As Mrs Crimperman will confirm I have been despairing of late at the way some of my favourite Star Wars characters have been sold out by being used in adverts for PC World and Vodafone. It’s not just the fact that they are being used to sell mobile phones but to be honest the adverts themselves are total rubbish (You could look them up if you want to but I really recommend you don’t).

By contrast last year VW put out a brilliant ad featuring a child in a Darth Vader costume which was brilliant. This year they are looking to top that and (while I have no affinity to them) the “teaser” (yes a teaser for an advert) and the ad itself are really very good (I think the teaser is best myself).

They made me laugh anyway.

Teaser

Advert

Rowan Atkinson plays invisible drums. I sent a link for this to a friend looking for “funny videos” yesterday, that meant I had to watch it again. There’s probably some kind of spiritual message about trusting the unseen but to be honest it just made me smile so I thought I’d share it.

Below is a guest post by a friend and colleague at Free Software Magazine – Terry Hancock.

Like me, Terry is interested in the subjects of free (as in freedom) software and free culture. With regards the latter (and unlike me) he has got off his backside and started to do something. This post describes Terry’s project to produce a science fiction “TV” series and release it under Creative Commons licences. This is both ambitious and encouraging. As you know I have focussed [my own attempts](http://www.crimperman.org/tag/freedom/] at free culture onto the church and the way “worship” resources are locked down and restricted by archaic copyright and “intellectual property” laws. One obstacle I have come across is that if resource producers do not release the material under free licences then any attempt to bring freedom back into our media and other cultural elements will fail. Terry has encountered this and “Lunatics” is an admirable response.

Right now the issue – as ever – is financial. This project is – by nature – on a much smaller budget than mainstream productions but – like the Blender open movie projects before it – it still requires some cash to get started. Also like the Blender open movies, backers get rewarded for their donation.

You may not like science fiction, you may not like the concept of Lunatics but you may know people who do. If you like the idea of free culture and are fed up with the ever-increasing tide of restrictive actions by media companies – try supporting one of the good guys.

Update

The target funding has now been reached. This is exciting news as it means there is support for such a great venture. You can still find out about the project and catch up with the latest news at the project website lunatics.tv.

Guest post – Terry Hancock

Lunatics - somebody's got to be crazy enough to go first!

Support this project

Lunatics is a story about the first permanent settlement on the Moon. Politics are inevitable, physics is implacable, and the colonists are indomitable fanatics. After all, normal people don’t really colonize new worlds, do they?

“Lunatics” itself is largely based on character comedy, but we take the science and technology very seriously. Much of the technology in planned Lunatics scripts is not only real and relatively new, but also largely ignored in prior science fiction. Perhaps the greatest realism, though, is in the way the characters are presented.

The series and all the original source material will be released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license, and it will be created using (mainly) the free software Blender 3D application on GNU/Linux workstations. It is a free-culture production from end-to-end. We are taking advantage of the massive body of existing free-culture work (music, sound effect, graphics, and so on) to help make all of this possible. And once we get our series up and running (we plan to do 18 episodes a year, of about 30 minutes length each) we will be one of the biggest free culture film projects going!

What makes this possible is a fan-financed business model which has been pioneered by only a handful of free-culture projects. But it’s enough to show that it can be done.

This project will require a lot of innovation on everything from merchandising business models to real-time animation techniques.

Right now, we are trying to raise $2400 through a Kickstarter project to support pre-production work — especially paying artist Daniel Fu a commission for creating character design drawings which will be used to create the 3D characters for the series.

Backers at any level will get early access, and for those who pay just $15 or more, we have a variety of “rewards” — ranging from character art posters to the complete “Character Art Book and Writer’s Guide”.

We also have corporate sponsorship levels if you know someone who’d be interested — for $400, you can get your company logo printed prominently on our pre-production materials, and featured on the website. Needless to say, a couple of such sponsorships would go a long way towards meeting our goal (these are limited to just 4 slots to make sure we have room for your logo).

Like all projects, we have to start small and work our way up. I don’t have a fan-base of thousands to draw on yet, because Lunatics doesn’t exist… yet. But with your help, we can get there!

Thanks!

I came across this video the other day. It’s cute and one of those ones that can make you go “awww” but as I watched I started to think about the parallels we have with the baby squirrel. Watch the video, I’ll explain afterwards…

… So here’s what struck me:

• sometimes what stops us is the knowledge of how to progress
• when the knowledge is there the problem can be lack of courage
• even when help appears it may not be in the form we expect and tackling that requires a whole new batch of courage and knowledge
• perseverance works if you are a) motivated, b) encouraged and ultimately c) helped

But you know what really struck me? It was the big squirrel. To me it seems to get very frustrated yet it keeps trying to get the baby to jump – even to the point of pushing it up the wall. I looked a that squirrel and I wondered how often am I not like that? How often do I allow my frustrations to get the better of me and I end up giving up on someone who needs help? How often do I give in too easily and just help the other person take the short-cut? And how often am I the baby squirrel without realising or recognising it?

I’m doing some basic research on teaching kids to program computers. If you teach (or have taught) kids to program I’d value your response. I’m using zoomerang for this so if the survey doesn’t appear below try going to the direct page for it. If you know any ICT teachers (or just parents who teach their own kids to program – please pass this onto them.

I’ll post the results later here and on my Free Software Magazine blog.

Regular readers of this blog (if there exists such a beast) will know I am quite passionate about the ideas of freedom in church. To be more specific I really dislike the idea of restricting people through draconian copyright from worshipping and journeying with God. Recently I’ve noticed some a increase in some quarters at releasing some of the restrictions usually associated with copyright symbols. Music and other resource books are increasingly appearing with “photocopy permissions”. At face value this sounds wonderful and you’d be forgiven for believing it is generous on the part of the publisher. I’m sure the author/publisher/editor thinks they are being generous too – except they aren’t really. They’re just being confusing.

As an example let’s take a recent resource book I bought. “Free Photocopying included!” shouts the red splash logo on the front cover. “Great!” you think and you begin copying to use in your church. You do this because nobody usually reads the small print when the big print is so unambiguous. The problem here is that the standard copyright terms inside the front cover include the words..

“All rights reserved. It is illegal to reproduce or transmit in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, any part of this copyrighted file without permission in writing from the author” (emphasis mine)

Note that it says “including photocopying” there but hang-on the front cover says I can copy it. The introduction tries to clarify things by mentioning that “This book includes a licence which permits you to photocopy it but – for obvious reasons – for use within your group only”. So that’s clear then. There’s is your permission in writing.

Except it’s still not clear. What is my group, how often can I copy this and what if I am responsible for several “groups”? I know it sounds like I’m being pedantic here but believe me an “Intellectual Property” Lawyer would be even more so. Suppose I use this book for ten years. During that time I need to give copies to several people in two groups. Over time copies get lost, fade or people leave the group. Do I have to get the copies back off the people who leave? How many times can I copy it? If the people I give it to, copy their copies am I responsible or them? How big does the author expect a group to be before they expect me to buy a new book?

“Oh you’re being silly Ryan” I hear you say. “Nobody is really going to care about such trivial details – least of all a Christian author.” Except we’ve had cases where Christian organisations sue other ones because they have similar sounding names. We have Christian CDs with copy protection on them and we’ve had situations where Churches receive threatening letters for putting something they believed to be public domain in their newsletter. Sadly the fact is that if you’re not prepared to sue and you don’t really care then you don’t include the copying restriction text in the first place. A Christian (or any) Author may not intend to sue a copyright infringement but you can bet the publisher will. The publishing industry has even popularised it as a “crime” (it’s not it’s a civil not a legal infringement). And again to my eye it looks more like the Church is intent on copying (if you’ll pardon the pun) the way the rest of the world does this kind of stuff.

A Better way

I know there’ll be arguments of “People have to be paid” and “You can’t get everything for free” coming about now. I’ve heard them and I’ve answered them before. I won’t bother doing so again here but there is a better way to give people the freedom to photocopy without leaving all these legal holes for them to fall into. How about putting a specific licence on the work. One which might say: “You can copy this and pass those copies around. You cannot sell it and you have to say where you got the original”. That’s the essence of the Creative Commons licences. Specifically it’s a Attribution-Non-Commercial one. Some people familiar with CC will balk at my use of NC in there but in this context it works. You can add bits like “It has to be copied unaltered” (No-derivatives) and “You can’t restrict the way anybody uses the copies” (Share-alike) but these licences are specific. They tell you what you can and can’t do and they do so in plain English (or whatever language you prefer). Suddenly all my questions above are answered:

What is my group? group size and number is irrelevant, make as any copes as you need
How often can I copy this? As often as you like – just don’t sell the copies and say where you got it.
What if I am responsible for several “groups”? doesn’t matter
Do I have to get the copies back off the people who leave? no
How many times can I copy it? As many times as you need
If the people I give it to, copy their copies am I responsible or them? neither, it’s fine
How big does the author expect a group to be before they expect me to buy a new book? doesn’t matter

Right now I imagine any authors reading this (if they have got this far) will be shaking their heads and dismissing me and mad. How can I possibly suggest removing their income like this. But I’m not. I can’t think of a Christian book I have read in the last twenty or thirty years that was written or compiled by somebody whose sole job was an author. Most of the authors are involved ins some kind of ministry or job which gives their writing on that subject a certain weight. In short they are already receiving an income, the royalties from books (which is but a small percentage of the price you and I pay) are n top of their salary. But they have expenses? Which can probably be met by the sales of the book anyway quite early on. It’s common to presume that what I am suggesting here will result in fewer book sales because everyone will copy the one book. That’s not borne out by evidence elsewhere. Some authors have seen their book sales increase when they released the text elsewhere under Creative Commons. The thing is this happens now. People photocopies some pages from a book, the recipient likes it and then buys the book. Some people prefer to buy physical books as well. Yes the profit from sales may drop but not as much as you think and mostly that will hit the publishing company not the author.

Nothing will happen

That sounds a bit defeatist but I am not expecting anything much to happen immediately following this post. Firstly I’m not that popular so I doubt many people will read it. Secondly people are not generally inclined to share these days. That’s funny because we all tell our kids too and our faith is based on free gifts that must be shared with others. One day maybe the Church will get this. Certainly a small pocket of it does now but right now, sadly, the Church seems to be quite merrily following the example set by the selfish and greedy parts of the world around us.

If you want to read more on this subject here are some of my blog posts on it:

• Authorised (KJ) version – not so free then
• Christians and copyright: why can’t we share?
• m108, document freedom and the church
• Announcing m108: the next step on freeing the Church
• Taking risks and freeingup worship
• Christianity that doesn’t spread straight from the fridge
• Human rights vs Human responsibility

I’ve seen and heard an awful lot of stuff about tomorrow’s referendum on voting and to be honest a lot of it is the same-old, same-old. The main Yes and No campaigns seem to be more concerned with scaring us about the opposition than promoting their own case. In addition I’ve yet to see anyone describe what might actually happen in each case.  So I’ve decided to have a go at it myself. I’m well aware that this might actually make things more confusing but I think you can handle it – you clever people.

First past the post (FPTP)

This is what we use now.  Here’s a nice diagram of what NoToAV supporters suggest happens with FPTP.

Simple idea:  count the votes and the one with the most wins. That sounds good but it’s not usually what happens. They’ve ignored things like tactical voting (voting against the candidate you don’t want) and the 30-40% of people who don’t vote at all. The end result is that the winner probably has the support of far fewer than half the people they represent (let alone a majority).  Here’s a revised diagram.

The irony here is that with FPTP many people already vote for their second choice (represented by the red and yellow votes above) as they don’t think their first one has a chance (or they are not standing). So when the NoToAV campaign claim AV will let the second choice candidate win, they’re ignoring the fact that the current system does that already.

Alternate Vote (AV)

This is the competition. YesToAV campaigners suggest something like this will happen if we switch.

Another simple idea. You rank the candidates in order of preference and the winner is the one who eventually ends up with at least 51% of support. Except that’s also neatly avoiding some of the realities like the 30-40% of non-voters and the people who only put down one preference. Here’s a diagram showing what would probably happen.

So you see the winner is the one with at least 51% of the remaining votes not all the votes and certainly not all the people they represent. That said there is a greater chance that more voters prefer the winning candidate than with FPTP.

What to do?

I’m not trying to convince you to vote one way or another – make your own mind up but don’t fall for the campaign lines. Read up on both systems and work out which is best for you butdon’t just fall for the campaign leaflets. They are after all very biased.

That said it is difficult to write a piece like this and not have your own preference come through. For the record I do prefer AV over FPTP ( given the option I’d rather STV or another PR was on offer ). My reason is – I think – simple: I live in a very safe seat and AV would give me the chance of showing my preferred candidate that they have my support and yet still allow my preference between the two front runners to make a difference. I can see some of the benefits for FPTP in an ideal world but in truth we don’t live in one of those. What concerns me most is the way that these campaigns have been pushed as if letting the “wrong” system win would mean automatically letting the candidate or party you don’t want in as well. Both sides are claimimg the extreminst groups would have more chance under the other system. This is not true by the way. There’s no evidence to suggest that extremist groups would have a better chance under either system. Most commentators say that changing to AV would not have made much difference to recent elections so why would I want to make a change if it made no difference? I believe that over time AV (or better yet STV) could make a difference. After the election candidates would better know what kind of support they have among the electorate and could campaign and work to increase that support. Rather than grow somewhat complacent each candidate would need to work to gain not only more first preference votes but increase their second preference ones too. In the end that sounds to me like prospective MPs would have to do something I rarely see or hear of: campaign on behalf of consttuents at times other than elections. It could also mean the candidate who is prepared to win the most support locally will win. This sounds better than the red, blue or yellow campaigning we have now.

Having said all of that I am concerned that this referendum coincides with local government elections and yet I have seen no local campaigning at all. It would appear that not one local candidate really wants my vote. Given that state of affairs I am beginning to see why so many people don’t even bother. So above all else this is a call to candidates in any election – don’t presume upon our votes – win them. Convince us. Not with scaremongering or bogey-men but with work and effort. You want me or my neighbours to vote for you, then sh ow us what our vote is worth. Not with leaflets but with action and if you are going to send me leaflest or run billboard campaigns – make them a little more honest rather than marketing material. because if you don’t do those things then you will find an increase in the non-voters.

Update Although I said much of the AV stuff is same-old, same-old it’s nice to find that there are still some refreshing views out there. My friend Kneewax, for example, has a very interesting one with which I wholeheartedly agree.

If you want to reproduce the KJV text in the UK you have to ask the Queen.

This year, Christians are celebrating the 400th anniversary of the first publication of the Authorised or King James version of the Bible. As an example the popular Spring Harvest festival has rightly chosen the Bible as it’s theme for this year’s event. It’s not just Christians either. Certainly here in the UK I have seen and heard of a lot of events and media productions based around the importance of the publication of one of the most popular translations of the Bible. Part of the enduring popularity is down to tradition, part of it will be down to the fact that a lot of Christians consider this to be the “only” version of the Bible and part of it – especially in recent times – will be because it is one of the few recognised translations outside of copyright control. Hey it was published in 1611 so any copyright on it must have expired by now – right?

Freedom in the UK

Not in the UK it seems. I hadn’t realised this before and I am indebted to an identica/twitter friend @artsyhonker for highlighting it. The King James version of the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer are under Crown copyright in the UK. So far so good, the 1988 act brought Crown copyright into line with other copyright holders but both these publications are covered by Royal perogative. This peculiarity means that publishing of these texts in the UK can only occur under licence from the Queen’s Printer. Here’s an extract from the Wikipedia page on the BCP (emphasis mine):

In the United Kingdom, the British Crown holds the rights to the Book of Common Prayer. The rights fall outside the scope of copyright as defined in statute law. Instead, they fall under the purview of the royal prerogative and as such, they are perpetual in subsistence. Publishers are licensed to reproduce the Book of Common Prayer under letters patent. In England, Wales and Northern Ireland the letters patent are held by the Queen’s Printer, and in Scotland by the Scottish Bible Board. The office of Queen’s Printer has been associated with the right to reproduce the Bible for many years, with the earliest known reference coming in 1577. In England, Wales and Northern Ireland the Queen’s Printer is Cambridge University Press. CUP inherited the right of being Queen’s Printer when they took over the firm of Eyre & Spottiswoode in the late 20th century. Eyre & Spottiswoode had been Queen’s Printer since 1901. Other letters patent of similar antiquity grant Cambridge University Press and Oxford University Press the right to produce the Book of Common Prayer independently of the Queen’s Printer.

The terms of the letters patent prohibit those other than the holders, or those authorized by the holders from printing, publishing or importing the Book of Common Prayer into the United Kingdom. The protection that the Book of Common Prayer, and the Authorized version, enjoy is the last remnant of the time when the Crown held a monopoly over all printing and publishing in the United Kingdom.

This protection should not be confused with Crown copyright, or copyright in works of the United Kingdom’s government; that is part of modern UK copyright law. Like other copyrights, Crown copyright is time-limited and potentially enforceable worldwide. The non-copyright Royal Prerogative is perpetual, but applies only to the UK; though many other Royal Prerogatives apply to the other Commonwealth realms, this one does not.

I’d imagine there is – as ever – a grey area with regards what constitutes “publication” and I’m guessing the legislation doesn’t allow for such things as the web but what this means is that in the UK where the King James version was first published, we cannot legally reproduce any of the text without letters patent (a licence).

Freedom

Those who read this blog (both of you) will know that I am particularly fond of writing about freedom, particularly when it comes to resources for Christians to use in worshipping God – and by worship I mean all its forms including just living. It seems I now have to correct something I said a few years ago whereby I referred to the KJV as public domain. Restrictive licencing on any Christian resource saddens me – more so when that resource is the Bible which is intended to free people.

You might be thinking that the Royal prerogative thing is a bit superfluous as the Crown is unlikely to prosecute an individual UK blogger (say) for reproducing ten verses of the KJV on a website. You might be thinking that anybody worth their salt would probably read a more modern translation (with the copyright issues surrounding that). You might be thinking that you can just get a copy from another country (any importer must be licenced also). In short: it’s easy for us to think this doesn’t matter. Except it does matter and it should matter. It should matter to all UK Christians that 400 years after publication such an important text remains under tight publication controls. It should matter that while almost every other government and Crown text will eventually enter the public domain – for all to freely enjoy – two texts intended to bring people into closer fellowship with God will always have restrictions upon them. If a UK church wishes to publish some verses from the KJV in it’s bulletin, it should be able to do so without fear of breaking the law. Being in a situation where “it’s okay because they won’t prosecute” is unhelpful. If nobody will be prosecuted then the law is irrelevant. If we are reserving the law for cases where somebody may print off ten thousand copies then the law is pointless. Copyright exists to create a monopoly for the author (or copyright holder) of the work. If somebody prints 10,000 bibles and sells them who exactly is missing out here? After 400 years won’t the Crown (not the government in this case) have made enough money off the KJV in the past 400 years?

This year – of all years – the Royal prerogative on the KJV and the BCP should be surrendered. Place these texts in the public domain where they should be!

I tend to collect these sorts of one-liners and puns and every now and then I’ll post them here. I claim no ownership on any of these, if you do and you want an acknowledgement just leave a comment.

• The Grim Reaper came for me last night, and I beat him off with a vacuum cleaner. talk about Dyson with death…..
• My neighbour started banging on my door at 2:30am this morning, can you believe that 2:30am? Luckily for him I was still up playing my drums
• I saw a poor old lady fall over today on the ice! I presume she was poor, she only had £1.20 in her purse.
• Went for my routine check up today and everything seemed to be going fine until he put his finger up my bum! I think I need to change dentists
• Why do penguins jump up and down on a first date? Something to break the ice isn’t it?
• A skeleton walks into a bar and orders a beer and a mop
• A man with a salamander on his shoulder. He says “I’ll a pint for me and half for tiny”, the barman asks “Tiny?”. The man nods towards the salamander and says “He’s my newt”
• A man was sheltering under a tree during a big storm. Nothing happened for ages and then three bus shelters flew past at once.
• Bacon and egg walk into a bar and the barman says “Sorry, we don’t serve breakfast”

Like many people I am a massive fan of Top Gear. So it was with extreme sadness I read of the potential demise of this flagship factual programme for the BBC.

The Tesla Roadster

You may have heard the news that Tesla are suing BBC Top Gear over the way the programme portrayed the manufacturer’s electric vehicle. You may also have read today how Top Gear star Jeremy Clarkson has announced his retirement from the show with immediate effect. Apparently he is unhappy that both Top Gear’s and his own journalistic integrity is being brought into question like this. A lot of people are asking whether this will mean the end of Top Gear itself. Certainly many people are asking how this iconic TV show can continue without its main star. “If they replace him they run the risk of losing much of the female audience” said one commentator.

Clarkson himself has – in his typically shy way – said little except that he doesn’t intend to continue in TV. “What other TV could I do? Hammond has grabbed the cheesy early Saturday kid stuff and James May has cornered the market on reminding us about all those toys our friends had but our parents couldn’t afford.”. Rumours abound that Clarkson is looking to join forces with the Stig and create new Rally team but so far it’s just rumours.

If – on this of all days – Jeremy Clarkson is retiring and it means the end of Top Gear I think it will be a travesty for quality journalism and British TV. Where will we get our fix of presenters using their wit and guile to combat each other in a series of ever-more-elaborate trials. The Gadget Show just isn’t the same thing.

Update 2011-04-01 12:38 Okay so in the UK we have a tradition which says that April Fools jokes must only be played before midday or the joke is on the joker. Continuing that tradition, I am declaring that this post – if you hadn’t guessed – is an April Fool. Apart from the fact that Top Gear is being sued by Tesla, all of the above is made up (including the bit about me being a “massive” Top Gear fan. I like it, just not that much.)