ever since people started getting zunes, there has been some discussions about ipod owners wanting their content from itunes to be played on their new zune devices.  on forums you see posts about tools and techniques to get the music into a format that any device can play.  one technique is to burn to a cd and then rip back in mp3 form (losing tags as well as decreasing quality of original content).  another is using a tool to strip the restrictions of the file and change them to a different format.

this has caused quite a big debate.  this debate is not new, of course, and started when content first starting having digital rights put on it.  in 1998, clinton signed into act the digital millennium copyright act, which attempts to put some clarification on this issue.  i'll add the standard disclaimer now that i am not a lawyer, attorney, whatever legal term you prefer to use.  i'm a united states citizen doing my best to live in a society of ever changing technology with ever changing laws trying to catch up with them.  after all, the same government helping to enact these rules has told us that the internet is just a bunch of tubes anyway (want to know who voted).

apple was probably the first big visible player in the game and instituted the FairPlay DRM technology that is currently in use today.  it's basically the drm policies that allow only "authorized" computers and devices to play the music, etc.  okay, fine, drm-me all you want.  however, the issue of "fair use" has come up.  now legal people will tell you (and the interpretation of the u.s. copyright office) that fair use is only a defense to the dmca violation (and thus by claiming the defense you've violated the rule). 

prior to 1998 (and one could essentially argue prior to the popularity of napster), none of this was really a problem.  we all bought media in some form and did with we wanted with it.  mixing audio has been around for years and even evangelized in movies.  VCRs also introduced an interesting era with regard to television content.  we simply are just now entering another one of those eras.  media (namely music here, but give a few years or maybe months and video will face the same persistent challenges whereas now it just a few) is now being demanded in digital form.  consumers have proved they are willing to pay for it and at a decent cost as well.  heck you could probably even raise the price a bit and get CD-quality music and people would prefer to get it digitally.  why?  because our entertainment world is changing.  cars don't come with tape decks anymore.  they come with cd players that have mp3 capabilities.  heck, some even come with ipod integrations, auxiliary jacks, etc.  industry is adapting the the desires of consumers.

so where am i going with this?  simple, i don't think it would be a fair stretch to think that 10 years ago when you bought that duran-duran cd you would have even second guessed whether it was now yours.  sure, common sense and ethical morals tell us that you wouldn't have attempted to copy it and sell it, or make copies for your friends.  but times are changing.  now you buy a song from <fill-in-the-blank>tunes/marketplace/*ster/etc and you have restrictions.  granted these restrictions are placed to act as deterrents from doing the very likes of simply sending it to your friends, etc.  okay, i get that -- and agree with it.  i totally respect the copyright holder wanting to retain the rights to their works entirety and ensure they are getting paid for it, unlike some.  but if i acquire my desired entertainment digitally and the world (and some of the same companies providing the content) are providing me numerous ways of playing it, wouldn't it be fair to assume you would want to play it wherever.  i don't want to steal it, copy it for others, or sell it.  i simply want to play it on my computer, through my receiver, and on my portable device -- all the brands of my choice.  i'm still preserving the integrity of the rights-holder...i simply want options on what to do with it.  yes, i'm claiming "fair use" -- and to me my use in those scenarios seems COMPLETELY legit...you won't convince me otherwise.

i read the copyright office's interpretation of the DMCA and get confused myself:

This distinction was employed to assure that the public will have the continued ability to make fair use of copyrighted works. Since copying of a work may be a fair use under appropriate circumstances, section 1201 does not prohibit the act of circumventing a technological measure that prevents copying. By contrast, since the fair use doctrine is not a defense to the act of gaining unauthorized access to a work, the act of circumventing a technological measure in order to gain access is prohibited.

to me, the essence of the dmca is to target the violators creating the technology to crack the protection schemes.  so if that is the case are the users of those schemes in violation if it doesn't explicitly call it out?  gray area here.  yes it is gray.  the law is great for one reason -- it should be black and white.  i know that isn't the case always and it seems we are moving more toward interpreted law everyday.  even that debate is a gray area.  but for sake of argument let us just assume it is.  the interpretation above could also be interpreted several ways -- what is "copying" (it depends on what your definition of 'is' is :-)).  is copying making the content available on the playback device of my choosing?  and is it restrictive to a method?  so is burning to cd and then ripping back just as illegal as removing the DRM?  the content is now unprotected -- granted the quality is gone, but the essence of the protection also is -- so should cd burning companies be in violation of this law?

granted there are a lot of tools doing things very "hacky" and prove they are not trying to even favor the copyright holder.  however there are some that are doing it under the bounds of some type of fair use of the content you paid for.  jhmyn, qtunes, etc.  these are applications that actually use the apple servers to get the user keys to decode the file.  and they only allow the original purchaser to do such activity.  and they keep the metadata of the original purchase so it is truly (in my opinion) making best effort to preserve the protection of the copyright, but allowing the purchaser rights to determine the method of consuming that content.

it is frustrating at best.  at what point did commerce (especially in media content) change form purchasing content to purchasing rights?  do you know walk in to a store and buy a cd and think that you are only purchasing the rights to play it?  in my eyes, yes and no.  i've bought that content.  i should be able to consume it in my medium of choice -- so long as i do only that.  in the world of open source software, one of the common phrases against commercial software vendors like microsoft is "vendor lock-in."  well in the world of digital entertainment, the current one causing that pain is apple.  and yes, msn music, urge, and zune marketplace with their formats are to follow as well.  the "plays for sure" initiative attempted to change that, but seemed not to have taken flight.  why?  who knows -- zune isn't "plays for sure" compatible...i guess the consumer market showed it wanted a consolidated environment for media.  but at a price of flexibility it appears.

i just think it is somewhat humorous and aggravating at the same time when we are doing all these things, but yet if you accept the penalty of quality (and for most it is an unnoticeable quality change that couldn't be altered with a simple volume hike), you can very easily, very readily still get to the end game -- and the same tools that protect the content are enabling that easy change.

each year, my wife and i hold a friends/neighborhood party to celebrate the holiday season (yes, the holiday season that stresses me out like you wouldn't believe).

at any rate, this year we held our 3rd annual festivus party.  what's festivus?  well, if you are a true seinfeld fan, you'd know.  in one episode (episode "the strike") of seinfeld here was the exchange:

Frank Costanza: Many Christmases ago, I went to buy a doll for my son. I reached for the last one they had, but so did another man. As I rained blows upon him, I realized there had to be another way.

Cosmo Kramer: What happened to the doll?

Frank Costanza: It was destroyed. But out of that a new holiday was born … a Festivus for the rest of us!

Cosmo Kramer: That must've been some kind of doll.

Frank Costanza: She was.

and thus, festivus was born.  originally celebrated on december 23, my wife and i hold it on the first saturday in december to try to beat the rush of company parties, etc.  we also make it a chili cook-off contest and white elephant raffle shindig as well.  for the past three years, i've dawned my same kelly green pants, and this year added a red blazer (courtesy of ebay of course). 

others came dressed ala cousin eddie from the christmas vacation movie -- it was awesome.  we had a great time this year and hopefully those that came did as well...it's a good chance to have some fun with friends and neighbors, i highly recommend it.

this year we also made party shirts for everyone, here was the design (front/back):

 

the back if you can't tell is a bunch of 'holiday' trees with a single aluminum pole in the middle -- commemorating festivus.  why a pole?  well:

No, instead, there's a pole. It requires no decoration. I find tinsel distracting.
-Frank Costanza

today, microsoft announced the first preview of the windows presentation foundation (formerly codename "avalon") everywhere framework (aka wpf/e).  so what is it?

essentially wpf/e is a strategy of bringing that rich windows presentation foundation (wpf) experience to the web.  oh yeah, but only internet explorer right? wrong.  ie, firefox, safari, opera.  bring it. 

the december ctp of wpf/e includes support for windows media technologies, 2d animation, vector graphics, etc.  it is an interesting technology -- check it out.

okay, so the other cheesy part of my post title was alluding to the other part of the announcement today...the expression studio toolset.

today microsoft announced:

• Expression Web - a tool for standards-based web development...this is RELEASED and available now.
• Expression Blend (beta) - this is formerly "Expression Interactive Designer" and is designed to produce rich, interactive (hows that for buzzwords) applications -- the beauty of this tool is the XAML produced that can be used in other tools, including visual studio.
• Expression Design (ctp) - this is the former "Acrylic" product.  both Blend and Design have been overhauled to implement new microsoft technologies in their use, but also have been re-designed -- they hardly look like microsoft applications, you may have to look twice.
• WPF/E MSDN Developer Center

i'm not a hard-core designer and so some of the features are a different paradigm for me, but i'm learning.  the important thing is the fidelity of the XAML between the tools -- there's the power -- being able to have complete fidelity BOTH WAYS from the designer to the developer.  I highly recommend checking these technologies out!  check out the expression site as well as a new site on design: www.microsoft.com/design. (note: these sites may still be replicating throughout the crazy super highway, so check back often.)

over thanksgiving, my family went to san diego to get away from the heat (yes it was still 91 degrees in Arizona on Thanksgiving -- although it has now dropped to highs of 67 now...beautiful).  one of our stops was seaport village -- just a little tourist trap area in san diego.  i took my daughter to ride the merry-go-round.  this thing had been around since the 1800's -- crazy.

while on the ride i noticed the interesting artwork:

yeah, my thoughts exactly.  the 1800's must have been lonely :-).  i just saw this and thought it was one of the strangest things i'd seen.  that was until i looked over my shoulder:

to me, this looks like one of the characters on the horse's saddle licking his arse.  what the heck is that about?  sheep sheering and horse butt licking.  nice

i have the tri-fecta of gifting for december: wife b-day, anniversary (10 years this year!), and the holidays.  yikes.  needless to say, we go broke in december.

i love my wife.  i really do a lot -- but i love it even more when she makes things easy for a neanderthal like me.  if you haven't figured it out yet (unless you're really astute in your relationship), shopping for women is hard.  it exponentially increases in difficulty when clothes are thrown into the mix.  this year my wife detailed a list of things she wants/needs for the tri-fecta holiday season.

so how do i know my wife is assimilated?  (into technology at least.)  well, first she emailed me the list.  one word: sweet.  she knows i suck at life multi-tasking and that i spend most of an average day in an inbox of some sort.  boom, gift list: flagged.  okay second reason i know...here's the first line:

Victoria's Secret -- any of the following:

item <blah blah> size <blah blah> -- you can enter "slipper" in the promo code to get free slippers

note: blahs added by me to protect her desires :-)

that was the first item -- no where did it mention go online or the website...nice -- she's finally got into my head -- i almost cried when i saw "you can enter the promo code" -- sweet bliss to see that "promo code" is now a part of her vernacular.

anyhow, last night i had a free moment to acquire some of the items from the 2 page aforementioned email (yeah, not kidding).  so i hopped in the car and took off.  then i suddenly realized...why am i driving anywhere?  first, my brakes are going out (on top of a flat tire this week as well) and i don't really live close to anything.

u-turn.  back home.  hop on computer.  i purchased everything she wanted (from what i decided was appropriate ;-)) from the comfort of my own home.  what about shipping? well, most online retailers are offering free shipping during the holidays so that was okay.  sure there were a few items that i didn't, but i'll get those during regular errands.

it was awesome.  i remember a colleague the other day asking about how much i buy online.  almost exclusively now.  really.  if it is a product in a retail (excluding food), i seek it out first online (and actually at ebay first -- a lot of retailers are using that as a channel for their 'real' goods), then determine the value of getting it online versus if i can get it on a normal errand run.  most of the time online wins.  i haven't tried out groceries, but i'm willing too...

anyhow, happy shopping!