[nycbug-talk] defcon 15 videos on line

[Isaac Levy]

Hey All,

On Oct 5, 2007, at 7:45 AM, csnyder wrote:

> On 10/4/07, Isaac Levy <ike at lesmuug.org> wrote:
>
>> Additionally, there's less incentive to *go* to the conference, if
>> everyone thinks the vids will be online afterwards- and everyone
>> knows a good con is about what happens BEING THERE... :)
>
> Wow. There are so many reasons why this is a *good* thing.
>
> By all means, encourage folks to actually go, but don't keep what went
> on there a secret. This stuff is important; it needs to be spread as
> far and wide as possible. A little part of you can be glad that your
> attendance fees subsidize this valuable service.
>
> If I had kids, I'd let them watch as much of this kind of TV as  
> they wanted.


Well, I whole-heartedly agree here- and really like that the CCC is  
posting all their videos...  With 8,000 attendees this summer, I  
don't think posting the vids online will harm attendance :)

##
However, with DefCon 15 DVD's in hand here, I opened up the EULA on  
the media- which says:

--
User may not (a) redistribute Information over any network (including  
any local area network); (b) rent, sell or offer for sale  
Information; (c) install the [product] on any networked drive, that  
is accessible by anyone other than User;
(d) post any Information to any online service (including extranet,  
internet or bulletin board); (e) use or permit the use of Information  
or any part thereof, as a trademark or service mark, or claim any  
proprietary rights of any sort.  SOK retains all rights not expressly  
granted by this EULA.
--<snip>
The content ("Information") in this [product] is proprietary and  
copyrighted by [client] ("Client").  All rights are reserved.  SOK  
grants User a non-exclusive License of the product and User may use  
"Information" contained therein solely for his or her own internal  
and non-commercial purposes.  User hereby acknowledges that an  
additional License fee is payable for an additional user of the  
[product].  User may make one machine-readable copy
as a backup.
--

I'm totally excited the videos are available freely online, but I'm  
really bummed about the violation of the EULA.  Copyright is a mess,  
we all know that- *but*, it's important to respect restrictive  
licenses, if we expect anyone to take our open-source licensees  
seriously.  Watching them now makes me feel schizophrenic inside...


##
BUT WAIT!  I lazily pursued the issue from DefCon official sources,  
and the definitive place for DefCon discussions are the DefCon  
forums- and they have the video issue covered:

http://forum.defcon.org/showthread.php?p=90574

In short, Nikita, a DefCon organizer (and really cool person), has  
spoken- they do wish to post all the video material online!   
Excellent.  They are working on posting it themselves, not just  
through Google Video!  AWESOME.

--
So, basically, all is swell, and we all get to see the vids. :)

Rocket-
.ike