Last week, I posted a pointer to my parody of a famous clip from the movie Downfall and I hope you enjoyed it. While the EFF itself didn’t make this video, I do chair the foundation and they posted a pointer to it on the “Deep Links” blog. All well and good.
Some time earlier, an iPhone app developer put together an iPhone app which would display the EFF blog feed. This wasn’t an EFF effort, but the EFF gave them permission to put the logo in the app.
Recently, Apple’s App Store team evaluated the app. The pulled up the EFF blog feed, and played the video, presumably using the built in YouTube playing App which Apple provides for the iPhone. And in the subtitles I wrote, at one point when Hitler was particularly angry, the fake text had him say “fucking.” This is quite mild compared to most of the Downfall parodies on YouTube, and indeed many other videos on YouTube. I debated taking it out, but it’s appropriate for the character to be using strong angry language at that point in his rant. And it’s funny to see Hitler swear in English so I left it in.
The App Store team — dare I call them the Apple App Store content Nazis, or is that too meta? — declared the app unsuitable for the iPhone store. Note that the app doesn’t contain any dirty words, and the EFF blog rarely contains them, and didn’t contain them in this case, only pointing to the video. Of course, the EFF as a free speech organization is not about to declare its blog will be free of bad words in the future, though they are a fairly unlikely event.
Yet this, it seems, is what Apple is protecting its users from. Apple claims that it needs to control what Apps you can install on an iPhone. You need to “jailbreak” the iPhone to install other apps, and Apple says you don’t have the right to do that. Sometimes such walled gardens start off with what you may agree are good intentions, such as stopping malicious apps, or assuring a quality experience with a product. But always, it seems, it devolves to this.
You can also read the EFF Deep Links article on this bizarre denial. Apple seems to have become a parody of itself. How long before we see a Downfall clip where Hitler is an Apple app store evaluator, or a fake Steve Jobs? Of course, that had better not contain any upsetting words, even in links.
(Amazing update: Apple computer blocked a new iPhone App which was to show the EFF Blog, because today, at least, that blog contained a pointer to this video, and the video has a dirty word. Incredible. Time to support EFF and the effort to make iPhone jailbreaking legal.)
Unless you’ve been under a rock, you have probably seen a parody clip that puts new subtitles on a scene of Hitler ranting and raving from the 2004 German movie Downfall (Der Untergang). Some of these videos have gathered millions of views, with Hitler complaining about how he’s been banned from X-box live, or nobody wants to go to Burning Man, or his new camera sucks. The phenomenon even rated a New York Times article.
It eventually spawned meta-parodies, where Hitler would rant about how many Hitler videos were out on the internet, or how they sucked. I’ve seen at least 4 of these. Remarkably, one of them, called Hitler is a Meme was pulled from YouTube by the studio, presumably using a DMCA takedown. A few others have also been pulled, though many remain intact. (More on that later.)
Of course, I had to do my own. I hope, even if you’ve seen a score of these, that this one will still give you some laughs. If you are familiar with the issues of DRM, DMCA takedowns, and copyright wars, I can assure you based on the reviews of others that you will enjoy this quite a bit. Of course, as it criticises YouTube as well as the studio, I have put it on YouTube. But somehow I don’t think they would be willing to try a takedown — not on so obvious a fair use as this one, not on the chairman of the most noted legal foundation in the field. But it’s fun to dare them.
(Shortly I may also provide the video in some higher quality locations. I do recommend you click on the “HQ” button if you have bandwidth.) read more »
It’s been a remarkably dramatic year at the EFF. We worked in a huge number of areas, acting on or participating in a lot of cases. The most famous is our ongoing battle over the warrantless wiretapping scandal, where we sued AT&T for helping the White House. As you probably know, we certainly got their attention, to the point that President Bush got the congress to pass a law granting immunity to the phone companies. We lost that battle, but our case still continues, as we’re pushing to get that immunity declared unconstitutional.
We also opened a second front, based on the immunity. After all, if the phone companies can now use the excuse “we were only following orders they promised were legal” then the people who promised it was legal are culpable if it actually wasn’t. So we’ve sued the President, VP and several others over that. We’ll keep fighting.
But this was just one of many cases. The team made up a little musical animation to summarize them for you. I include it here, but encourage you to follow the link to the site and see what else we did this year. I want you to be impressed, because these are tough-times, and that also makes it tough for non-profits trying to raise money. I know most of you have wounded stock portfolios and are cutting back.
But I’m going to ask you not to cut back to zero. It’s not that bad. If you can’t give what you normally would like to give to make all this good work happen, decide some appropriate fraction and give it. Or if you are one of the few who is still flush, you may want to consider giving more to your favourite charities this year, to make up for how they’re hurting in regular donations.
The work the EFF does needs to be done. You need it to be done. You have a duty to protect your rights and the rights of others. If you can’t do the work to protect them yourself, I suggest you outsource it to the EFF. We’re really good at it, and work cheap. You’ll be glad you did.
Among many patent reform proposals it is common to have a desire for better examination, and more detection of prior art and obviousness. But the patent office only has so much money for so many examiners.
So here's a simple solution. If you want to apply for a patent, you must put in some time, as an expert in your field, examining other patent applications, searching for prior art and giving opinions on the obviousness. Alternately, this duty could be given only to those who actually are granted patents, to make more sure they are "skilled in the art" of their fields.
Of course, such crowdsourced examiners would have biases. They would be expected to make a sworn statement about their biases. Making a false statement could have implications on their own patents as well as the usual penalties.
Those biased against the patent would mostly hunt for prior art -- in fact they would make the best hunters. Those unbiased could make better opinions of obviousness.
Like regular patent fees, this could be biased for small inventors. (Small inventors pay lower patent fees and get some better treatments.) Large companies might have to volunteer more time from their staff, or small inventors might get reductions in patent fees in exchange for good work. Peers would examine the work of other peers to keep them honest and to rate the quality of it. And of course, unbiased patent examiners and appeal boards would still have the final, objective say.
Other volunteers could also participate in prior art searches. But with the system described above, there should be no shortage of labour. And as the number of patents goes up, the system naturally increases the labour available to do the legwork.
