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Should There Be a Limit on Copyrights?

This article was written by in Career and Work. 10 comments.


I have a poll that I’m hoping you’ll take part in. Current U.S. law says that copyrights on most creative works (songs, movies, books, etc.) are valid until 70 years after the author’s death. It used to be 50 years, but when the 50 year mark was approaching, it was extended another 20. There’s no reason why Congress couldn’t extend it again when those 20 years are up, or any other kind of law could be passed between now and then that makes a copyright permanent, or reduces its lifespan.

When a creative work loses its copyright, it falls into the public domain. Example of public domain works include Read the full article →

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Smithee Debt Update, Mid-April 2010

This article was written by in Debt Reduction. 8 comments.

Happy Friday. It’s been just about a month since my last debt update, and I’m feeling relatively successful at it. I’m still on track to get rid of it by July, having eradicated $1,267.39 in the last four weeks.

Aside from the satisfaction of persistence, there’s actual good news: as of yesterday, my employer has brought my salary halfway back up to what it was a year ago. We all took a 10% pay cut in April of 2009, and the company’s leaders are finally, but cautiously, optimistic about growth in 2010, so they gave us “raises” equal to 5% of what our salaries used to be, and hopefully will be again.

After taxes, this means an “extra” $115 in my twice-monthly paycheck. This should’ve meant that on April 15th, instead of making a $650 payment to my “newer” credit card debt, I could make a $775 payment. Unfortunately, around the same time that the “raises” were happening. my shoulder pain from sitting in a crappy desk chair was getting unbearable. From previous experience, I know that my employer is not one to take quick action to remedy a health problem, so I got fed up and got a new chair. (Maybe they’ll offer to reimburse me. Who knows.) Coincidentally, the chair and a footrest cost a total of $115.71.

Debt Totals

Here’s where things stand right now:

Credit Card Debt Totals Change
Legacy Debt $496.81 -194.03
Newer Debt $3,734.36 -1073.36

Since I started the debt updates on January 26th, the combined debt has gone down from $6,828 to $4,230.

And starting at the end of April, I should have another $115 to add to each credit card payment.

Of course, I have some typical and atypical admissions to make concerning the things I put on plastic, instead of using cash.

Things I Put on Credit Since the Last Update

  • Enterprise Rent-a-Car – $17.29 – This is a perfect example of why we should always check our statements, line by line. I didn’t know this was here, and I’m not sure why it is. Renting the car while they worked on my 60k service should’ve been free. I suppose I should call and ask about this.
  • Toll roads – $120 – Apparently, I’ve been driving a lot these past four weeks. Roughly once a day I wonder if I should take surface streets more often, but I always end up deciding that I’d rather just get home soon.
  • Mobile phone service – $85.36
  • Web hosting – $16.25
  • Google AdWords – $2.24
  • Usenet service – $2.99 – as promised, I lowered this to cover just what I need in a given month
  • Podcast subscription – $5.00
  • Various entertainment things purchased through PayPal on Amazon and iTunes and CDBaby – $40.99 – I am shamed.
  • Lawn maintenance – $64 – I should switch this over to use the debit card for our joint account.

Unfortunately, that’s not all. I also used my debit card a few times since the last update.

  • Comedy at the Improv – $23.93 – I went out on St. Patrick’s Day to support my improv teacher and other local comics, and you’re probably familiar with that stupid “two item minimum” thing.
  • Rifftrax version of “New Moon”, and others from Rifftrax – $6.93 – This is so awesome.
  • Convenience store something – $3.16 – I have no idea what this is.
  • Parking for my standup comedy practice – $3.00
  • The afore-mentioned new office chair and foot rest – $115.71 – a necessary evil, I’m afraid

So, the things that I feel at-least-slightly guilty about total about $80 for the last four weeks, the same time period that I got rid of $1,267 in debt. End result: go me!

You can cheer me on and/or witness my money minutiae on Twitter if you want to.

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Twilight: New Moon: The LOL Edition

This article was written by in Frugality. Add a comment.

I’ve written before about how “alternate commentaries” can make old movies seem new again, mostly as a way of saving money vs. buying more DVDs. In that article I made a few recommendations from Rifftrax, among them the teen “vampire” “love” story “Twilight”.

(Without resorting to any more snark, I’ll just say that there’s a part of the public that really enjoys the Twilight books and movies, there’s a part of the public that likes the books but not the movies, and then there are people like me who don’t understand the fuss. That’s okay, though, I recognize I’m not in the target audience. No big deal.)

The good news is that the Rifftrax crew have, as their fans fervently hoped, released a new MP3 download to play along with the recent DVD release of “Twilight: New Moon”. I’m happy to report after watching it that it was at least as good as the first one. Best $4 I’ve spent all year, in fact. You can watch a video sample on the Rifftrax page, and I’ve noticed some unofficial fan compilations on YouTube, as well.

Twilight2WebThere’s a very good chance someone in your family has already bought the “New Moon” DVD, or you could borrow it from a friend of your kid’s. All you need to enjoy the funny edition is an mp3 player of some type. The downloadable commentary track comes with instructions and a reference file of sync points. I highly recommend it.

In addition, since my last post about Rifftrax, these other great commentaries have been released:

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Alternate Ways of Rewarding Content Creators

This article was written by in Consumer. 2 comments.

I’ve been thinking a lot since the last time we talked about my ongoing internal troubles with stealing entertainment. In general, my habits are tending more toward avoiding theft, even accidentally. I want to make sure that the creators know that the thing they made was good, and I want to help them make more.

The no brainer: “new media” creators

I’m proudly displaying DVDs for Homestar Runner (we also bought some figurines and a car window cling of The Cheat), Tiki Bar TV and Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog on my shelf. Those are great shows that would never have found a home on traditional television, so it’s up to people like me to reward them and help them make more.

The Cast of the GuildI’ve also been meaning to pick up The Guild on DVD. Wait a sec.

*click* There. Done.

My wife and I are also both subscribing for $5 a month to The Sound of Young America, and I’ve recently started buying some iRiffs here and there (these are like the fan-made commentaries we talked about earlier, but usually by people you’ve never heard of).

All of these shows have different business models, because “new media” (the linguist in me really hates that term) is still figuring itself out. The important thing is that they make it convenient to enjoy the things they make, and that they make it easy to reward them.

Where are you, high-def movie downloads?

We have the technology in place right now to make blu-ray obsolete. I’ve streamed high-def movies through my TV provider’s DVR, and through Netflix on the XBox, and I bought “Terminator 2″ in HD through iTunes (which I have connected to our TV). That last one even came with “extras” like a blu-ray disc would. So it seems absurd to me that “the market” still wants me to get a blu-ray player. I don’t need a separate device to play HD movies. I can already play them.

Besides, a blu-ray disc usually also costs more than its DVD equivalent, which makes no sense to me, because they both contain the same thing: one movie.

The sad truth is that it is easier for me to download the blu-ray high-def version of a movie for free, illegally, and store it on my home network than it is for me to stomach the idea of buying a blu-ray player (not least of which because I was rooting for HD-DVD, since that format was region-free). But I don’t want to be a thief. So, lately I also started buying the blu-ray versions of movies that I already downloaded, and which I know we’ll watch again and again. “Galaxy Quest” for example, and the new “Star Trek” movie. In fact I just ordered “Star Trek” at the same time I bought “The Guild” a few paragraphs ago.

But this isn’t what I want to do. I want to pay directly for a digital—software—version of the movie. I don’t want “the market” to think that actual blu-ray discs are more popular than they are. The only place I know I can do this is inside of iTunes, and as of this article there are only 286 HD movies available to buy. And for the life of me, I can’t see any rhyme or reason to which movies are there on the store. It seems totally random; not the kind of movies I want to enjoy many times over.

The downside: not rewarding bad content

All that being said – and I hope you agree I’ve made some improvements – I still don’t feel right paying for something that I didn’t enjoy. Earlier this summer we managed to go out to three movies in a row that weren’t any good. After that, I decided to be a lot more strict about getting reviews from places like Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes before heading to the theater.

And I’m trying to be more patient when things seem iffy. I was excited to see “Drag Me to Hell”, because I’ve always liked Sam Raimi’s work (yes, up to and including “Xena: Warrior Princess”), but I waited for it to be available to download (on Netflix or otherwise), and I’m very glad I did, because wow, did I not enjoy that movie. In fact I only saw about 60% of it before I thought of something better to do.

Thankfully, the guys at Rifftrax are making an alternate commentary, which should help erase the memory of watching it raw the first time.

Photo credit: Lan Bui

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Movies Are New Again With Fan-Made Commentaries

by Smithee

When DVDs (and before them, Laserdiscs) were new, I really used to enjoy listening to the commentary tracks. Granted, some were better than others, but I couldn’t seem to get enough of the “behind the scenes” talk, and to hear the cast and crew telling funny stories about each other. Those don’t interest me as ... Continue reading this article…

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