Posts by Russell Brown
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It's worth noting that both DVD Region Free and Videolan are likely to be outlawed by the new legislation.
Well, they seem to be making an exception for DVD region-coding, but it's hard to tell. If it's a "permitted act" to make a copy of a musical recording to your device of choice, then will the proposed law really "facilitate" it like the wording says? We need to know a hell of a lot more about this.
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So I wonder whether in NZ it would be still allowed to make a copy of a non DRM protected format for personal use.
Not until the new bill passes. It also ushers in a much richer definition of "fair dealing", which hasn't been very good under NZ copyright law up till now. So there are good parts ...
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Good thread. Rather than coming up with all the thinking again, I'll excerpt part of the intro to the Great New Zealand Argument book (still available from http://publicaddress.net/store ). It picks up from Keith Sinclair noting our struggle with a national day:
In the same chapter of his book, Sinclair made observations that, taken a little further, go some way towards unlocking a theory. Anzac Day, a day named to commemorate not just the sacrifice of New Zealanders in the first world war, but all the fallen, found purchase where a general day of national pride could not. And, said Sinclair, it was not an affair of the church. The Dawn Service "might, indeed, have been some pagan ceremony" and the memorials to the fallen eschewed the cross in favour of cenotaphs and symbols that looked back to ancient Greece and Egypt.
Few New Zealanders would readily identify themselves as pagans, of course. But the derived adjective of the original Latin "paganus" means "rustic" or "of the country", and many more of us would answer to that. We can far more comfortably define ourselves through the land and the sea than through churches at which we have historically been indifferent attendees. When a group of performers attempted several years ago to devise a new national anthem to replace “God Defend New Zealand” (our anthem is another facet of national pride about which we find ourselves diffident), they canvassed all the options and plumped for a song about the land; the one thing they could see we all had in common.
In his History of New Zealand, Michael King touched on a similar theme, linking the emergence of the environmental movement in the 1960s and 1970s to a new sort of national maturity, a determination to acknowledge and look after what made us unique.
Last year, an advertising agency investigated New Zealand identity for commercial, rather than philosophical, reasons. It concluded, after an eight-month study, that New Zealanders not only loved the land, they believed it to hold their essence.
This year, on Public Address, the weblog site where the Great New Zealand Argument project began, I invited our many expatriate readers to comment on the latest round of the "brain drain" debate that has recurred through our national history. The replies came flooding back. They talked about wages, student loans and education. But overwhelmingly, they spoke of the land, sea and sky. It was this that would bring them back – and this that defined them.
A thing in common, of course, can also be disputed ground. The past year-and-a-half's argument over Maori customary title to the foreshore and seabed would not have been so bitter and controversial had not both Maori and Pakeha New Zealanders sensed something defining about themselves in their access to and relationship with our long coastline. And the great legislative edifice of the environmental movement, the Resource Management Act, is under perpetual challenge from those who believe it shackles our economic development.
So, yeah, an affinity for an attachment to the land, sea and sky seems a core part of what it is to be a New Zealander of whatever heritage. It's the thing we all (or nearly all) answer to.
Another thing that came up in the process of putting together the book was the common experience of those who we regard as our great (Pakeha) cultural nationalists - Brasch, Fairburn, etc. Visiting "home" in Europe triggered the realisation that it wasn't home after all, and that the Pacific called. I felt the same thing decades later.
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Thanks for the heads up. My next port of call will definitely be eMusic.
Ooh. Could you email me via the Reply button on the blog? If I recommend you to emusic, they give me some free downloads - and you, too.
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Guess I should chip in, ineligible as I am for the prize. This is a bit of an insider story, but hey ...
Late 80s, hitching onto a Chills tour in Europe for the second time. We're passing from Belgium (where the promoters had very generously laid on huge steaks and plates of fish for the whole touring party, despite having only had a smallish crowd) to the Netherlands.
It's an open border, on a weekend, but the band has to check through its carnet, so we stop at the border. I need a pee, can't see any toilets, so I pop around the back of a prefab building. As I'm doing that, I notice some small mushrooms in the grass. They can't be ... but they are. Magic mushrooms!
I fill my pocket with every one I can find, and we proceed to Nijmegen, scene of the next gig. That evening, I decide I should conduct some trials on my harvest. I can't recall the gig, but I do recall mysterious creaks and knockings in the walls and floor of the hotel, which is reckoned to be haunted. After the gig we're sitting yarning in one of the rooms and there's a sudden bang, which seems to come from directly under the floorboards. The next morning, Janet says she woke suddenly in the night with the distinct impression that someone was standing at the foot of her bed. No, I don't believe in ghosts, but it was probably the spookiest place I've ever stayed.
Next night: the big gig at the Paradiso in Amsterdam - and it's a real cracker. Time for some fun. I break out the shrooms in earnest and we head off for a few drinks afterwards with some Dutch friends. They take us to a sort of speakeasy, where I decide I should get a round of drinks - and proceed to monumentally embarrass myself.
I sit at the bar thinking that my body language, every part of my being, is saying Mr Barman, Sir! I need some drink for me and my friends, I have some of your fine Dutch money and I desire service at your earliest convenience!!
In reality, I am sitting immobile at the bar like a complete egg, staring into space and wondering why on earth no one will serve me. For some time, I suspect. It gets worse when I eventually realise that my friends are sitting in the corner of the bar, laughing at me. The barman is chuckling too. So is the barman's friend. I am deeply confused.
Eventually, the barman puts me out of my misery, asks me whether I want something and I get my round in and reach the merciful sanctuary of the table. I do not buy any more drinks that evening.
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The Asian population is now "surging", rather than having doubled.
I blame the education system ...
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"RUSSELL IS FROM TIMARU, HE'S STILL SENSITIVE ABOUT IT".
AAARRRGGGHHHH!!!!!
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thats my problem, there are no obscurities. I've never really looked at iTunes before and really expected more. Maybe my required obscurities are more obscure than most...
Even after day to settle down, the iTunes Store seems a hell of a mess to me. Try clicking the "Quick Link" marked "browse" on the home page, or any other page. WTF?
I still haven't worked out a way to browse, say all the available rock releases, as opposed to just the ones iTunes is directing my attention to.
The page from the "Local Sounds" link or banner only contains one album, by Frontline. But if you scroll down the home page, you see a whole lot more in "Just Added - New Zealand".
Using eMusic as a point of comparison, iTunes seems surprisingly clunky and not as much fun. I've bought several things (that exclusive Flaming Lips EP was hard to refuse) but I don't think I'll be giving up my eMusic sub.
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Okay - probably time to get alarmed ...
New Copyright Bill published ...
It contains what at first glance looks like a major change in direction on Technical Protection Measures:
“amend the provision relating to technological protection measures--- so that the prohibition against the making, importing, hiring, and selling of devices, services, or information designed to circumvent "copy protection" be expanded to cover devices, services, or information that circumvent technological protection measures that protect all rights provided to copyright owners (including communication, not just copying)”
And ...
“introduce an offence (carrying a sentence of a fine not exceeding $150,000 or a term of imprisonment of up to 5 years, or both) for commercial dealing in devices, services, or information designed to circumvent technological protection measures:”
What, like region-free DVD players?
The goes against the direction of previous MED discussion papers and I wonder if it’s a quid pro quo for the introduction of the format-shifting exception.
And apart from anything else, it appears that I’d potentially be criminally liable for some of the comments in this thread!! I'm looking at you, Damian ;-)
Fuck that.
Not happy. I'll post on this tomorrow.
Cheers,
RB -
I had to stick my iTunes prefs file in the Trash and then put it back after launch (after cancelling the setup dialogue). Seeing it now ...
Some of the promo banners are clearly from Australia: 'Homebake 06' doesn't mean quite the same in Australia as it does here ...
No sign of the Fat Freddy's Drop only-on-iTunes live EP. I gather that the Freddys are the only NZ band big (and independent) enough to negotiate directly with iTunes.
The others will turn up over the next few days and weeks as the aggregator agreements come online.
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