MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE
by Michael Wolraich
Order today at Barnes & Noble / Amazon / Books-A-Million / Bookshop
MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE by Michael Wolraich Order today at Barnes & Noble / Amazon / Books-A-Million / Bookshop |
And we were worried about drones:
... robots shut down the live broadcast of one of science fiction's most prestigious award ceremonies. No, you're not reading a science fiction story. In the middle of the annual Hugo Awards event at Worldcon, which thousands of people tuned into via video streaming service Ustream, the feed cut off — just as Neil Gaiman was giving an acceptance speech for his Doctor Who script, "The Doctor's Wife." Where Gaiman's face had been were the words, "Worldcon banned due to copyright infringement." What the hell?
...Dumb robots, programmed to kill any broadcast containing copyrighted material, had destroyed the only live broadcast of the Hugo Awards.
...The point is, our ability to broadcast was entirely dependent on poorly-programmed bots. And once those bots had made their incorrect decision, there was absolutely nothing we could do to restart the signal, as it were. In case anyone still believes that copyright rules can't stop free speech or snuff out a community, the automated censorship of the Hugo Awards is a case in point.
Comments
Yes. This is our current copyright-protection regime in a nutshell.
by Doctor Cleveland on Sat, 09/08/2012 - 10:04pm
Very interesting. What a mess! But why was U-Stream the only source of live-streaming for an important awards program? It sounds like there was another source that might have been safer, but it required payment. Wonder why they didn't go that route?
by Ramona on Sun, 09/09/2012 - 4:38pm
From what I gleaned from a quick visit to their site, ustream, like Hulu, offers both free and subscription viewing of programs from both broadcast and cable channels. If you don't have cable or DTV, it is the only way some people watch tv and for others the preferred way.
But that isn't really the point which is that content providers are using bots to deny service to anyone who they think have violated copyrights. Since anything anyone writes or produces online is technically copyrighted, it would be fairly simple for someone or some organization like Anonymous to shut down any site that quoted another, say like dagblog or Ramona's Voices?
Scary, right?
by EmmaZahn on Sun, 09/09/2012 - 5:14pm