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| Tech stories, the bad and the good |
July 14, 2005 |
By Peter Wolchak
Surfers rip off the hip: Canadians are apparently cool with some types of theft. The Tragically Hip, among Canada’s best bands, recently launched its single “Vaccination Scar.”
In the five weeks starting March 30, more than 636,000 unauthorized download attempts were made on the song, according to the band’s label, Universal Music. Fewer than 1,000 copies were purchased legally online for $0.99 a pop. To measure illegal downloads, a third-party monitors peer-to-peer networks, such as FastTrack-Kazaa, Grokster, Gnutella-Morpheus, Limewire, etc., tracking search requests for specific titles, said Graham Henderson, senior vice-president of legal and business affairs at Universal in Toronto. It’s sometimes tough to feel sorry for the really rich, and as cool as the Hip are they also have buckets of money. However, theft is theft, and these numbers are staggering. In another example, Henderson said just before the release of Matt Good’s new album there were more than 50,000 requests for downloads — in two days.
The best quote on this comes from Ed Robertson of The Barenaked Ladies: “I’m totally fine with people downloading music, as long as they steal everything that they want. If you want pants, go steal them. If you need gas in your car, you should steal it, because you can. As long as they see themselves as thieves in general then I don’t mind if they steal everything that they like. But it irks me that it’s only okay to steal music.” For more on this, turn to the Letters section. A software pirate wrote in to justify his theft, rationalizing that software is too expensive and after paying for food and clothes he can’t afford to buy software.
But notice he doesn’t steal his food or clothes. Somehow, intellectual property has no value, perhaps because it is easier to steal than tangible goods. On this, I agree with Robertson: if you’re going to steal, steal everything.
Otherwise, you’re a hypocrite.
A ROYAL PAIN:
Eight days. At time of writing that’s how long the Royal Bank of Canada had been unable to tell its 12 million customers exactly how much money is in their accounts or supply reliable access to the cash. The bank also missed a number of its own deadlines. On June 3, for example, the bank promised its systems would be fixed that day. By June 7, the problem still lingered.
The failure was related to a software upgrade. A glitch occurred and was fixed, but many transactions were delayed and fixing the problem caused a slowdown in processing new transactions. This hit many people. Most of the 62,000 Ontario government employees reportedly had their pay delayed, and the problem kept about 10,000 public servants in New Brunswick temporarily poorer.
Making matters worse, RBC did not always seem on top of the issue, at least publicly. Asked by a Globe and Mail reporter for details, RBC media relations rep Judi Levita said “I honestly don’t know. As I say, I mean, it’s one of those tech things.”That’s hardly a forthright and comprehensive answer that would reassure nervous business and personal banking clients. However, as easy as it is to kick RBC, an analogy should be drawn to watching a report of a fatal highway accident.
You think: maybe driving isn’t safe. But the news does not report the millions who made it home safely. Similarly, we do not hear about the numberless transactions processed quickly and without incident every day. Technology occasionally fails, but that same technology drives our economy, our corporate efficiency and much of our modern lifestyle. And usually, it does so smoothly.
LAZY DAYS, WARM NIGHTS, WI-FI FUN:
Sometimes it seems negative stories comprise the preponderance of tech coverage. See above for two examples. But technology can, and should be, a heck of a lot of fun.
Check out the Wi-Fi story in this issue for pointers on building your tech home. With a bit of money and time, you can be living wirelessly. And if you do take this on as a summer project, send in an e-mail to let us know how it went.
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