Daily Show on Viacom v. Google lawsuit

Here's Demetri Martin on the Daily Show commenting on the Viacom lawsuit against Google. This is one that's better to watch on YouTube than on Comedy Central...



(Via Tim Lee at the Technology Liberation Front.)

Former Arizona governor endorses extraterrestrial spacecraft hypothesis

In a CNN interview, former Arizona governor and current pastry chef Fife Symington says he saw the "Phoenix lights" in 1997 and believes that the cause was an extraterrestrial spacecraft.

The CNN coverage fails to offer any alternative explanations (see the "Skepticism" section of the Wikipedia entry on the Phoenix lights and Tony Ortega's 1998 New Times story), or to note that Symington was the second Arizona Republican governor of the 1980s to be indicted on criminal charges, impeached, and removed from office.

Also see the Arizona Republic's coverage.

Derivative musical works and copyright

This morning on the Howard Stern Show, there was some discussion of Timothy English's book, Sounds Like Teen Spirit: Stolen Melodies, Ripped-Off Riffs, and the Secret History of Rock and Roll, along with playing some pairs of songs that had very strong resemblances. I didn't realize that Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven" was a derivative work, with the main guitar line closely resembling that in Spirit's "Taurus"--and Spirit used to open for Led Zeppelin. (Apparently a lot of Led Zeppelin's songs are derivative works.)

An example of this kind of borrowing that I recognized myself was when Nirvana's "Come As You Are" first started getting airplay--I immediately thought that the main guitar riff sounded almost exactly like that in Killing Joke's "Eighties."

It's not clear which of these borrowings are intentional and which are accidental, but as English's book makes clear, this is an extremely common occurrence. Some of these have led to successful copyright infringement lawsuits, but most haven't--at least in the past. The Dr. Demento Show, which I used to listen to every week back in high school, used to have a regular feature called "Damaskas' Copycat Game" which would play short bits of songs in sequence, demonstrating their similarity.

Spider Robinson wrote a short story in 1983 called "Melancholy Elephants" which is a story about a woman who tries to persuade a Senator to oppose an extension of the term of copyright into perpetuity on the grounds that there are finite permutations of notes that are perceived as distinct musical melodies, and thus that the bill would result in an end to creation of new works. In the story, she succeeds in persuading him to kill the bill, while in reality, the equivalent bill--the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998--passed, and Larry Lessig and Eric Eldred failed to overturn it at the U.S. Supreme Court in 2003 (Eldred v. Ashcroft). While this didn't extend copyright to "in perpetuity," it has an economic effect virtually indistinguishable from copyright of infinite duration (as Justice Breyer's dissent recognized).

In 2005, arguments over the practice of sampling music came to a head, when the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that no sampling could take place without a license--not even for a 1.5-second, three-note guitar riff that N.W.A.'s 1990 song "100 Miles and Runnin'" sampled from Funkadelic's "Get Off Your Ass and Jam." This decision led to a protest in the form of a collection of songs composed solely of that sample. [The Downhill Battle organization's website has been down since November 2007, but can be found on the Internet Archive. -jjl, 6 Jan 2009.]

(Related: An excellent short video documentary about the use of a six-second drum sample from The Winstons' "Amen Brother.")

UPDATE (December 27, 2011): The Economist, Dec. 17-30, 2011 year-end issue features an excellent article, "Seven seconds of fire," about the Amen break.

UPDATE (May 18, 2014): The estate of Randy California, of Spirit, is suing Led Zeppelin over "Stairway to Heaven" being a derivative work of "Taurus."

The site whosampled.com has a list of songs which have sampled "Amen, Brother."

I should have noticed that the Killing Joke/Nirvana riff is also very close to an earlier (1982) riff in The Damned's "Life Goes On" (I certainly listened to the album "Strawberries" enough times...).

Arizona rises to #7 in the nation for mortgage fraud

Arizona has risen from #23 for reported mortgage fraud in 2005 to #7 in 2006, based on number of fraud cases out of the total number of home loans in the state:

The top 10 states for 2006:

1. Utah
2. Florida
3. California
4. New York
5. Idaho
6. Michigan
7. Arizona
8. Georgia
9. Minnesota
10. Illinois

Flatland: The Movie

Edwin A. Abbott's classic story has been turned into a movie, and it's received a rave, 5-star review from Film Threat.

It's going to be available this spring on a DVD which includes the original text (though you can also find that online, as it's in the public domain). This animated film features the voices of Martin Sheen as Arthur Square, Kristen Bell as Hex, Tony Hale from Arrested Development as the King of Pointland, and Michael York as Spherius. Joe Estevez, Martin Sheen's brother, is Abbott Square--although he's been doing tons of movies (IMDB shows 160 titles, 22 of which are dated 2006 or 2007), I haven't seen any since MST3K covered 1990's "Soultaker."

If you check out the movie website, you can register for a discount on the DVD when it becomes available.

UPDATE (March 20, 2007): Thanks to Gourami118, who points out in the comments that there are two Flatland movies. The five-star Film Threat review is of this movie by Ladd Ehlinger, Jr., which completed in January and is already available on DVD in a limited run of 1,000 copies. Call this one "Flatland: The Film" (based on its website), while the Martin Sheen one is "Flatland: The Movie."

The political reasons behind the firing of the U.S. Attorney from Arizona

Radley Balko reports at the Agitator on the political reasons behind the firing of U.S. Attorney Paul Charlton of Arizona.

The only reason for his filing in documents released from the Justice Department is that former Speaker of the House Denny Hastert complained that Charlton refused to pursue marijuana cases unless they involved at least 500 pounds of marijuana. This seems like a reasonable strategy for something that shouldn't even be illegal in the first place, and certainly should be a lower priority than other issues.

But it also seems that the White House was not happy that Charlton and one of the other fired U.S. Attorneys were not pursuing obscenity cases that were being sent to them by the Justice Department. The Justice Department's "porn czar," Brent Ward, sent a memo to recently resigned DOJ Chief of Staff Kyle Sampson titled "Obscenity Cases" which said:

We have two U.S. Attorneys who are unwilling to take good cases we have presented to them. They are Paul Charlton in Phoenix (this is urgent) and Dan Bogden in Las Vegas. In light of the AG's [Attorney General's] comments at the NAC to 'kick butt and take names', what do you suggest I do? Do you think at this point that these names should go through channels to reach the AG, or is it enough for me to give the names to you? If you want to act on what I give you, I will be glad to provide a little more context for each of the two situations."

Adult Video News did further investigation, and found that Charlton had taken an obscenity case, but it would be far-fetched to call it a "good case." It was an obscenity case against an adult video store in Arizona, while simultaneously another video store chain was selling and renting the same titles that the first video store was indicted for selling. The reason the second chain wasn't also prosecuted? It had recently declared bankruptcy and was being run by trustees from the federal government. And it appears that this inequity in treatment may be the reason why Charlton declined to pursue the original case, after it was brought to his attention by attorneys from the indicted store.

More details and links at The Agitator.

And there's more on the other attorney firings at TPM Muckraker.

UPDATE (March 26, 2007): Balko has further comments on Charlton's firing based on the emails that have been released from the DOJ. Charlton was the #1 prosecutor in the nation for number of cases, and had the backing of Sen. Jon Kyl, but was fired anyway. Was it for his refusal to prosecute low-level pot cases, for his investigation of Rep. Rick Renzi, or was it because he was promoting the idea that the FBI should videotape interrogations and interviews of suspects, an idea which was scuttled because the FBI and DOJ didn't want juries to see what actually happens in such interrogations.

UPDATE (April 27, 2007): The New York Times editorialized yesterday about the connection between Charlton's firing and his investigation of Arizona Rep. Rick Renzi:

Congressman Rick Renzi, an Arizona Republican, was locked in a close re-election battle last fall when the local United States attorney, Paul Charlton, was investigating him for corruption. The investigation appears to have been slowed before Election Day, Mr. Renzi retained his seat, and Mr. Charlton ended up out of a job — one of eight prosecutors purged by the White House and the Justice Department.

The Arizona case adds a disturbing new chapter to that scandal. Congress needs to determine whether Mr. Charlton was fired for any reason other than threatening the Republican Party’s hold on a Congressional seat.

Mr. Renzi was fighting for his political life when the local press reported that he was facing indictment for a suspect land deal. According to The Wall Street Journal, federal investigators met unexpected resistance from the Justice Department in getting approval to proceed and, perhaps as a result, the investigation was pushed past the election.

TPM Muckraker reports that Renzi failed to disclose a $200,000 payment he received, in violation of House ethics rules. This is in addition to his other issues, previously reported here.

We live in the land of biblical idiots

That's the title of an opinion piece in yesterday's Los Angeles Times, which I borrowed for a comment of my own at the Secular Outpost. Check it out.

Conservatives pile on Dinesh D'Souza

Over at Sinners in the Hands of an Angry Blog, Tim Lee points us to a dogpile of conservative criticism of Dinesh D'Souza's book, The Enemy at Home. Some choice quotes:

D’Souza has written a very bad book. If one were to take his NRO apologia seriously, his dishonesty would appear to be an issue secondary to his grandiosity. But he is not to be taken seriously and his dishonesty is the primary issue. Thus in his apologia D’Souza fails to address the thesis that frames his book. His thesis, let it be remembered, is this: “The cultural left in this country is responsible for causing 9/11.” It is a thesis, he states in the very first sentence of the book, “that will seem startling at the outset.” It is startling because he is the first writer commenting on 9/11 to have tumbled to its cause. [Scott Johnson]

and

“When in doubt, change the subject.” I don’t really blame Dinesh D’Souza for following that cynical bit of debater’s advice. Had I written The Enemy at Home, I would be tempted to try it, too. Alas, I fear that his 6,800-word effort to stimulate, er, “civil discussion” has failed. Why? It has nothing to do with “heresy,” as D’Souza suggests. He comes much closer when he mentions “massive errors of fact or logic.” The problem with The Enemy at Home is . . . well, everything. (I put this more politely in my original review.) What I mean is that it’s not a matter of this or that argument going astray. It’s rather that D’Souza’s major premise—that “the cultural left in this country is responsible for causing 9/11”—is wildly at odds with reality. Starting out from that mistake, D’Souza takes readers on a fantastical voyage in which white is black, day is night, and a dozen jihadists plowed jetliners into skyscrapers because of Britney Spears—or maybe it was because of Hillary Clinton, America’s high divorce-rate, or its lamentable practice of tolerating homosexuals instead of stoning them to death. [Roger Kimball]

More at Sinners in the Hands of an Angry Blog, including a link to the full set of criticisms.

David Friedman on global warming

David Friedman has put up a few thoughtful posts about global warming on his own blog, as well as engaged in some discussions in the comments at another blog. He summarizes his own position as:

global warming is probably real, is probably but not certainly anthropogenic, is probably not going to have large effects on size and frequency of hurricanes and is probably not going to have large effects on sea level. It is a real problem but not, on current evidence, an impending catastrophe.

The posts at his own blog are:

1. "Global Warming, Nanotech, and Who to Believe"
2. "Global Warming, Carbon Taxes, and Public Choice"
3. "Physics, Economics, Hurricanes, and Mistakes"
   

and the two discussions in comments on the Backseat Driving blog are:

1. "Responding to the 'no big deal' denialists"
2. "The Duke lacrosse controversy and attitudes to global warming"

Brian at Backseat Driving says on the first post that "Friedman responds in the comments to this post. The people replying to him in the follow-up comments do a far better job of it than I would." In my opinion, Friedman completely wipes the floor with those who replied to him.

On a related subject, Chris Mooney gives his take on William Broad's article in the New York Times about criticism of Al Gore's movie:

Let me be clear: I have seen An Inconvenient Truth, and I found it almost entirely accurate. Gore has done a tremendous job of drawing attention to this issue and he gets the science right by and large. But my question as a point of strategy has always been: Why include the 1 to 5 percent of more questionable stuff, and so leave onself open to this kind of attack? Given how incredibly smart and talented Al Gore is, didn't he see this coming?

He points out some specific areas where Gore got it wrong (which Chris also pointed out to me in conversation at last summer's Skeptics Society conference--this is no change of position for him).

John Horgan picks up on the same Broad story, and notes that:

What fascinates me about Broad’s stories is that they seemed to at least implicitly contradict the view of global warming purveyed by his Times colleague Andrew Revkin, who spoke about global warming at Stevens in December 2005. Blogging on Broad’s article last fall, I wondered, “Is there dissension at the New York Times on the issue of global warming”? I’m still wondering. Maybe I should try to get Broad and Revkin to visit Stevens again and hash this out. Brian would love that.

And goes on in a subsequent post to quote from and refer to Chris Mooney's blog post.

Paul and Pat Churchland on folk psychology

Via Will Wilkinson, the February 12, 2007 issue of The New Yorker has a nice profile of the Churchlands (PDF) which discusses their history and views on mind and brain (without once mentioning the term "eliminative materialism"):

One afternoon recently, Paul says, he was home making dinner when Pat burst in the door, having come straight from a frustrating faculty meeting. “She said, ‘Paul, don’t speak to me, my serotonin levels have hit bottom, my brain is awash in glucocorticoids, my blood vessels are full of adrenaline, and if it weren’t for my endogenous opiates I’d have driven my car into a tree on the way home. My dopamine levels need lifting. Pour me a Chardonnay, and I’ll be down in a minute.’”

Wilkinson points out that he has adopted similar use of scientific language about physical states to describe his mental states, and agrees with the Churchlands that this enhances the ability to describe what he's feeling:

I think that once one gets a subjective grasp of the difference between the effects of dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, adrenaline, glucocorticoids, prolactin, testosterone, etc., monistic conceptions of pleasure and happiness become almost self-evidently false, and a kind of pluralism comes to seem almost inevitable as the trade-offs between different kinds of physical/qualitative states become apparent.

Wilkinson's blog post on the subject is here.

I was also interested to see that the Churchlands are advocates of using the evidence from neuroscience in ethical and legal contexts, which brings to mind Jeffrey Rosen's recent article in the New York Times (March 11, 2007) on "The Brain on the Stand."