copyright questions

[Where I say "can I" below, I'm asking not just about the current law in your region, but also whether you think someone has the moral right to do those things, whether the law should allow them.]

I buy a movie on DVD.

Do I have the right to watch it in the DVD drive of my PC?

Can I copy the DVD data onto my hard drive and watch the DVD from there? Perhaps my DVD drive doesn't play back smoothly.

What if I have to use software that breaks copy protection in order to copy it to my hard drive?

Can I make a compressed file of the DVD to watch on my PC? This saves hard drive space.

Can I download the DVD data from a friend who also bought it? Maybe my DVD drive is broken.

Via anonymous download?

Can I keep the data on my hard drive after I'm done watching?

Can I make a physical DVD copy for backup?

If my DVD is destroyed in a fire, do I have the right to download it?

If it is stolen but presumably still exists and might be watched?

If I also claim the loss on my insurance?

If I ordered a DVD but it hasn't arrived, can I download it?

If I preorder a DVD but it isn't out yet, and the movie is available online, can I download it?

If I'm going to buy a DVD, but it isn't available for preorder, and the movie is available online, can I download it?

Can I use an audio clip from the movie and make a ringtone for my phone?

Can my spouse watch the DVD on the TV while I watch the data on my PC?

Can I load my DVD to a friend?

Can I loan it if I also have a backup?

Can I watch my backup while it is loaned?

What if I call my friend to make sure they're not watching it at the same time?

What if my friend watches the loaned DVD at the same time I'm watching the backup?

Can I watch the DVD at my house with guests?

Can I stream the movie over the internet in order to watch with friends in other places?

Can I download subtitles in another language and overlay them with software?

Can I make a customized DVD with the extra subtitles and watch that?

If I translate the subtitles myself can I give them to a friend who also bought the DVD?

Can I upload the translated subtitles to a website for others to download?

Can I make a customized DVD which skips the menu and auto-plays the movie?

Can I make a customized DVD which skips parts of the movie? I want a kid-safe version.

Can I make a creative re-edit of the movie with scenes out of order?

Can I make a DVD with a wild re-edit, a custom musical soundtrack, and humorous replacement dialogue?

If not, can I watch the original DVD while music plays in the room, skip chapters at will, and joke about it with my friends?

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Keep periodic unix processes from messing up your gigs

Sometimes while performing or working on audio/video, my hard disk activity light goes crazy. Top shows updatedb, makewhatis, and similar tasks running. With a well-tuned low-latency/realtime kernel the audio process should continue without dropouts... and indeed with the current ccrma kernels audio is fairly stable. But media access from disk can be slowed down (at least until preemption is perfected), and there's no need to be trying your luck. Keep the system load more constant and predictable by temporarily

These periodic (hourly/daily/monthly) processes are controlled by crond (old-school) and anachrond (new-school). Before a gig, run the following two commands as root:

[root@localhost]~# service crond stop
[root@localhost]~# service anacron stop

They'll be running again after a restart, which should be fine. Or run the above commands with "start" in place of "stop".

BTW, "service --display-all" gives a handy rundown of available services and prints detailed stats for some.

Casio PG-380 program change

The Casio PG-380 midi guitar, and midi guitars in general, can be great interfaces. In fact, it's my interface of choice for my main music project. But the PG-380's interface for MIDI Program Change is baffling.

There is a 2-LED display which shows the current program. But this does not display the program in binary, octal, hex, or decimal. Rather it displays hexal, the low half of octal values but counting from 1; each LED displays 3 bits, counting from 1, with values 1-8. Apparently the designers thought counting from 0 would be confusing, but didn't go all the way making it display proper decimal (counting from 0 or 1) The default program, binary/decimal 0 according to MIDI spec, is displayed as "11": each of the 3-byte units is 0, so the LED displays two 1s. 11-18 progress as expected, representing MIDI decimal 0-7. The next program, represented with as a decimal 8 (9th program counting from 0) in MIDI spec is displayed as "21"... to reconstruct their logic, the binary representation is 00001000 grouping it into the 3-bit units that drive the LED's yields 00 (001) (000) which is 0 (1) (0). But Casio thinks 0s are confusing, so they add one to each and display "21". There are 8 buttons for entering the program, labeled 1-8. The labeling corresponds to the LED display; each represents 3 bits, counting from 0. The first press sets the the "high" unit, bits[3-5] the second press sets the lowest 3 bits. The maxium program, decimal 63 binary 00111111 grouped (00) (111) (111) equivalent to (0) (7) (7) is displayed as "88".

Phew! Translating between the the displayed values and the actual equivalent bytes is an obnoxious ordeal that slows down creation of MIDI binding patches. The display logic is too tied to the underlying binary system, but oddly they didn't go to decimal, counting from 0 or 1. Instead it sits in-between, with its own unique mapping scheme between the displayed value and the actual MIDI byte. Although I'm not an expert on old MIDI hear, I've never seen another piece of gear using this odd scheme. I imagine there is some other Casio gear from the era which displays in a similar way. Horribly non-intuitive and cumbersome.