So, it looks like the upcoming firmware upgrade turns unlocked iPhones into bricks. Well, that’s the risk you take when you install unauthorised patches to a device’s firmware; it’s always a dangerous thing to do, and you can’t really expect Apple to pick up the pieces for you when it goes wrong. What does really get to me, though, is the attitude to unlocking your phone; Steve Jobs is on the record as saying “It’s a constant cat and mouse game” against the people who want to do so. OK, what the f*ck has it got to do with him what someone does with their phone once they’ve bought it. Really? All these people want to do is use the thing (for which he’s already got his money) on a different carrier to AT&T. Hell, to get the phone, they’ve already signed up for an AT&T contract (or someone has,) so who’s really losing out?

This attitude that big business has is really, really starting to get to me. Why shouldn’t I mod the firmware in my phone, once I’ve paid for it, to be able to use it on my network of choice? No, forget that, why should I have to? Why can’t I buy an xbox game in the US and play it on my xbox here in the UK? Why should I have to re-buy all my DVDs just because I move to another country and can’t get a region 2 player? Why do I have to worry every time I buy a CD whether it’s going to consent to be put on my iPod?

Where do these big companies get off telling us, the consumers, what we’re allowed to do with things that we have already bought and paid for? It’s utterly out of line, and it’s worrying just how accepted a part of modern life it’s become. Something has to change. It’s time we collectively remembered that without our money, these companies, who presume to control our lives, have no income and no existence. Fundamentally, they only get away with it because we let them. Isn’t it time we didn’t?

Viacom has issued a take-down-notice to a YouTube user for posting a clip of one of their TV shows that included footage from one of his other YouTube videos that they had used without his permission.

What? A big-media company stealing and being hypocritical? Say it ‘aint so!

Apparently, it is. From the horses mouth:

“So Viacom took a video that I had made for non-profit purposes and without trying to acquire my permission, used it in a for-profit broadcast. And then when I made a YouTube clip of what they did with my material, they charged me with copyright infringement and had YouTube pull the clip,” wrote Knight in a new blog posting. “Folks, this is, as we say down here in the south, ‘bass-ackwards.’”

Ars has the details.

Personally, I’d like to see Viacom screwed for this. Not because I think what they did (in using the video) was particularly evil, but to highlight the rank hypocrisy of the big-media companies, and to show how out-there their legal policies really are. Here’s what I’d do; look at all of the copyright infringement suits they’ve been involved in in the past ten years, and find the most outrageous case of claimed damages you can. Then look at the annual income of the defendant in that case, and figure out what you’d need to multiply that income by to get the damages claimed. Next multiply Viacom’s annual revenue by that same amount and apply that as a fine, with the funds going to settle any outstanding copyright violation cases, and offer financial aid to people who’ve been ruined by over-the-top MPAA/RIAA copyright cases.

Legal? No. Fair? Possibly not, but something has to be done to send a clear message to big-media that they do not own us.

Looks like Sony are up to their old tricks again. This time they’ve quietly started putting a new copy protection scheme on their DVDs that renders them unplayable on some DVD players (including Sony’s own.)

This is just typical of the whole movie/music industry; it has no impact at all on actual pirates - a quick web search reveals torrents purporting to be DVD-rips of the movies concerned, but massively inconveniences their paying customers. I really do wonder how much longer the paying public is going to put up with this before just telling companies like Sony exactly where to stick their root-kits, incompatible disks, and assume-the-customers-are-criminals-mentality.