cut. Some jurists will assert that Islam does not recognise democracy and that it is a duty to obey a Muslim ruler even if he oppresses and robs his subjects. They will welcome women covering their faces with the niqab so that those who see them are not driven by sexual desire.

The westerner will not find out that Islam gave men and women completely equal rights and obligations. He will not find out that in the eyes of Islam if someone kills an innocent it is as if he has killed everyone. He will never find out that the niqab has nothing to do with Islam but is a custom that came to us with the money of the Gulf from a backward desert society. The westerner will never find out that the real message of Islam is freedom, justice and equality, and that it guarantees freedom of belief, in that those who wish may believe and those who do not, need not, and that democracy is essential to Islam, in that a Muslim ruler cannot take office without the consent and choice of Muslims. After all that, can we blame the westerner if he considers Islam the religion of backwardness and terrorism?

Last year, I had to make a speech in Austria about the reality of Islam. I told how the Prophet Muhammad was so mild-mannered that when he knelt down to pray his grandsons Hassan and Hussein would often jump on his back in play. He would stay kneeling so as not to disturb the boys and then he would resume his prayers. I asked the audience: “Can you imagine that a man who stopped praying for the sake of children would advocate killing and terrorising innocent people?”

Men det er selvfølgelig også rigtigt, at de vestlige medier vitterlig kunne gøre et væsentligt bedre arbejde – hvis de ville. Men al-Aswany er milevidt fra nogen form for “offermentalitet” og understreger, at et egentligt opgør med de bagstræberiske kræfter, der i hans øjne forvansker og vanhelliger religionen, kun kan komme et sted fra, nemlig fra tilhængerne af islam som fredens, retfærdighedens og lighedens religion selv:

It is our duty to start with ourselves. We must save Islam from all the nonsense, falsehoods and retrograde ideas that have attached themselves to it. Democracy is the solution.

Link: Western hostility to Islam is stoked by double standards and distortion

Amazons Kindle Swindle

Amazon sælger en e-bogslæser, de selv har produceret, den såkaldte Kindle. Denne ebogs-læser er ikke som ethvert andet boglæserprogram, f.eks. FBReader – nej, en Kindle er forsynet med DRM, også kendt som kopibeskyttelse, der sætter Amazon i stand til i samarbejde med rettighedshaverne at bestemme, hvilke bøger den enkelte kunde kan læse på sin Kindle.

For eksempel udgav Amazon for nylig George Orwells samlede værker i deres e-bogsformat. Det var rigtig fint, og masser af mennesker kunne således købe, downloade og læse “1984” og andre af Orwells værker i deres elektroniske bogsamling.

Men så skete det, at Amazon blev uenig med dem, der bestyrer rettighederne for Orwells bøger. Hvad gør man ved det? Jo, næste gang e-bogs-læserne kommer i kontakt med Internettet, ryger der besked ud om, at Orwells bøger alligevel ikke er solgt – de er så at sige usolgt. Bøgerne blev bag om ryggen og uden at spørge slettet fra folks Kindles, og en eller to må have spurgt sig selv, om det mon i virkeligheden var en Swindle, de dér havde købt:

David Pogue. writing in the New York Times, reported that hundreds of customers awoke to find that Amazon remotely deleted books that they’d earlier bought and downloaded. Apparently, the publisher determined that it should not offer those titles, so Amazon logged into Kindles, erased the books, and issued refunds. This was aptly compared to someone sneaking into your house, taking away your books, and leaving a stack of cash on the table.

That George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm were among the wiped books is so funny that it aches. The headlines across the ‘net wrote themselves. Down the memory hole!

If this were the only example of this sort of thing, it could be written off as a mistake. But it’s just the latest in a series illustrating Amazon’s vision for the future of reading.

• First, Amazon selectively disabled text-to-speech. It did this to cosy up to publishers who felt audiobook sales were threatened by the Kindle’s robotic enunciation. This mocks the blind and supports an ugly interpretation of the law, which would make reading to your own children an act of copyright infringement.

• Amazon also refuses to disclose the circumstances under which it will no longer allow you to download copies of books you have bought. Cory’s been stonewalled, by one spokesdroid after another, which would be comical were it not so absurd.

• The Author’s contract for Kindle publications is “the pinnacle of bogosity.” Nor can you resell Kindle books, as you can normal ones, even though you have the legal right to do so. This is because the Digital Millennium Copyright Act makes it illegal to circumvent the electronic locks that Amazon applies to its e-books.

• Amazon has even locked Kindle users out of their own Kindle accounts, for trivial reasons.

Now we find that the books you buy are never really yours, and that enjoying them is a privilege granted and withdrawn by Amazon at publisher behest. No-one who enjoys reading can take comfort in any of this.

Helt ærligt: Kunne man forestille sig en boghandler, der fandt ud af, at han alligevel ikke havde “ret” til at sælge dig en bestemt bog, fordi forlæggeren var raget uklar med rettighedshaverne, og derfor brød ind i dit hus i nattens mulm og mørke for at tage bogen tilbage? Og hvis ikke – hvordan kan Amazon så tro, at det på nogen måde kan være acceptabelt, når blot indbruddet er på et stykke forbrugerelektronik i kundens hjem frem for et fysisk indbrud?

Eksemplet understreger, hvorfor kopibeskyttelse og anden “fjernkontrol” er en uskik, vi som borgere og forbrugere ikke burde finde os i.

Link: Delete this book (via Boing Boing).

Er ophavsretten en fejl? Imod intellektuel monopolisme

Fra mises.org, om en ny bog, der ærligt talt lyder spændende:


At a taped video interview in my office, before the crew would start the camera, a man had to remove my Picasso prints from the wall. The prints are probably under copyright, they said.

But the guy who drew them died 30 years ago. Besides, they are mine.

Doesn’t matter. They have to go.

What about the poor fellow who painted the wall behind the prints? Why doesn’t he have a copyright? If I scrape off the paint, there is the drywall and its creator. Behind the drywall are the boards, which are surely proprietary too. To avoid the “intellectual-property” thicket, maybe we have to sit in an open field; but there is the problem of the guy who last mowed the grass. Then there is the inventor of the grass to consider.

Is there something wrong with this picture?

The worldly-wise say no. This is just the way things are. It is for us not to question but to obey. So it is with all despotisms in human history. They become so woven into the fabric of daily life that absurdities are no longer questioned. Only a handful of daring people are capable of thinking along completely different lines. But when they do, the earth beneath our feet moves.

Such is the case with Against Intellectual Monopoly (Cambridge University Press, 2008) by Michele Boldrin and David Levine, two daring professors of economics at Washington University in St. Louis. They have written a book that is likely to rock your world, as it has mine. (It is also posted on their site with the permission of the publisher.)

With piracy and struggles over intellectual property in the news daily, it is time to wonder about this issue, its relationship to freedom, property rights, and efficiency. You have to think seriously about where you stand.

This is not one of those no-brainer issues for libertarians, like minimum wage or price controls. The problem is complicated, and solving it requires careful thought. But it is essential that every person do the thinking, and there is no better tool for breaking the intellectual gridlock than this book.

Link: A book that changes everything

Brüno – den ‘sofistikerede’ elites hoveren

Nej, jeg har ikke set Sacha Baron Cohens nyeste epos, og jeg har heller ingen planer om at gøre det, hvis jeg på nogen som helst måde kan blive fri. Jeg hadede Borat, og selv om jeg principielt mener, at man kan lave mange gode ting med skjult kamera, kunne jeg ikke lade være med at sympatisere med de mange almindelige, små hverdagsmennesker, der blev lokket til at blamere sig for åbent kamera.

Hvis man absolut vil lave den slags, så gå dog efter magthaverne – som Michael Moore f.eks. gjorde i Bowling for Colombine – ikke efter privatpersoner, for seven da. Men Baron Cohen tør faktisk ikke, så vidt jeg kan se, for alvor rette sit skyts mod de store – i stedet kan man jo så altid komme med millioner i ryggen og udstille almindelige mennesker, der dårligt nok har til terminen eller pensionen. God, gedigen humor, der sparker nedaf, med andre ord.

Nå, men hvis jeg ikke selv vil se den, er det jo godt, man har folk til det. Barbara Ellen når i The Observer frem til nogenlunde samme konklusioner om Brüno, som jeg selv drog om Borat:

Make no mistake. Brüno is bad art, and depressing, even boring, with it. What promised to be a lampooning of the fashion industry, a dark-hued Zoolander, at least a scathing exposé of the rich and famous, turned out to be a relentless, sour trashing of the white and black US underclass for their supposed homophobic tendencies.

I say “supposed”, because with many of Brüno’s stunts (giant dildos, talking penises, shit handprints on hotel walls, baiting Republican politicians and churchmen, placing an adopted black baby in what appeared to be a mocked-up gay orgy), there is a nagging feeling that one doesn’t have to be a drooling redneck to wonder what the point is.

For example, the climactic scene, featuring Brüno and his male assistant, half-naked, simulating sex in front of heckling “white trash” at a cage-fighting event, would arguably have created as much consternation at the Ideal Home Exhibition, the Last Night of the Proms, even the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square.

Like much in the film, it says naff all about homophobia, preferring to lift up the rock of the US underclass to titter along with a liberal elite audience. The intimation is that if one is not amused, one has a “problem”: one is narrow-minded, repressed, unsophisticated. Voila! The cultural bully’s credo in full. […]

Even more damning are the final scenes of Brüno singing a Live Aid spoof with Bono, Sting, and Snoop Dogg. If Baron Cohen was doing his job properly, these celebrities would be terrified of him, at least wary, as they once were of Paul Kaye’s Dennis Pennis. The fact that they’re not, that they’re cosy, says it all.

It seems to me that by making Brüno, Baron Cohen has ceased to be a satirist and exposed himself as a careerist. He’s an A-lister who lets off the rich and famous and sets up the powerless poor for the delectation of the elitist liberal stalls. Worse, like all cultural bullies before him, he then tries to make his audience take the blame for how misguided and unfunny it all is.

Mine fremhævelser – og netop de fremhævede pointer er som sagt spot on i mine øjne.

Link: Try picking on someone your own size,  Brüno

Medierne og deres løgne

Hvad jeg kan sige om dette er måske ikke så interessant – så jeg giver jer Lewis Lapham, mangeårig redaktør af Harper’s Magazine:

On television the voices of dissent can’t be counted upon to match the studio drapes or serve as tasteful lead-ins to the advertisements for Pantene Pro-V and the U.S. Marine Corps. What we now know as the “news media” serve at the pleasure of the corporate sponsor, their purpose not to tell truth to the powerful but to transmit lies to the powerless. Like Russert, who served his apprenticeship as an aide-de-camp to the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, most of the prominent figures in the Washington press corps (among them George Stephanopoulos, Bob Woodward, and Karl Rove) began their careers as bagmen in the employ of a dissembling politician or a corrupt legislature. Regarding themselves as de facto members of government, enabling and codependent, their point of view is that of the country’s landlords, their practice equivalent to what is known among Wall Street stock-market touts as “securitizing the junk.” When requesting explanations from secretaries of defense or congressional committee chairmen, they do so with the understanding that any explanation will do. Explain to us, my captain, why the United States must go to war in Iraq, and we will relay the message to the American people in words of one or two syllables. Instruct us, Mr. Chairman, in the reasons why K-Street lobbyists produce the paper that Congress passes into law, and we will show that the reasons are healthy, wealthy, and wise. Do not be frightened by our pretending to be suspicious or scornful. Together with the television camera that sees but doesn’t think, we’re here to watch, to fall in with your whims and approve your injustices. Give us this day our daily bread, and we will hide your vices in the rosebushes of salacious gossip and clothe your crimes in the aura of inspirational anecdote.

Link: Elegy for a rubber stamp (via Glenn Greenwald)

AlJazeera – Mellemøstens New York Times.

As’ad Abukhalil alias Angry Arab har et interessant indlæg om AlJazeera og deres store og i hans øjne journalistisk velfortjente indflydelse i den arabiske verden:

Politics aside, AlJazeera Arabic is an excellent channel. Forget about all the political biases that afflict all news media, Aljazeera makes more effort to check in political biases than mainstream US media, like the New York Times. To compare Al-Arabiyya with AlJazeera is like comparing Muhammad Dahlan with Nelson Mandela. The comparison in itself is unfair to both sides.

The other day, I kept AlJazeera on for a while working out and I was most impressed with the depth and scope of its international coverage. I mean, they would have a report from the US and then they would interview some Arabic speaker about some aspect of US politics, and then they would move to the elections in Mauritania, and on and on. If you switch while watching AlJazeera, you are most like to see a long and tedious report on Michael Jackson on Al-Arabiyya TV (the station of King Fahd’s brother-in-law).

Yesterday, AlJazeera was on and they had a flash about shooting outside of the Capital in DC. I switched to Fox New and they did not have anything on the matter for five long minutes. Don’t get me wrong: I have my own criticism of AlJazeera and wrote about them here. But it is all relative: if I am to pick a newscast in any language that I can understand, I would not hesitate to select AlJazeera “mid-day” newscast. There is nothing like it: and the BBC which I used to like has been deteriorating and mimicking US network, albeit with more dignity.

The reason I write about all this is the war between the tyrannical regime of Abu Mazen and Aljazeera. As you all know, the Abu Mazen collaborationist regime shut down AlJazeera offices (and I am glad that the Committee to Protect Journalists condemned the closure). But you need to read the Orwellian official statement that was issued by Salam Fayyad (the same guy who was dubbed “reformer” because he strictly follows orders from the World Bank and from Elliott Abrams). The statement justified the closure in the name of “the Supreme Palestinian interest”. The language used was the same as that used by Saddam Husayn’s regime or the regime of Enver Hoxa. It was classic terminology of tyranny. And it was quite amusing to see the PA talk about biases of Aljazeera when the blatant pro-Dahlan bias of Al-Arabiyya TV is admired by the same collaborationist regime. Azmi Bisharah spoke very well on the matter on Al-Jazeera yesterday: he said that the closure should be analyzed in terms the growing tryannical powers of the Abu Mazen collaborationist regime. He also reminded viewers that the Abu Mazen regime acts very much like the tyrannical Arab regimes and that its behavior during the Israeli terrorist war on Gaza was symptomatic: even public demonstration of sympathy with the people of Gaza were banned by the collaborationist regime.

I recently spoke to a colleague who teaches at a universtiy in the West Bank: she described to me the behavior of the Dahlan gangs during the protests in solidarity with Gaza. She said that the oppression and repression in the West Bank has become quite effective. She watched as Dahlan gangsters/army moves to beat up and quickly overpower each demonstrator by himself/herself. She said that people are now afraid to speak out. As Azmi Bisharah said yesterday, the West Bank office of AlJazeera only hosts Fath propagandists because the Abu Mazen collaborationist regime only allows voices of support for the regime. It is fair to say that the Abu Mazen collaborationist regime has decided after the last parliamentary election to rule by force, and by force along. This is why they are now so upset with Faruq Qaddumi: because he is the most senior Fath person and represents dissent within the movement. Why did I title this post “The Revenge of AlJazeera”? Well, because you better not launch war on AlJazeera: they can really sway Arab public opinion more than Hasan Nasrallah and Yusuf Al-Qaradawi combined.

Jeg har tilladt mig selv at indsætte afsnit i teksten. Det gør selvfølgelig også godt at læse As’ads befriende åbenhjertige beskrivelse af Abu Mazens Quislingestyre i Ramallah. Det er lige før, man ærgrer sig over ikke at forstå arabisk, så man ikke selv kan følge AlJazeeras dækning.

Link: The Revenge of AlJazeera: on its war with the Abu Mazen’s collaborationist regime