Christopher Mercer.Net

I have previously blogged about Purtracks.com a Canadian online music store that does not support Apples Macintosh computers. Well their saga of being closely tied to the windows platform and not meeting customers needs continues on.

I recently attended the local theater to catch a flick where I was given a promotion card for 3 free music downloads from the Purtracks store. This is combined promotion from Hershey’s Chocolate, Coke, Empire Theaters, and Puretracks. The cards contain a serial number and a PIN number that you can use to redeem for the three songs. The problems started when I attempted to scratch the coating that is over the PIN number (much like a scratch and win ticket). As you can see in the image the coating did not remove easily and I ended up scratching the ink off the card, rendering the card useless. Not wanting to give up I decided to register for an account and see if I could decipher the numbers so I can get my 3 free songs.

The registration process was easy, simply provide the typical information; first name, last name, email, postal code, password, and a few check boxes for news letters. Once logged in to the music store I found that just about all the albums were available in WMA format only, and few were available in mp3 format. Knowing that WMA does not play well with Mac OS or any Linux/BDS variant this limits the customer base greatly. I would assume that any store would want the widest breadth of consumers possible.

Having surfed around and found 4 songs I like - I received a free song with registration - and added them to my cart and proceeded to the checkout. Attempting to decipher what numbers were I was ultimately unable to figure it out after several attempts. Having felt enough frustration in finding MP3 songs, knowing I could never use the service at home since I am a Mac user (you can not even view the website from a Mac), and the inability to redeem a coupon due to low quality printing, I decided to deactivate the account. Feeling that I would never likely return to the service as it does not fit my needs I clicked the “My Account” button. Searching high and low I could not find the deactivate account option. So now I am stuck with this Purtracks account, meaning they have my name and email with the potential to spam me in the future.

Once again I feel Purtracks has totally missed the boat on providing a quality service to its users. Using WMA, and the DRM contained within, limits the playability of the songs, restricting the access to even surf the store to Windows computers is unlikely to attract any attention from Mac or Linux users who might choose to use them. Finally, the inability to remove your information from their site is one of the largest privacy concerns I can think of and could be a violation of PIPIDA (Canada’s privacy laws). They can do much better.

Some times in the world of copyright and intellectual property you come across something so ridiculous, something so irrational, that you are just left gasping wondering “what were they thinking”.

I went through this when I read a recent story about CTV journalist David Akin who was notified that a video he posted to Googles YouTube site infringed on someone’s copyright. The posting, according to Akin, was a 30 second grainy video of Vimy Ridge he had taken with his digital still camera while on a recent trip to the World War I (edit for Metal Tim) memorial. The notice was served to Google from Holland & Hart LLP who according to a quick search is a construction law firm.

Now first off what is a construction law firm doing serving notices on of intellectual property? I do not understand what their particular interest is in this video. Secondly, this was a video of a public place - a piece of Canadian sovereign land - which was taken by the person who posted it online. There is no copyright being in infringed upon, except that of David Akin.

This is one of the many dangers of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), a key piece of copyright legislation that protects the rights of copyright owners in the USA. Currently the Government of Canada is considering DMCA like provisions for copyright reform, and if approved such legal actions could be legally enforceable in Canada. This is called the notice-takedown system where an apparent copyright owner serves notice to a hosting company like YouTube who subsequently take down the content.

However, current Canadian law advocates a notice-notice system where an accused copyright violator is given notice that the ISP (or other hosting company such as YouTube, blogger, etc) has been given notice of copyright infringement. It is then up to the user to act accordingly and remove the violating content or defend a false accusation directly against the accuser.

Since YouTube is US company with US servers the use of this aspect of the DMCA is hard to defend against. So where does that leave international users who post content legally but someone objects? In theory I could use the DMCA to take down material I object to based on a false claim of copyright infringement. The ability to do this is in how these provisions are written, there is no need for a judicial review to ascertain the infringement.

While it is not always apparent how copyright can effect the regular person on the street, but if this situation with David Akin is any indication there are far reaching consequences to such reforms. You, or I, could find ourselves wondering what happened to our blog entry, video, or photo we posted online one day.

It is not being covered on the news today, especially in the local media, but the federal government announced today that the sale of “inefficient” bulbs will be banned by 2012. That is a 4 year and 8 months period before you will be unable to buy incandescent bulbs or other forms of energy-inefficient lighting, such as flood lights and stadium lighting.

Is this period to long? Is it just long enough to be seen as doing something while prolonging the problem? This is what many of the critics will likely be saying and they have a valid point but at least something is being done.

Some key points to remember is these bulbs cost on average three times as much, but last several times longer. Include that with the 75% savings in energy for lighting your home and it adds up. This is a just compact fluorescent bulb, we have not even considered LED bulbs which are becoming more available. I have a LED night light in the kitchen that produces the same light as a incandescent based light at a 80% energy savings.

Some hard-core environmental community members might be up-in-arms over the next few days since most compact fluorescent bulbs use mercury in their manufacturing. Compare that with what Australia estimates they will save in emissions - 800,000 tons over 5 years - by enacting their ban earlier this year. It is still an easy choice to make.

In the end I think anything that is more energy efficient is worth exploring, and until we develop a bulb that does not need replacing we will always have the problem of tossing bulbs out.

As many of you may have noticed I have switched from using Nucleus to Word press on the advice and constant coaxing from Mike Grouchy. I will be playing with the look, and organization of the site soon enough, but for now content is king. Enjoy!

Facebook has introduced its new look and what a pleasant update! I just happened to be online last night around the time the change went down and ended up spending a few hours online checking out the new Networks pages (one for each network you belong), the revamped navigation, and the updated Inbox which replaced My Messages.

Theses updates are sleek! I think the single best addition - aside from improved navigation - is the introduction of network pages. Now you have a single page that unites various information about people from the same Network. For instance the Memorial University network (which surprisingly many MUN students who use Facebook are NOT members of) list recent notes, upcoming events, network statistics, membership stats (2,104 users for instance), and boasts its own wall. All this information is fed from the individual profiles of the users who consist of the network.

Now if Facebook would just fix groups things would be much better! As it stands right now groups are attached to the creator and cannot exist independently. For instance if you wish to create an event for a group and invite the members of that group, lets say a local chapter of Engineers Without Borders for example, they better all be on your friends list or you won’t be able to invite them directly. This is just one of the issues I have with how groups currently function that could be improved.

For those of you interested in stats here are a few about this site.

According to my site tracking software (no I can’t identity you personally!) 61% of my site visitors are new, 39% are returning. Of that

• 36% are from google
• 26% are direct visitors
• 16% are “others”
• 10% are directed from Mike Grouchy.com
• 6% are from www.facebook.com and
• 6% are from www.bluekaffee.com

I find this mix of visitors interesting. I get anywhere between 50 to 100 visitors daily.

Just some random stats for those who are interested.

In my final statement about the situation faced by social community site Blue Kaffee, I am glad to see they moved to using Google ad’s. The donation drive was not generating the revenue needed to pay the debt the owner incurred on behalf of his users. Hopefully this particular move will not alienate his users and generates the income needed to allow the site to become self sufficient. Also, I think the donation button should remain allowing anyone to donate as they see fit and not under pressure that the site may cease to continue without their support.

Good luck to the BK community.