As you may know, I am usually releasing my footage under the CC-BY 3.0 license. This license basically just asks for attribution if you reuse the work. There are some dangers though. What if some of your footage is used as an opening shot for a porn movie? Or what if a Neo-Nazi group uses some of your footage for their video propaganda? You see, if that’s not enough that controversial entities are using your footage, your NAME will be on their credits roll! Try to explain to CIA, NSA and FBI that you had nothing to do with it.

I had a long thought about this today, and I researched around a bit more. The CC-BY includes the following clause: “You must not distort, mutilate, modify or take other derogatory action in relation to the Work which would be prejudicial to the Original Author’s honor or reputation“. At first, this clause sounds good. But then, you realize that the artist’s “moral rights” (as this thing is called), are not defendable in every country. For example, in USA this protection does not always work because the “moral artist rights” here have a very specific meaning in the copyright law that only applies to some bizarre cases about photography. In Canada, some European countries and Japan, this clause could protect you. But in any case, you wouldn’t know for sure until you sue. But do you really want to go that far for a bunch of cheap footage?

So, realistically speaking, I have three choices:
1. Drop the CC-BY and use a more restrictive Creative Commons license (that’d probably be CC-BY-NC-ND, as the CC-SA does not fully protect me either). Public Domain does not help me either, because by default the PD license can be dangerous for some other reasons, plus I won’t be able to find good music to accompany my videos — using a CC-BY song with a PD video asks for trouble.
2. Hire a lawyer and write a custom license, that has bits from the CC-BY and a modified “moral rights” clause that explicitly prohibits a (legally defined) immoral re-use of the work.
3. Stop worrying about it and let the federal agencies figure out that I was not part of any “scheme” out there that might have used my footage because of its liberal license and has subsequently credited me for it.

I choose #3. Let’s live a little, give something back to the world, and let the world decide what to do with that something. You can’t babysit everyone in this world. Although I wouldn’t be happy if my footage is misused in ways that put me in trouble or defame me.

Update: My JBQ, who can read legalese as comfortably as reading Harry Potter, believes that the quoted CC-BY wording above is legally strong enough to protect the licensor from immoral adaptations of his/her works, even in US. So, we are all good.

Ok, someone explain this to me please. What’s the big deal of having front page news of a guy having sex with a prostitute? As long as the club had a license to operate and prostitution is not illegal in the NY state (I don’t know, maybe it is), what’s the big deal? My problem is that by reading the articles both on BBC and CNN I can not figure out if what he did is possibly illegal or not. Nothing is stated about the legality of the whore club. Cause if it’s not illegal, then it’s no one business with whom this guy is sleeping with. Who knows? Maybe he can’t get it off with his wife anymore, and being a guy, he has needs. Getting it off with a whore says absolutely nothing about his work and his character as a professional.

“According to current and former intelligence officials, the spy agency now monitors huge volumes of records of domestic emails and Internet searches as well as bank transfers, credit-card transactions, travel and telephone records. The NSA receives this so-called “transactional” data from other agencies or private companies, and its sophisticated software programs analyze the various transactions for suspicious patterns,” writes the reputable WSJ.

For 50 years, but most importantly, for the last 15 years, the Republic of Macedonia and Greece are having some problems. Greece maintains that the “ancient Macedonia” is part of Greece and that this newly created country should not be using this name. The Republic of Macedonia on the other hand, maintains that they are descendants of the ancient Macedonians and that they should be using that name.

The problem is not really in the actual name. The problem is that Greece is afraid that after 25 or 50 years from now, Macedonia would start a war to “free” the Greek part of Macedonia and make it its own (a part which btw, is populated by 90% ethnic Greeks who even if they might be descendants of the same ethnic group, they now feel Greek more than anything else). Ancient history is very important to Greeks, and they won’t tolerate anyone telling them otherwise.

Macedonia today is nothing different than Greece was circa 1740. If you were asking a Greek person back then what his ethnic background was, he would tell you that he’s “a descendant of the Roman empire”. Only after the west powers decided to “enlighten” the Greek population (for their own purposes, of course), the Greeks became the fanatical chauvinistic Greeks we all have come to love today. Same with Macedonia, they were for too long under a regime that did not let them find a identity. When they gained their freedom, they HAD to find an identity. It’s something that’s essential to any group or country. And Macedonia, well, decided to be identified with ancient Macedonians. I can’t really blame them for doing so, even if not the whole of their country ever was part of the ancient Macedonia. All I am saying is that their claims are only humanly natural.

These days, Greece has vetoed the inclusion of Macedonia to NATO and EU if they don’t change their naming wishes. Currently, the UN is trying to help both countries to find a solution. They will debate for years to come. I have a different solution, a solution that should have been done 2,500 years ago.

The solution is to make both countries, a single country. Call it “Macedonia and Greece”, or call it “Macedreece” or call it “Greedonia”, I don’t really care. The point is, these two cultures have MORE in common than they think they do. Ancient Macedonians were very similar in their culture and religion with the rest of Greece. It takes guts to merge two countries, but it has been done in the past, and it can be done again, peacefully. Sure, that didn’t stop Athenians and Spartans from being into war every 5 years or so. And by the time Rome became strong and attacked, Greeks were so have killed each other, that it was too late to fight together against them. But they did think of themselves as ethnically similar.

My final argument is this: both cultures adore Great Alexander, and each one wants the hero to be their exclusive hero. And yet, all Great Alexander wanted for both, was a united Macedonia-Greece. By not having the wisdom to merge after 2,500 years, neither of you deserve him as its hero.

If your reply is: “yes, but modern Greeks and Macedonians are not as similar as ancient Greeks and ancient Macedonians were”, then my answer is simple: if that’s the case, then NONE of the countries should be using the words “Greece”, or “Macedonia” in any of their territories. But I doubt they would accept that. It might even be more politically acceptable to merge rather than see their peoples lose their identity. Because when losing your identity and ethnicism, politicians lose their grip to that country, and politicians are not ready to let this go. It’s all a game of power you see.

“The conclusion of all this analysis must surely be that the “global war on terrorism” has the hallmarks of a political myth propagated to pave the way for a wholly different agenda - the US goal of world hegemony, built around securing by force command over the oil supplies required to drive the whole project”, says Michael Meacher MP, UK’s environment minister from May 1997 to June 2003.

I do not personally oppose globalization and the oh-so-hated ‘one world order’, but I want it to be democratic (Star Trek child here, you see). I just don’t have the stomach for yet another totalitarian and oppressive Rome.

For the first time in history, more than one in every 100 American adults is in jail or prison, according to a new report.

How the hell is this possible? I lived in Greek towns for over 20 years (where everyone knew everyone else), and I’ve met or knew from afar about 6,000 people overall. From all these people, I only heard of THREE people getting time in prison. One guy in the ’70s (drugs), one guy in the ’80s (the dumbass killed someone), and a guy in the ’90s (drugs). I mean, this new report shows that 1% of the Americans were in prison in the first month of 2008! I know only of 3 Greek folks from my town who went to prison spanning 3 decades!

I can only say that now that I live in USA, I am glad that I live in the the Silicon Valley area. Truth is, the west bay has very low criminality, as most people here are engineers with good salaries, people who don’t need to go steal or get violent. Elsewhere in the US though, things are not so rosy, indeed. I don’t think I could handle living in NY or LA, to be honest.

No wonder cop shows are so popular in this country. People need to feel some virtual re-assurance that the system works.

NYTimes: “Lawyers for the Alaska Native coastal village of Kivalina, which is being forced to relocate because of flooding caused by the changing Arctic climate, filed suit in federal court here Tuesday arguing that 5 oil companies, 14 electric utilities and the country’s largest coal company were responsible for the village’s woes.”

Maybe this is what it will take to get countries to do something radical about it.

From Reuters: Hillary Clinton and John McCain are two presidential candidates who have something in common. The Nation reports that they have not signed a statement supporting “the restoration of basic Constitutional principles after the battering they have taken during the Bush-Cheney era.”

Obama for president. That’s all I can say at this point.

Update: Apparently Hillary signed it too, but she was among the last ones to do so, after originally she didn’t want to commit to it.

Oh, come on. $1.4 mil fine for showing on TV a woman’s bottom. What the hell is the big deal about it? Why should we be ashamed of our bodies and think of these parts as unethical or shocking? I don’t find them shocking. I just find them better looking and thinner than mine.

Just 15 years ago David Caruso flashed his ass on primetime national TV, and no one got fined. Here’s the irony about it: ABC is fined because of this scene on a 2003 “NYPD:Blue” episode. The picture I link above with Caruso’s ass, is ALSO from “NYPD:Blue”, from a 1993 episode. And yet, no one got fined back then.

If this country doesn’t go backwards about this whole nudity thing, I don’t know what is.

Larry Lessig, the popular Stanford uni professor and EFF & Creative Commons board member, is considering running for an open seat in Congress. I hope he does, and I hope he makes it. Larry is a great guy, intelligent, with drive for change. Check his pledge below: