February 9th, 2008

CU Episode 68: …But You Won’t Peddle It To Meh.

This week: digital rights management re-re-redux. Also: the cu Pick of the Week, the cu|metro, backChat, and we somehow forget that Lent is coming… Also, special guest Jonathan Hemelt reminds us of the lenten season with his pick of the week. Nostra culpae?

EDIT! This file works!

Fr. Chris | Posted in CU Podcast | 9 Comments »

  • http://catholiccitywithzina.blogspot.com Zina

    Hey guys,
    I am totally with you on the digital rights thing. When I purchase a movie I want to be able to put it on a player that is convenient for my or my family to watch. Sometimes that is my computer. I do not distribute media. I have gotten into many an argument with different family members about this. I feel like “Thou shalt not steal” means you should not steal even if the person deserves it. But the tricky thing is what if the company is basically infringing on your rights. Where do you draw the line?

    Anyway, love the show. Keep up the good work and God bless you all!

    Zina

  • http://www.splendoroftruth.com/curtjester Jeff Miller

    Well maybe one day the movie industry will learn what the music industry is learning. Considering that most of the big players in the music business are now making their catalogs available on Amazon DRM free and at a higher quality and to a lesser extent the same thing on iTunes. They are finally starting to get it, but it took them quite a while.

    I am downloading almost all my music via Amazon now instead of ITunes. iTunes has the better interface, but there iTunes Plus section is still pretty limited. I found a bunch of stuff on Amazon that was DRM free and the same album had DRM in iTunes. Plus Amazon is cheaper and their album downloading is much improved and puts albums you buy right on to iTunes automatically. It is rather ironic since iTunes was pushing music companies to do this, yet because the music companies didn’t like the dominance of iTunes they made deals with Amazon where the music prices are even lower.

    I do hate DRM though which only punishes people who buy their movies and music and not criminals who will always find ways around DRM. I think it is stupid to be forced to watch FBI disclaimers when I am watching a DVD I bought, since surely these things don’t bother criminals at all. When I buy media I want to be treated like a customer, not a criminal and I should be able to watch paid for media on any device I own.

    One thing I found really stupid is that if I record for example something off of American Movie Channel using Windows Media Player I can only watch it on the same machine since they add DRM in for this channel. This is stupid since I like to record stuff and then play it back later on my iMac or perhaps a laptop.

  • Taylor Bayne

    Father Chris,
    This is Taylor Bayne from the youth 2000 retreat in Casper(oh and by the way this has absolutly nothing to do with the podcast, and if I spell anything wrong sorry ahead of time) I was the little country girl from Douglas who introduced you to my mom, Jennifer. I had been praying alot asking God to give me a sign to #1 find a patron saint/saints and to #2 what vocation he wants me to be in. Once we left we went to a chinese resturant and you know how they give you the fortune cookies right? (this the creepy part) Mine said ” The answer will not come to you, you need to look for it” and then I broke into tears(normally not me) Do think this is just a sign or is it just coincedence?
    Thanks
    Taylor Bayne

  • http://www.khemraj.org Mr Krishna J Khemraj

    A great little book to add to the AB Sheen’s Seven last words of Jesus and Mary is Bertrand Weaver’s His Cross in Your Life
    I read these each lent. Great books do deepen your relationship this Lent.

  • Amanda

    I have to say I enjoyed the jurassic park references and I do listen to your show on a zune.

  • Jonathan Hemelt

    Fr. Chris, despite your attempts to silence me, I have started a revolution. Let the Zune listeners unite and show our strength to these Mac anarchists. Peace bro. By the way, that excommunication didn’t work; you’re not a bishop.

  • Francis

    Oh this is Unix (looking at 10,000 lines of code)….I can fix this (and then proceeds to scan the code and find the error within a couple of minutes)

    Now I wish I could debug code like that!!!

  • http://fatherryan.tumblr.com Fr. Ryan

    I just got a new DVD, clean, purchased, owned – deliberately bad sectors, cannot be ripped. Thanks Movie Industry for shooting yourself in the foot!

  • http://www.catholicunderground.com Father Chris

    @ Taylor:

    Hey Taylor!

    I do remember you, sorry I didn’t respond to the podcast comment – sometimes they escape my vigilance!

    I’ll say this about fortune cookies, they can say some pretty weird and random things and it’s best not to put too much faith in the “fortunes” that they try to tell. And certainly, as Catholics, we don’t put stock in things like horoscopes, or fortune telling for that matter (see 1 Samuel 28) because we understand that prayer is the primary way in which we can know God’s Will.

    In fact, the way that most horoscopes and cookie fortunes are written, they tend to be vague enough so that they’ll touch on some point or another in your life (such as coming off of an amazing retreat experience).

    But, I will also say this: it sounds like the cookie has made you continue to ask the question that was on your heart during the retreat. The answer of the question you are asking can be found clearly in the writings we do put our trust in: the Bible! (duh!)

    Matthew’s Gospel, Chapter 7: 7-11 says this:
    “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.
    For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.
    Which one of you would hand his son a stone when he asks for a loaf of bread, or a snake when he asks for a fish?
    If you then, who are wicked, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good things to those who ask him.”

    These are not the words of a fortune cookie, they are the words of Jesus Christ to you and me. He tells us clearly that God, who knows our hearts so clearly, knows what and how to help us find the answers to the questions we seek. And the way Jesus shows us to ask God the Father is in prayer and by paying attention to the world around us, because God does indeed use people, and events, to aid our discernment (our prayerful decision-making) of what he wants for us.

    So, the fortune cookie (in my humble opinion) was good in that it perked up your spiritual ears, but God tells us clearly that in seeking we will find. The answers we seek about our lives will indeed be given to us, never right away and often only after much prayer and reflection, but only if we seek in the right way and only if we seek the right One who can fulfill our heart’s desires – God! In this way, I’d have to disagree with the cookie, since it doesn’t seem to correctly correspond with what God has revealed to us in Scripture. As Christians, we look to Jesus who tells us about ourselves – not cookies!

    I hope this helps!

    Pax,
    Fr. Chris