It appears that xkcd has decided to do a modern update on the Shel Silverstein classic, The Giving Tree, in the age of DRM:
While this may just be a little comic joke, the larger point is worth highlighting. In the age of DRM, things that might have been considered normal "sharing" in the past are no longer allowed, despite being easier than ever in reality. That should trouble people.

Last week there was a lot of talk about Facebook's new setup, which would allow for tighter integration and sharing of everything that people do, with music being a key example. Whether or not that's a good idea, I have no idea. To be honest, I think that it could make sense long term -- but the way that it's been implemented seems like a disaster to me, as I discovered when I logged into Spotify today. Apparently, Spotify is pissing off a ton of people by requiring a Facebook login to use the service now. I have less of an issue with that than I do with the fact that Spotify popped up a box telling me I had to connect to Facebook, but not making it at all clear what that meant. It notes that Spotify can share the details of what I'm listening to with others, but does not explain what that means. Will it share everything I play with everyone automatically? Will it give me the option of what to share? Will it give me the option of who I'm sharing it with? That's not clear at all. Even worse, nowhere is there any explanation of how or where I can find out more. Instead, Spotify just opens as normal.

It turns out that Spotify just starts sharing everything you play on Facebook, without even making it clear to the user that it's doing that. I couldn't find that info on my own profile. It was only after I asked a question and a Facebook friend told me what I was listening to that I knew the info was being shared. Even worse, how to turn it off is not clear at all either. Thankfully Lifehacker explains how to stop spamming everyone with what you're playing on Spotify. You can do so by unchecking the following box, which makes no sense at all: If you can't see it, it says: "Get personal recommendations by sending music you play to Facebook's Open Graph." But, what does "personal recommendations" have to do with anything? Why can't Spotify just be upfront and honest and say, "spam all your friends on Facebook with what you're playing"? Again, I recognize that some people want to do this, and I have no problem with people choosing to do it. My problem is with the way that Facebook and Spotify implemented this, where it's not even remotely clear what you're doing. Given Facebook's similar problems in the past (hello, Beacon) you would think that the company would recognize the importance of being clear and totally upfront about what info is being shared with whom and how to control it. Instead, it seems like the exact opposite.

Again, I'd have no problem sharing some of what I listen to if I have control over it. But, really, are any of my friends really going to want to know when I play the "lullaby playlist" I put together for my son? There are some friends with whom I have no problem sharing what I'm listening to, but plenty of others where it's just not something I'd share with them at all. And perhaps there are hidden controls buried in the preferences somewhere, but it's not at all clear, which leads me to now totally distrust Spotify and Facebook. Facebook I was already on the fence about, but I liked Spotify (and pay for a subscription). If these companies can't even get the basics right concerning how I can share my info, I'm going to have to look elsewhere. It's amazing how quickly a company can destroy a ton of goodwill.

There are all kinds of scientific complexities around us. Just try to seriously answer all the questions that a curious five-year-old can come up with, and you'll get a feeling for how little we actually know about the world around us. Thankfully, we have some modern scientific equipment to help sort out these minor mysteries. Here are just a few answers for some common phenomena.

• The physics of dried out coffee rings has been clarified. Yay! Now there's at least some reasonable explanation for why coffee drops dry out into dark-edged rings. [url]
• Maybe Southwest Airlines' method of boarding isn't optimal, but compared to some Monte Carlo simulations, it's not too bad. Did it really take an astrophysicist to prove that boarding by blocks of rows isn't the most efficient way to pile into a plane? [url]
• If you've ever wondered what the difference between the green-yellow and yellow-green crayons was, here is your answer. This is what you get when you stick 24 Crayola crayons in a spectrophotometer. [url]
• To discover more interesting science-related stuff, check out what's currently floating around the StumbleUpon universe. [url]  

By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

It's been rumored for a while, but there's growing evidence that the long-delayed House version of the PROTECT IP Act will include provisions for attacking cyberlockers. For whatever reason, the MPAA (in particular) has had an infatuation with cyberlockers as the next big "evil," so this is hardly a surprise. Of course, there's a big problem here: cyberlockers are nothing but online storage, and they have tons of legitimate uses as well. It's difficult to see how any legislation can be crafted that won't have massive unintended consequences and liabilities for all sorts of perfectly legitimate online storage providers. How do you distinguish things like Dropbox or Box.net from one of the cyberlockers that the MPAA loves to hate, such as Hotfile? And as cloud storage continues to grow, the issue only gets worse. How about Amazon.com's S3 offerings? In some ways that's a cyberlocker as well. The fact is that the MPAA is playing a silly and pointless game of whac-a-mole. All this new effort will serve to do is piss people off. It won't lead to any more purchases, but will make it clear that the MPAA has no problem trampling innovation when it can't figure out how to use it properly. Cyberlockers have perfectly legitimate purposes -- as did VCRs before them... but the MPAA tried to kill that, and is now seeking to do the same for lots of other services, just because the MPAA can't comprehend how they're useful.

When the government indicted five people for being involved with Ninjavideo, we noted that the government's case looked a hell of a lot stronger than many of its other efforts involving seizing websites, and we predicted that the people involved were likely to lose in court. So it came as little surprise that one, Matthew Smith, has already pled guilty. Of course, knowing a little about how these things work, it's pretty clear that the feds did a plea bargain deal with this guy, and he's now likely to testify against the others. That's the basic deal: plead guilty to these lesser charges (two out of the six charges), provide evidence against everyone else, get a promise of less time in jail (which the judge can ignore).

This is why some other countries don't allow plea bargains. It makes it way too easy for people to agree to say whatever the feds want in other cases, just to protect their own hide.

I still think that the feds have a much stronger case against Ninjavideo -- though it still seems like this should be a civil suit, rather than a criminal suit. Separately, from other information I've seen, it appears that the feds do get some things in the indictment incorrect, including the claim that Ninjavideo hosted videos. That was part of the reason why I thought Ninjavideo was going to lose badly, but others have pointed out that while Ninjavideo tries very hard to make users think it hosts the videos, in actuality, it does not. Still, at this point, given the other activities of those involved in the site, I'm not sure that distinction matters. And now that Smith is likely to appear against the others, my original prediction stands: everyone else is going to lose badly, whether or not they get plea bargain deals as well.

It's been clear for a while that Lady Gaga understood the power of free music, using it in a variety of promotions, saying she didn't care if people downloaded her music, because it only got more people to go see her live and emphatically saying she thinks albums cost way too much. She thought that $0.99 was a better price for an entire album, rather than per song.

Now, as Robw was the first of a few of you to point out, her manager has said that, if it were up to him, he'd give her next album away totally free -- with the focus on getting it as much exposure as possible, knowing full well that he'd make that up through greater fan support elsewhere.

"If it was up to me, I'd give away the next album and put it on every handset that I can put it on, to get that scale," he said. "You can't be scared to fail. Sometimes we're going to get big results, and sometimes you learn a lesson, make an adjustment and move on."

Of course, some will immediately point out that since it's not up to him, such comments are meaningless. He can say that and "pander" to fans, even if he doesn't really believe it. But, of course, there's no reason to believe he doesn't mean it. And in an era when so many top musicians are being pressured to toe the industry line about how evil "free" is, it's certainly nice to see one of the biggest (if not the biggest) pop stars in the world, and her management, recognizing publicly that the business model these days isn't in selling music directly.

For many years, we've heard various stories of how anyone who attends an early movie screening (i.e., before the movie has actually been widely released), should expect to be treated like a total criminal. The usual stories involve being searched carefully and being required to hand over all mobile phones, which will be held until the end of the film. Reader minerat writes in to tell us of his story, which involved going to a 7:30pm showing of Moneyball last week -- just a few hours before the movie was actually being released. Even so... same process. "Security made everyone give up their cell phones and checked all bags." And, it appears that security had their priorities straight from the MPAA:

The better part is after we gave up our phones, another security guard waves a metal detecting wand over us and we had to empty our pockets on any hits. My friend has a license to carry a firearm and was carrying - we thought this would be a problem (it's a center city Philadelphia theater), but no, he didn't care about his loaded handgun. Apparently a cameraphone is the bigger threat to a movie that will be publicly released 2 hours after we step out of the theater. Of course the DVD screener has been available on usenet for 3+ months.

Back in April, when DirecTV officially announced its plan to let people see movies for $30 at home, we were not alone in suggesting the price was ridiculously high, and were somewhat shocked to see theaters complaining that they'd never be able to compete. Looks like our thoughts on the price turned out to be exactly right. As a few people have sent in, DirecTV has admitted that there's been very little uptake of the $30 movies, and flat out admits that the price is too high:

The service is part of an attempt by studios to harness pay-TV as they seek new ways to sell movies and counter shrinking DVD sales. Few customers will purchase the premium rentals unless the quality of the movies improves and the price comes down, White said in an interview.

“They’re priced too high for consumers,” White said. “We didn’t choose that price, but that’s where the studios forced us to be.”

Of course, the studios forced that price because they're petrified of pissing off the theater owners (who were already pissed off), because the big studios still think that the "movie business" is defined solely and completely by how well a film does in the theaters on its opening weekend. The theater owners, at the same time, don't want to have to compete and actually improve the quality of their service -- so they whine and complain any time the studios do anything to make accessing content outside of the theaters any easier.

The end result, then, is just a big question of why anyone bothered at all with this plan. It made no sense for anyone involved. If you're going to offer video on demand to consumers, offer them a reasonable product at a reasonable price or don't bother.

We've seen a growing number of vague and worrisome laws passed over the past few years to try to outlaw being a jerk online. Earlier this year, we noted one such law in Rhode Island, which was technically dubbed an "anti-cyberstalking" law, though we worried about just how vague and open for abuse it was. Well, we've now got the first charges filed under the new law. Kashmir Hill points us to the news that a 15-year-old boy is facing "domestic violence" charges for some "inappropriate" messages he sent via Facebook to a 16-year-old girl he met.

Police say the 15-year-old Barrington boy met a 16-year-old girl while taking classes this summer and they started to talk through Facebook.

But police say the 16-year-old felt uncomfortable when the messages started getting inappropriate.

Police started the investigation in July and now they've charged the minor with cyber stalking, which is now punishable under the domestic violence prevention act.

There are a whole series of issues here. While the text of the messages hasn't been revealed, the fact that the judgment is based on the girl "feeling uncomfortable" leaves open a wide range of possible abuses. If I feel "uncomfortable" about comments on Techdirt, can I really have the police investigate and potentially send someone to jail because of it? Even the RI representative who wrote the law says that this use is "not what she envisioned." However, she then says it's okay because "the law might stop it from happening to someone else."

Really? Stop what exactly? A boy sending a message to a girl that makes her feel uncomfortable? That's called "most of high school" for some boys. And since there's no clear way to determine what is and what is not appropriate here, do we really want to be charging kids under things like domestic violence laws just because they go too far in a Facebook message? I'm not saying that the kid shouldn't be dealt with in some way if the messages really are "inappropriate," but can't they be dealt with in other ways? Block him on Facebook or have parents punish him. Involving the police and charges? Seems "inappropriate."

This is pretty ridiculous. Just as the Senate is debating the PROTECT IP bill, the Copyright Alliance, a lobbying group created and funded by a bunch of the big legacy copyright maximalist companies, apparently got to set up an "educational display" in the Senate Russell Building Rotunda. The Copyright Alliance has no shame about how it's using this "educational display" to influence the vote:

The exhibit is an opportunity to showcase for lawmakers and visitors to the U.S. Capitol Complex the importance of copyright to creators across America, by focusing on people behind the lens, sharing stories about the images, and helping viewers understand the investment and commitment made by photographers capturing our nation’s many stories.

I'm curious if the Senate allows such other totally biased parties to set up exhibits like that during debate on other bills. How about pharmaceutical lobbyists setting up an "educational" nursing station in the Senate, just to show the "importance" of protecting pharma. And I'm sure the banks would love to set up an "educational" bank vault in the rotunda during Wall Street reform hearings. How could anyone in the Senate see such a biased effort as being okay?

Before I get into the details of this post, I will say that I don't quite get the purpose of the whole "Occupy Wall Street" protests. I mean, I guess that they're supposed to be some sort of American version of the Arab Spring protests or the riots in London, but, honestly -- like many of these things in the US -- they strike me as people protesting for the sake of protesting. I just don't quite see the point. The folks in the Middle East had real problems with their government. Protesting against a "financial system"? What does that do?

That said, since we've been writing so much about law enforcement and videotaping their actions, one story coming out of the ongoing protests is worth looking at in more detail. On Saturday, there were a bunch of arrests, but the story getting a lot of attention was the decision by one officer (according to this blog, his badge says "Bologna") to walk up to a group of protesting women and spray their eyes, point blank, with pepper spray. You can see the slow motion video, which highlights the officer's actions: From that video, it seems pretty clear that the guy just walks up to a group of the protesters, sprays them, and walks away. So here's where it gets more interesting. The NY Police Department have insisted to the NY Times that the pepper spraying was appropriate, even as they admit they only use pepper spray in extraordinary circumstances:

The Police Department’s chief spokesman, Paul J. Browne, said the police had used the pepper spray “appropriately.”

“Pepper spray was used once,” he added, “after individuals confronted officers and tried to prevent them from deploying a mesh barrier — something that was edited out or otherwise not captured in the video.”

Of course, accounts in that same article from one of the women who was sprayed (who wasn't arrested) suggests a different story. While admitting there were some "rough" people there, she says that she and the folks around her had done nothing to cause the police to single them out with pepper spray. Furthermore, the folks at USLaw.com have more information including an additional video taken by one of the pepper-sprayed women. While right as the pepper spraying happens the camera is facing away from the action, and there was a lot of screaming and activity a bit earlier, it's hard to see how anything anyone did in that area provoked the sudden spraying: On the YouTube page for that video, the woman states that, for the most part, she supports the police force and believes they're good and honorable people. Right before she was sprayed in the video, she appears to be asking police politely where they want her to go.

Yes, this was a chaotic situation with lots of people yelling and lots of movement. But the evidence from the two videos (and two of the women sprayed) certainly suggests that the police spokesperson is lying in saying that the use here was "appropriate." I find this interesting not because of anything to do with the protest itself, but because of the way the ability to record and upload videos like this is really able to impact and change the debate. In the past, it would have been the police's word against the protesters, and lots of people would have simply believed the police. But, as chaotic as the situation may be, law enforcement around the world is going to have to learn that they can't hide behind false claims of acting appropriately if they didn't, in fact, act appropriately.

For years, we've discussed the legality of police searching the contents of your smartphone at a traffic stop. The issue is a bit complex legally. The law generally says that police can search through anything on your body, but that was generally meant for things like your wallet or other physical storage. When it comes to something like a smartphone, that contains all sorts of details about your life (and the ability to access a hell of a lot more) the questions become a lot trickier. It certainly feels like it should be against the 4th Amendment to allow such searches without a warrant -- but the courts have been mixed. Tragically, earlier this year, California's Supreme Court ruled that such searches were perfectly legal without a warrant. In response, the California legislature passed a bill, SB 914, which would require police to get a warrant.

But there's a problem: Governor Jerry Brown hasn't signed it yet.

Despite petitions and a variety of editorials urging him to sign it, he's still sitting on it (he has until October 9th). Wired is reporting a rumor that Brown has agreed to veto the legislation in an effort to please the "law enforcement lobby."

As the Wired article notes, the law itself is already pretty weak, allowing law enforcement to ignore the warrant requirement under vaguely defined emergency circumstances. It also doesn't require any official reporting of such uses where the warrant requirement is ignored, meaning that such an exception might be abused. But it certainly takes things a big step in the right direction concerning an individual's right to privacy. Hopefully Governor Brown recognizes this and signs the bill.

Slashdot alerts us to a report that a guy who set up a few million virtual monkeys trying to recreate Shakespeare -- a la the infinite monkey theorem -- has succeeded in recreating its first work of Shakespeare. Specifically, it's A Lover's Complaint, which is a narrative poem that was apparently published as an appendix to a book of Shakespeare's sonnets.

Of course, looking over the details, I'm a lot less impressed than I thought I would be. My understanding of the "infinite monkeys" idea was that you had those million monkeys typing away, and in some potentially near-infinite amount of time, one of them would actually craft the works of Shakespeare. Or, at the very least, that multiple monkeys would individually create the different works of Shakesepeare. But as far as I can tell from the guy's description, it sounds like he's taking any 9-character segment that matches any 9-character segment of a Shakespearean work and declaring the segment it "done." The process continues, filling in other random 9-character segments, until the entire work is done. That's not nearly as impressive. What would it take to get virtual monkeys to write an entire work of Shakespeare in one go? Or even just one sentence? That seems like a much more challenging problem... so this one is actually a bit disappointing.

In the meantime, as one of the articles about this project notes, when real monkeys were given real typewriters:

"Not only did the monkeys produce nothing but five pages consisting largely of the letter S, they began by attacking the keyboard with a stone, then proceeded to urinate and defecate on it."

So there's that. But let's see the virtual monkeys do something a little more advanced before we cheer them on.

Jonathan Rumion alerted us to a plan by the Austin, Texas police department to conduct a massive war drive around the city, looking for open WiFi networks, with the plan to try to find the owners, and tell them to lock up their WiFi networks. We've heard of similar campaigns in the past. Rumion was reasonably concerned about this effort -- and whether it was because of him asking questions, or other reasons, it looks like the Austin police have postponed this effort for the time being.

Either way, it raises lots of questions. Having an open WiFi network is not against the law, so should the police really be going around telling people to lock up their WiFi? It's also not at all clear how they're figuring out who actually owns the open WiFi networks. Rumion was also concerned about what the police might do with the data they collect, though I don't think that should be an issue -- that data is public. Still, it does seem like a questionable effort against something that remains perfectly legal.