CopyFraud

When the bubble pops, take II

Last time I wrote to CopyFraud, I was puzzled by the fact that Tuomo Tilman ja Jyrki Salminen got away with their trick to "raise" money from investors just on the eve of the dot com bubble. However, the law works in mysterious ways and now the supreme court of Finland has convicted them to jail for 2.3 years and to fines of 7.8 M€ each (which is still nothing compared to their winnings from the stocks they sold). Now we have seen another stock market crash, this time due to subprime loans. Unlike in the dot com bubble, I did not loose money anymore. I guess the experience I got from TJ Group paid off well. I converted all my investments into "cash" over 1.5 years ago and got nice profits.

Möttönen joins as a guest author

Some of the readers may have noticed that the last post was made by Mikko Möttönen. He is a famous wresling doctor, a good friend of mine and X-American Finn. Mikko worked last summer as a post doc at Berkeley doing research on quantum computing. Mikko's famous quotes are "kiusallista" and "vakavia plagiointi syytteitä".

When the bubble pops

In 2000, a Finnish IT company TJ Group announced a large scale stock issue, the result of which was that the main stock holders Jyrki Salminen and Tuomo Tilman, who were also running the company, walked away with 130 million euros in total. After the stock issue, the price of the stocks droped to be under 1/100 of the price in the issue. Economically not so big thing was that I personally lost thousands of dollars---money to Jyrki's and Tuomo's pocket. Recently, Jyrki and Tuomo were fined for delaying the announcement of information about the results of the company before the issue. The fines were only about 7000€ each. After buying fancy sport cars and other luxuries these fines just make the guys laugh. They can pay a noticeably part of the fines just with the money I gave them in the issue. Here in Finland, people think I was stupid to invest in the company. In the States on the other hand, they would say I am now experienced. As painful as it is to know that Jyrki and Tuomo got a way with their trick, at least I can console my self with the fact that I was not the only one who lost and that I was still wise enough to sell the stocks after their value had dropped 40%, not 99% as my friend did. What can everybody learn about this? Sometimes you just have to admit that you made a wrong decision and the sooner you do that the better.

Ministry of culture funds propaganda

First the ministry of culture drafts an awful copyright law that even their specialists can't interpret. Then they outsourced the PR and education to the hands of Finnish anti-piracy people. These people have produced a comic full of accusation and moral ethos with little facts. The script of the book was written by one of the most active copyright lobbyist in Finland. The comic book along with some slides is being distributed to school teachers to use to educate teens. While the material is meant for wide distribution, the PDF version of the comic has DRM, that forbids copying or printing of the file. Smart move guys for PR material... not!

In less than 24 hours after the piraattitehdas revealed the site a parody version of the site was born. Anne Hitek-Kerho sent me this comic which is a hilarious parody of the propaganda PR effort. Download copycontrollinarvoitus.pdf

Funny thing... my spelling-checker suggest that piraattitehdas should be written "prostitutes" : )

Burgal cuffs him self into porn store

I say. Alcohol must have something to do with the events in Helsinki Porn shop. Police found the burgler who had chained him self with furry cufs lying in a PVC dress with some store equipment "placed into him" when responsing an alarm. Link: Iltalehti Online.

Itseään tyydyttänyt mies makasi nahkasohvan takana naisten mustaan PVC-muoviasuun ja vaaleanpunaisiin pupukorviin sonnustautuneena. Hän oli pannut itselleen myös mustat, karvaiset käsiraudat ja sijoittanut itseensä hyllystä löytämiään välineitä.

Could it be that the case had something to do with the name of the place "Stag nite-shop"? It would be the ultimate stag nite prank to break in to the store and leave passed out bride/groom in... to awkward situation.

Berkeley Perspective

Next week I am starting to blog on digitoday site at "berkeleyn perspektiivi"-blog. This time it will be all in Finnish. Expect ranting about Americans, technology, law and politics. I am going to jump the gun and let the Copyfraud readers have a peak at the blog. Link: digitoday.fi - Berkeleyn perspektiivi.

Star wreck to s60 phones and iPod

Link: Tommi's S60 applications blog

Now your favourite Sci-Fi Parody is available to portable devices. I tried the 106mb version and it rocks! I wonder if Steve Jobs would take the movie into his iTunes movie video store...

Photographing Berkeley

I took my camera with me today for lunch at Telegraph avenue's Cafe Intermezzo. The place is famous for it's amazing salads. There is another advantage. A lot of freaks and interesting looking people walk past the window tables. Perfect photo opportunity. The Intermezzo didn't fail this time either.

Digitoday uses Games illustration

Today Digitoday has a news about Nokia dropping their sponsorship of the Sugar Bowl. Digitoday is speculating that the reason for dropping it would be partly because FOX got the broadcasting rights. Could be.. But look at the picture. It says "Nokia Sugar Bowl year 2002". Is it just me, or is that a screenshot from madden 2003? I bet that most of the Finnish people didn't register that the story was illustrated with screenshot and the Sanoma company didn't have access/money/time to get a real image of the (Nokia)sugar bowl. digitoday

Bill O'Reilly's agenda

I have a new favorite program. Bill O'reilly's O'reilly Factor. He has a "news" program on fox and he is as right wing as it gets. It is nice to hear the opposing views to matters that I take as granted like: Intelligent design, Bush's illegal eaves dropping and war at Iraq. O'reilly Factor (his show) is presented as news program, but in reality it is pure propaganda. His guests are his right wing buddies. Yesterday the X-speaker of the house Newt Gingrich was ranting how president Bush was not breaking the law by giving authorization for tapping the phones of Americans. I don't believe O'reilly has ever disagreed with Bush politics. O'reilly even uses the traditional brain washing tactics. He stops his program and suddenly starts his monologue ranting about stupid Nazi democrats. His speech is boosted with a simultanious text. This way the audience will have two input channels activated at the same time.

Just last week O'reilly called American Civil Liberties Union ACLU as Nazi terrorists. ACLU among other things revealed illegal NSA spying, has fought against the renewal of Patriot act sun set provisions and has generally been a good watchdog of government.

Lately O'reilly has been complaining how the government isn't allowed to use "merry Christmas" anymore. I guess this is one point where Bill O'reilly criticized White house. Presidential Christmas card didn't mention Christmas but had a more generic: "happy holidays". O'reilly: "Put Christ back into Christmas". I say: "Happy Hanukkah  Bill"

See also: FOX News.com - The O'Reilly Factor - Interview - Howard Stern

Bloging libel cases in Finland

I have been following the case for the Finnish blogger who got sued for libel a while ago.Today he got the fined and he had to pay the plaintif some damages.

Today, in court, my criticism was considered to have “clearly gone beyond what can be considered reasonable” (my non-professional, and probably inaccurate translation of the part of 9 §, which this sentencing is based on). I was sentenced to a small fine (due to my small incomes), to pay the plaintiff’s related expences (also reasonably small), to pay a moderate, with respect to what was demanded, compensation for “mental anguish”

I don't know all the details but it the court saw that the line was crossed. I had similar experiences with Lehtovaara but the difference was that I critisized a company and I didn't use profane language. There is a side note to the story: The police demanded the defendant to take down the material on wrong/no bases. The defendant made a complain and in the police admitted that they didnt know enough about the law regarding network communication. The best part was that when defendat had asked the police about the the specific law where the police is using to demand the takedown; he was labelled "wise ass". Read the whole story at marginaali

There is another case at Kajaani where police found out the anonymious poster's identity and he was convicted to 450 euro fines and 2000 euro damages.

 

Star Trek news

The Wired is runnign a story about a Star Trek: New Voyages. New voyages is a amateur film which continues the story of the original Star Trek saga. They have a lot of common nominators with Star Wreck. Wired notices that after the cancellation of the Enterprise, there are no Star Treks in the production.

On the other hand there are wild rumours that the next Star Trek movie would have William Shatner playing as Evil captain Kirk. A week ago I heard on the radio that the new movie would bring Kirk, Next generation crew and even the Enterprise crew together for the "last time". These news sound that the official Trek is getting closer to fan fiction where alternate universes and crossover stories are popular.

Barbie is big business

Link: Playing Around with Barbie.

Barbie is a $ 1.2-billion-per-yearbusiness.  Every second, somewhere in the world, twoBarbies are sold."(67)  Inthe United States, girls from 3 to 11 years old own an average of10 Barbie dolls, compared to seven in Italy and five in Franceand Germany.

I foud an excellent article by Aluson lewis about use of copyright and trademarks to control the expression aroung everyday cultural icons like Barbie.

Boing Boing: KRON-TV: everyone in the newsroom is a one-man-band.

Link: Boing Boing: KRON-TV: everyone in the newsroom is a one-man-band..

San Francisco's KRON recently became the first major-market TV station in the US to supply much of its newsoom staff with laptops and digital video cameras, then train them to shoot, write, and produce stories on their own.

I have to watch these news every day and boy do they suck. I didn't realise before reading the story that the reason was competition and cost savings. I guess the blogosphere and traditional newscasting are getting closer. There just doesn't seem to be a place anymore for small and medium news channels. CNN and fox "news" and of course BBC do a proper job of broadcasting real news. Rest of the channels just camourflage their american funniest home videos as news... and FOX broadcasts propaganda.

Mainospisa bullying discussion groups

Here we go again. This time an ad agancy that cant keep their employees happy is has threattened Pingstate.nu site to take the discussion down. If you run a shitty company, live with it or change you practises. People will allways talk. Making empty threats and bullying just makes it worse and catches peoples attention.

Via: Nordic Design Blog (thanks Igor)

The first point was the job ad of an Assistant of Art Director position on site of Ministry of Labor of Finland (mol.fi). This ad was posted many times during the last year, and it seems that this company continuously searching for new workers. Later in some of the messages in that thread people claimed that this company has a strong flow of their employees and other internal problems.

It was a very interesting and informative reading, especially for people who planned to apply to that job, because some of employees of that company posted valuable information regarding the working environment and conditions etc.

I would stay away from such agency. I would not work there nor would I hire them to do anything for my company. Even their website looks unprofessional.

More Bay area news

Tonight's news took the live on the scene reporting one step further. News reporter ended her story about presidential poll: "Live from the news room."

I guess the KTVU news want to look as a big news network that has several reporters all over the globe. KTVU only has a handful of reporters who are scattered around the San Francisco area. I guess that is why KTVU news at ten has.. well... not so international news. The first story tonight was a car accident where a Diesel truck turned over on high way. NO casualties or fuel leaks.

Twenty minutes and five car accidents later Bush and his oval office speech was analyzed. The whole setting was weird. DubaJuu was reading from teleprompter staring to the camera and he had no paper in front of him. The scene didn't look real, the president had big empty shining table, apparently family pictures and flags in the background but the most awkward thing was his hands. Because his desk was empty and there was no natural places to place his hands, the president was waving them around. The speech was the first after the Iraq war. Otherwise W has spoken from behind the stand. It is easy to see why. Spin doctors have hidden the president who lacks charisma and performing skills. (image from whitehouse.gov)

Vacation from blog failure

No posting in allmost two weeks. The reason.. Well earned vacation. After returning I found out that Typepad had some major problems and thousands of blogs were down and some posts were lost. This is not the first problem the service have had. Looks that I have to find another service provider or at least get another blog.

Therapy game for toys

You know that all those toys you tortured while you were kid must had suffered enormous mental pains. Now you can cure couple of them at Parapluesch-hospital. Hours of fun. I managed to save the crocodile that was afraid of just about everything.

Homeless Rather Get Handouts Than Work

Homeless people are a big problem in US. They are everywhere, begging for money. In Berkeley the main street Telegraph avenue is full of street people. Drug addicts, hippies, skateboarders and winos. My local friend told that most of the people who pose as homeless and hang out at telegraph are from rich families. These kids are rebelling against their parents. Street life is considered cool with high schoolers. I have never given any money to homeless. US has chose to support a global army and not social wellfare. Why should I support american hobos?  This story only confirms my oppinnion. Link: Homeless Rather Get Handouts Than Work.

A Phoenix news crew with hidden cameras went around the city to see if the homeless people would actually accept work as their cardboard signs claimed. They offered $20 to each homeless person in exchange for one hour of landscaping work.

Only one guy accepted the work. Other homeless made all sort of excuses.

Apprentice Martha

The second apprentice show which has Donald Trump replaced by Martha Steward got cancelled after the first season. There is just something missing. The biggest one is that Martha doesn't FIRE people. They are sent home. Martha is known for home gardening publishing empire. You can expect to hear stuff like: "How can you invite a car to a table that looks like that" (actual quotation)