iiNet – a major ISP in Australia – is being sued by a group of film and television companies for “authorising” film piracy (see this article for details). Seems to me that if the film companies win the case, banks should start suing state transport departments for “authorising” bank robberies – they provided the roads that the bank robbers used to get to the bank (and presumably get away as well). Or perhaps shop owners could sue Subaru for making the car that is most often used in “ram raids” (the WRX).

For years now the music, film and TV industries have been gunning for people who copy and/or share content over the Internet. If you believe the industry representatives, “piracy” costs the industry millions, if not billions of dollars every year. Frankly, I find it hard to believe these claims.

The problem is that new technologies (ie: personal DVD burners, digital data formats and the Internet) have rendered traditional business models and regulations obsolete. So how do you prevent illegal copying and file sharing? The answer is you don’t. You find a way to make money in the new environment. It is unfortunate that record labels and movie studios have invested gazillions of dollars in legal action and futile DRM technology. Had they invested that money and effort in exploring ways of using the new technologies to their advantage, things would be very different today. Take a look at this article on alternative business models for the entertainment industry. It’s a few years old now, but the idea is very enticing. If you could pay a flat fee of say $10 a month to your ISP, and for that price you could download ALL the music, films and TV shows you wanted, would you pay it? I sure as hell would.

Just been doing some more reading on the mandatory Internet filtering being proposed by the Federal government. Seems like the only people in favour are the government and right-wing Christian groups.

One argument being employed by supporters of the scheme is that the government already filters (ie: censors) other media – magazines, music, video games, films, etc; therefore, why should the same censorship not apply to the Internet?

The issue is that the Internet is a fundamentally different medium – it is profoundly different to magazines, movies, etc. Systems that work for “old” media don’t work with a new medium like the Internet.

An analogy if I may:

The main form of transport for most people now-a-days is the car. Actually, I should probably qualify that – for most people “in the Western world”. And there are rules which govern driving – speed limits, traffic lights, etc. These rules are enforced by means of speed cameras, red light cameras, police patrol cars, etc. Now, jump forward 10 years from now and pretend the main form of transport is personal flying devices (AirScooter and SkyCar are just two examples). This would represent a fundamentally different transport “medium” from those which are in use today (cars, motor bikes, trains, buses, walking, etc). Yes, I know that there are already airplanes, but this is completely different. At the moment there are only a few airplanes (relative to the number of people); airplanes only land and take off from airports, and generally only travel through narrow flight corridors (when they are over populated areas). Yet even with the relatively small number of planes in the air, air traffic control is vital to safe air travel. Imagine if there were as many SkyCars as there are regular cars. It would be like a scene from the Jetsons or The Fifth Element. Sky cars whizzing all over the place – in three dimensions. It would require a whole new system of rules to ensure that we didn’t all kill ourselves. And the current methods of enforcing “road” rules would be completely inadequate – the cop who currently hides behind a tree with a speed radar gun has nowhere to hide 10000 feet off the ground.

Each year in Australia, how many movies are released at the cinema? Or how many albums? How many magazines are on sale in a news agent? A few hundred? Even a few thousand? Monitoring and enforcing censorship laws for these media is relatively straight forward. Actual real live people watch new movies and play new video games and listen to new music etc to decide what rating to apply or to determine whether it violates any laws.

How many websites are there? Hundreds of millions. We are talking a difference of several orders of magnitude.

Given the mind boggling number of websites, current censorship (ie: filtering) processes are completely inadequate for the Internet. The only feasible way to filter websites is to use some form of technology that automates the process – there are just too many websites to have humans test every one. On top of which, each website has any number of pages. The number of web “pages” on the world wide web is in the billions. And these are constantly changing. If a new movie is released and reviewed by the censorship board, it only needs to do this once – the movie doesn’t change over time. But websites and web pages change constantly. And herein lies the flaw in the argument – any non-human mechanism is going to fail in (at least) two ways: firstly, it will incorrectly block websites which shouldn’t be blocked; and secondly, it will allow websites which should be blocked.

Suppose a website is blocked today because the filter decides it contains “prohibited content”. Suppose the administrator of that website removes the content. Does the filter now allow people to browse that website? Conversely, suppose a previously OK website is updated with some content that is deemed “prohibited”. (Something similar happened recently in the UK). The implication of this is that EVERY web page needs to be re-scanned EVERY day. And this is clearly not feasible.

So, what’s the answer?

There isn’t a single answer. It’s a multi-faceted answer, but even then it isn’t a complete answer. The fact is that we will never eliminate unwanted websites – there will always be people with extreme views or interests, and this will inevitably translate into extreme websites. It’s part of the human condition. There have always been murderers and rapists, and there probably always will be. But we don’t force everyone to wear GPS locator bracelets to prevent rape and murder. We accept that with freedom comes risk.

Things we can and should do:

1. Educate parents about the dangers of the Internet and how to combat them (eg: make sure computers are in a common space, not in a child’s bedroom)
2. Spend lots more money on law enforcement to identify and prosecute those involved in child pornography
3. Invest in technology that can be implemented at home to help parents protect their children

I’m sure I will have more to say about the proposed mandatory Internet filter in future posts, but that will do for now.

Ahh well, I guess it had to happen. The blissful honeymoon period is over. Alas, Gmail is not perfect. Or to be more specific, Gmail Contacts is not perfect. Actually, I would go as far as saying it is pretty crappy. If there is one thing I miss in Outlook it is the excellent contact management features.

Today I discovered how inadequate Gmail Contacts is. I created a Group of 16 people – the people who I have asked to help with beta testing our new web application (stay tuned – more on that in a later post). Most of the people in the Group only have a single email address (that I know of). But a few have two or three addresses.

Annoying Thing Number 1

When I added one of the people with more then one email address, I couldn’t choose which email address would actually be associated with the Group. It turns out that Gmail just grabs the first email address (the “primary” address). The solution was clear – I just needed to edit those rapscallions who dared to have more then one email address such that the desired address was in first position. Surely that would solve the problem.

Alas, no.

Annoying Thing Number 2

I wanted to test my new Group to make sure the correct email addresses were being used, so I composed a new message. I typed the first few letters of the Group in the To box, and when the Group name appeared I pressed Enter – all the members of the Group were nicely plonked into the To box. However, as I checked each name/address, I noticed that Gmail had grabbed the wrong address for those the people who had multiple addresses. Despite my efforts at resolving the problem by re-ordering the email addresses. Grrrr. In the end I had to remove the “wrong” addresses completely, remove the people from the Group, re-add them, and then compose a new message.

Annoying Thing Number 3

You can’t sort or group or otherwise view the contacts as anything but a long list. This is not so much a bug as it is a pitiful design flaw. Surely Google could invest a bit of energy into allowing us to sort our contacts. Is that too much to ask?

I recently found a nice blog post where a fellow Gmailer had a bunch of very good suggestions for how Google might improve contact management.

C’mon Google – fix the damn thing!

In my previous post I sang the praises of Gmail, but it isn’t perfect.

1. You can’t sort mail by sender or by subject. This is mitigated by the powerful search capability of Gmail so it doesn’t bother me.
2. There are no read receipts. It is my understanding that if you use a regular desktop mail client (eg: Outlook), just because you request a read receipt doesn’t mean you will actually get one. Also, the recipient’s client has to support it, and the recipient is usually able to prevent read receipts from being sent. Despite the apparent limitations of read receipts, this seems to be one of the most commonly requested features on various forums and Google Groups. Since I rarely request read receipts, I can live without these too.
3. HTML signatures with images. This was a biggie for me. When I used Outlook I had several signatures – one for when I send a new message with the company logo, contact details, etc, all nicely formatted. Then I had a different signature when I replied or forwarded – it had some of the address information removed along with the logo. I spent ages trying to find a way of enabling nice signatures in Gmail. I tried the Firefox add-on called Better Gmail 2, but it didn’t work, and I actually found it to be a bit unstable. Then I found Blank Canvas. This Firefox add-on is sensational – I can create multiple signatures (like I did in Outlook); they are nicely formatted including logo; I can choose which one to insert in a new message; and it just works without a hitch.

Now that I have my signatures configured, Gmail / Google Apps is proving to be fantastic.

Well, I have finally done it – I have abandoned Outlook. I have been a loyal Outlook user for over 10 years, and have used every version since it was first released in 1997. I have always found Outlook to be a pretty reliable email client and PIM, and it is especially powerful when teamed with Exchange. But lately I have been getting itchy feet, wondering if there might be greener grass on the other side of the cyber fence. Could I get the same level of user friendliness and rich functionality from another application? Enter Google Apps.

For the past year I have been paying about AUD$200 per month for a hosted Exchange service. I can’t complain about Exchange – it is a great system, but it ain’t cheap. I decided a few days ago to investigate alternatives which would save me money, without sacrificing functionality. Some business partners had recently told me that they used Google Apps for everything – email, documents, collaboration, etc, so I decided to check it out. And it rocks. I have switched to Google Apps Premier Edition and I am loving it. I can still do everything I used to do except Tasks. My email, contacts and calendar items all sync with my mobile phone (with the help of GooSync); I still have nice HTML signatures in my emails; I can set up multiple domains and email aliases; all I need is a browser; and I save hundreds of dollars.

So, if you run a small business and you want feature-rich messaging and collaboration at a very good price, take a look at Google Apps.