Blimey - they are at it again, and again, and agaon

The USA MPAA has just said they want to

"provide consumers with content when they want it, where they want it and how they want it".

What could be further from the truth. They want to just provide content through their restricted channels - cinemas they control, DVDs with DRM… or if they do provide content then it is sliced and diced by region, delivery media… and when someone like Netflix or iTunes sets up a service people like and use, they restrict the content to older, less popular movies.

Sorry but the MPAA (and all the others like them) are liars.

And just to cap it we are stupid and let our laws be used on their behalf to insist ISPs block web sites that index sources of content (think Pirate Bay) . We all know they don't own the internet, and they are doing this just because they don't own the internet, as a delivery channel.

Letter to my MP Tony Baldry

Dear Tony

The internet is global. There are millions of pages out there. The way that people find things is by using sites that index those pages, e.g. Google, Bing, etc and this includes specialist indexers like Pirate Bay. It is just a search engine, it does not host or download copyright material. It is no different from a site that indexes, for example, only academic papers.

So I am afraid I consider it very wrong that Pirate Bay has been found guilty of inducing the downloading of protected works. Google does exactly the same. Not only, but that it has been found guilty in a jurisdiction outside its home location.

The judgement is also frightening, that the networks which carry our internet signals (ISPs) should intercept them and block those that certain industries or governments fined objectionable.

Copyright infringement is simply by the two people: one who provides the material and the person who downloads it, the channel of communication cannot be guilty. Nor any indexing site that helps us navigate the internet.

I hope you will come to see the problem in this light and press for our laws on copyright be updated for the internet age.

Regards

Antony Watts NOTE: its now 14-5-12 and he has NOT replied...

Internet freedom attacked again

Pirate Bay

I have to say that I don't use Pirate bay for fear I might be downloading copyright material.

But where would the material come from if I did use it?

Not from Pirate Bay.

Let's get the argument clear: breaking copyright means copying and distributing a person's work without their permission. Pirate Bay does not do that. They do index other sites that host copyright works. These are offered by these sites for downloading. If the protocol used for downloading bit torrent, then the sites that the actual download comes from are many none of which is Pirate Bay, but a bit from here and a bit from there.

We are faced with these issues:

- The internet is global , you cannot enforce local laws about it

- Information out there is found by indexing and search, e.g. by Google

- Copyright is not broken by indexing and searching, but by copying from the indexed sites

So why do people put up copyright material on their sites? To make money by advertising, because they think its amusing or simply don't understand the issues, or because they are frustrated at not having legitimate download sites they can buy the work from? This last one is feel known as the main motivator for music and movies to be available from lots of sites.

So, lots of copyright material held on sites illegally is motivated by the lack of legitimate hosting sites where you an purchase it, particularly music and movies driven by the industries outmoded business models which release movies by country, by channel, by time. The internet is global, if a movie is released in USA but not in UK, then people in UK are going to want to see it, and they are motivated to illegally download it.

Accusing Pirate Bay of secondary guilt is simply wrong for free speech. The claim that the harm to copyright works can be equated to harm to physical products or to people, e.g. by an incitement to murder or promotion of physical copy-products which may be unsafe or break someones Intellectual Property rights, is wrong. Any laws that are interpreted to mean that it is illegal to index internet sites is wrong.

Try prosecuting Google not Pirate bay, they index many more sites with copyright protected works listed in the search results, just as does Pirate Bay. If Google is legitimate then so are other search engines. All of them make money from advertising.
The illegality of downloading a copyright work without permission and possible payment is between the hosting site and the downloader, nothing to do with any index which enable you to find the work on the global internet.

Radio Low Pass Filters

I have found a really useful number of tables for making Low Pass Filters, mainly used for suppressing harmonics from the output of amateur radio transmitters. Here are the charts:



Basic filter configuration, input and output are 50R.



These are the values recommended for each band.



Here is the data for the most common toroid cores, from which you can decide the core to use and the inductance per 10 turns.

This is the formula to use to calculate the number of turns required.




And this is the smallest toroid to use for a given power capability.