Copyright and Copying

When does inspiration become plagiarism?

Every designers’ dirty little secret is that they copy other designers’ work. They see work they like, and they imitate it. Rather cheekily, they call this inspiration.

This scourge of the design world has reached such epidemic proportions that there is said to be, “no such thing as an original idea.”

Don’t worry, I intentionally write to [...]

Read the rest of this article »

How does it feel to get shafted by the music industry?

Last month I wrote an article titled, Digital rights management dissected, where I looked with a cynical eye upon Steve Jobs, Apple, the music industry and DRM.

Earlier this week Steve Jobs announced an agreement with EMI where Apple will sell DRM-free music through its iTunes store. What’s more, this DRM-free music will be higher quality [...]

Read the rest of this article »

Digital rights management dissected

Last week I was working with some digital video and acquired a few clips which were protected by Windows Media’s Digital Rights Management (DRM) system. This meant that I was prevented from using these clips in my project.

The project in question is a college project, so I’m not intending to profit from using the protected [...]

Read the rest of this article »