Nerds Against ACTA

You, the readers of this blog, may have seen on this blog's main page a widget calling on citizens of the world to oppose the passage of ACTA. There are a few details listed explaining why ACTA should be opposed; further details can be found by clicking on the widget. (For those wondering why the logo looks like the world superimposed on Mickey Mouse's head's shadow, the reason for this is because Disney is one of the proponents of ACTA and one of the driving forces behind every major copyright extension in the US (which is extended to other countries in the name of parity); each of these extensions has managed to keep Mickey Mouse cartoons under copyright just when they were about to enter the public domain.) Many of the people quoted on that website (in their opposition to ACTA) are also signatories of a report that further details why ACTA is harmful and undemocratic in product and process. The full report can be found here. Along with the usual suspects of border searches and such, the report also lays out why it is harmful to things like medical research and sales in developing countries. There are 2 links to further explanation and analysis, so the report on that website is not that long; it would thus definitely be worth your time to read the report.

On an almost totally unrelated note, I have added a widget to the end of every post allowing you to share any post to a social media site. Right now, I have a bunch of visible options (and if you hover over the "Share" button, you can basically pick whichever site you want to share it — there are over 250 supported sites as far as I know), but I want to be able to pare the list of visible options down to only the ones that you, the readers, most use. I would thus greatly appreciate it if you could respond to the poll below. The poll closes in the early morning hours of 2010 July 14, so please act quickly. If you use sites other than the ones I've listed in the widget, please click "Other" and then specify in the comments section; I will be sure to add these other sites to the visible list.
Thank you so much for your time.

On What Social Media Network(s) Do You Share Blog Posts?

Pay-to-Pirate

This comes from this article (Reuters through Yahoo! Movies) on how many sites hosting copies of movies are now charging customers to access them.
It's a rather strange turn of events, and one that I do not support, because now, these sites are actually taking revenue from the studios that produced these movies despite offering little to distinguish their copies from the original copies. That said, the benefit to consumers is probably that these uploaded copies are free of the DRM that comes with the original copies — that's what makes them worth buying.
That said, a quote by a Paramount executive (or so the article implies) caught my eye.

But the public needs to know that with such pirated convenience comes the risk of having credit card information ripped off, and problems with spyware contamination are even more common.

What?
They're concerned about spyware contamination on people's computers?
Yes, ripping off credit card information is a real problem, but the spyware contamination bogeyman is nonsense for 2 reasons.
One is that this spyware likely only affects Windows computers. Hence, *nix and Solaris users are probably safe.
The other is that it is positively hypocritical for a Paramount executive to be concerned about spyware contamination through illegally downloaded movies after the Sony-BMG DRM fiasco. After the Sony-BMG music installed rootkits to ensure that the music was legitimate and then wreaked havoc on the user's computer, I have more faith in illegally downloaded movies and music than in DRM-locked movies and music (ideal, of course, would be legally downloaded DRM-free movies and music).

In semi-related news, this article (Mike Masnick, Techdirt) talks about a new appellate court ruling that allows Congress to retroactively reestablish (was that redundant?) copyright over works already in the public domain. Upon reading it, I almost barfed. I can't really add anything to the discussion as the article is very comprehensive and thorough in its explanation and analysis, so I will just ask you to read the article itself (and if you are feeling bold (or bored), read the actual ruling itself, posted right below the article content).