Blog of Leonid Mamchenkov

I’ve mentioned this many times before and, I guess, I’ll need to mention this ever more - the technological progress of the recent years (the digital world, yes) has left many systems of our society behind.  Educational and legal are the most noticeable.   Here are a few words in the insightful and funny video (originally from the Ted.com - a place of many more insightful videos).  Here is a quote from a recent Boing Boing post showing the state of the legal system:

… pictures of Ford cars cannot be printed. Not just Ford logos, not just Mustang logos, the car -as a whole- is a Ford trademark and its image can’t be reproduced without permission.

TechCrunch has an excellent cover of the “photograph in the video” story that has been going on all over the web in the last few days.  Basically, somebody wrote a funny song and made a video for it.  In that video a bunch of images were used including one that was downloaded from Flickr without permission of the photographer.  The photographer got really pissed off and such.  The video was re-edited to remove the offending image, but there was plenty of discussion on how is right and who is wrong in this story.  Some really important questions on copyright, fair use, and free speech were asked, and some really smart people tried to answer them.

The rights of the copyright holder have always been balanced against the more fundamental right of free speech. And free speech in the Internet age, more so than ever before, goes way beyond words and text. The way people express themselves on the Web increasingly involves images, video, animations, and other rich media, often in mash-ups of pre-existing works. That is how people communicate today. Both copyright law and industry standards need to evolve to take that into consideration.

While I support the (copy)right of the author to command the usage of his or her work, I think that this particular case wasn’t handled properly by the photographer.

Immigration blog reminds that there are a few ways to lose Cyprus citizenship involuntarily (for those who got it via naturalization):

• Citizenship was gained under fraud or false statements.
• Person commits acts of disloyalty to the government of Cyprus.
• Person, within five years of being naturalized, begins to live continually abroad without registering with the Cypriot Consul.

It’s good to keep in mind, just in case…

The other time I was issued a fine that I didn’t consider fair. So I wasn’t going to pay it. The thing is, if you don’t pay your fine within the two weeks or so, it goes to court, and than you can either pay more in court or debate the fine. I wasn’t going to turn it into any serious case or anything like that, but I was hoping to debate it and get out of it.

Surprise, they say, can win you a lot of battles. When people are confronted with circumstances there weren’t prepared for, they are easy to manipulate. Especially, if they had a plan that couldn’t be applied anymore to the different circumstances.

That’s what happened to me. Since I was fined way too long ago, I was waiting for a notice from court. Instead I got a phone call. It was from Germasoia police station. The guy in the most polite and kind way reminded that I have a fine due. He said that it was only 15 CYP and that I should pass by and pay it.

I don’t know what got into me, but he was so nice that I didn’t even think twice before picking up my wallet and driving all the way to Germasoia. I paid it and actually felt good about. About two hours later I realized that it was the surprise that caught me offguard…

I’ve heard a lot of positive feedback about “Vera Drake“. Accidentaly I’ve got my hands on a copy of this film, so I watched it.

Directed by: Mike Leigh
Genres: Drama
Cast: Imelda Staunton, Richard Graham, Eddie Marsan, Anna Keaveney, Alex Kelly, Daniel Mays, Philip Davis, Lesley Manville, Sally Hawkins, Simon Chandler, Sam Troughton, Marion Bailey, Sandra Voe, Chris O’Dowd, Adrian Scarborough
IMDB raintg: 8.0
My rating: 4.0

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