X-Git-Url: http://pere.pagekite.me/gitweb/homepage.git/blobdiff_plain/469d7a187a5f724499af86fc34c15d1f5ead427c..534962b048417634a8f6869cd16735da38bbd567:/blog/index.rss diff --git a/blog/index.rss b/blog/index.rss index 6dd1166eb8..850632b3b0 100644 --- a/blog/index.rss +++ b/blog/index.rss @@ -6,6 +6,86 @@ http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/ + + Idea for finding all public domain movies in the USA + http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_finding_all_public_domain_movies_in_the_USA.html + http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_finding_all_public_domain_movies_in_the_USA.html + Wed, 13 Dec 2017 10:15:00 +0100 + <p>While looking at +<a href="http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/cce/">the scanned copies +for the copyright renewal entries for movies published in the USA</a>, +an idea occurred to me. The number of renewals are so few per year, it +should be fairly quick to transcribe them all and add references to +the corresponding IMDB title ID. This would give the (presumably) +complete list of movies published 28 years earlier that did _not_ +enter the public domain for the transcribed year. By fetching the +list of USA movies published 28 years earlier and subtract the movies +with renewals, we should be left with movies registered in IMDB that +are now in the public domain. For the year 1955 (which is the one I +have looked at the most), the total number of pages to transcribe is +21. For the 28 years from 1950 to 1978, it should be in the range +500-600 pages. It is just a few days of work, and spread among a +small group of people it should be doable in a few weeks of spare +time.</p> + +<p>A typical copyright renewal entry look like this (the first one +listed for 1955):</p> + +<p><blockquote> + ADAM AND EVIL, a photoplay in seven reels by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer + Distribution Corp. (c) 17Aug27; L24293. Loew's Incorporated (PWH); + 10Jun55; R151558. +</blockquote></p> + +<p>The movie title as well as registration and renewal dates are easy +enough to locate by a program (split on first command and look for +DDmmmYY). The rest of the text is not required to find the movie in +IMDB, but is useful to confirm the correct movie is found. I am not +quite sure what the L and R numbers mean, but suspect they are +reference numbers into the archive of the US Copyright Office.</p> + +<p>Tracking down the equivalent IMDB title ID is probably going to be +a manual task, but given the year it is fairly easy to search for the +movie title using for example +<a href="http://www.imdb.com/find?q=adam+and+evil+1927&s=all">http://www.imdb.com/find?q=adam+and+evil+1927&s=all</a> +Using this search, I find that the equivalent IMDB title ID for the +first renewal entry from 1955 is +<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0017588/">http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0017588/</a>.</p> + +<p>I suspect the best way to do this would be to make a specialised +web service to make it easy for contributors to transcribe and track +down IMDB title IDs. In the web service, once a entry is transcribed, +the title and year could be extracted from the text, a search in IMDB +conducted for the user to pick the equivalent IMDB title ID right +away. By spreading out the work among volunteers, it would also be +possible to make at least two persons transcribe the same entries to +be able to discover any typos introduced. But I will need help to +make this happen, as I lack the spare time to do all of this on my +own. If you would like to help, please get in touch. Perhaps you can +draft a web service for crowd sourcing the task?</p> + +<p>Note, Project Gutenberg already have some +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?query=copyright+office+renewals">transcribed +copies of the US Copyright Office renewal protocols</a>, but I have +not been able to find any film renewals there, so I suspect they only +have copies of renewal for written works. I have not been able to find +any transcribed versions of movie renewals so far. Perhaps they exist +somewhere?</p> + +<p>I would love to figure out methods for finding all the public +domain works in other countries too, but it is a lot harder. At least +for Norway and Great Britain, such work involve tracking down the +people involved in making the movie and figuring out when they died. +It is hard enough to figure out who was part of making a movie, but I +do not know how to automate such procedure without a registry of every +person involved in making movies and their death year.</p> + +<p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my +activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address +<b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p> + + + Is the short movie «Empty Socks» from 1927 in the public domain or not? http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Is_the_short_movie__Empty_Socks__from_1927_in_the_public_domain_or_not_.html @@ -755,64 +835,5 @@ til min adresse - - Visualizing GSM radio chatter using gr-gsm and Hopglass - http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Visualizing_GSM_radio_chatter_using_gr_gsm_and_Hopglass.html - http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Visualizing_GSM_radio_chatter_using_gr_gsm_and_Hopglass.html - Fri, 29 Sep 2017 10:30:00 +0200 - <p>Every mobile phone announce its existence over radio to the nearby -mobile cell towers. And this radio chatter is available for anyone -with a radio receiver capable of receiving them. Details about the -mobile phones with very good accuracy is of course collected by the -phone companies, but this is not the topic of this blog post. The -mobile phone radio chatter make it possible to figure out when a cell -phone is nearby, as it include the SIM card ID (IMSI). By paying -attention over time, one can see when a phone arrive and when it leave -an area. I believe it would be nice to make this information more -available to the general public, to make more people aware of how -their phones are announcing their whereabouts to anyone that care to -listen.</p> - -<p>I am very happy to report that we managed to get something -visualizing this information up and running for -<a href="http://norwaymakers.org/osf17">Oslo Skaperfestival 2017</a> -(Oslo Makers Festival) taking place today and tomorrow at Deichmanske -library. The solution is based on the -<a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Easier_recipe_to_observe_the_cell_phones_around_you.html">simple -recipe for listening to GSM chatter</a> I posted a few days ago, and -will show up at the stand of <a href="http://sonen.ifi.uio.no/">Åpen -Sone from the Computer Science department of the University of -Oslo</a>. The presentation will show the nearby mobile phones (aka -IMSIs) as dots in a web browser graph, with lines to the dot -representing mobile base station it is talking to. It was working in -the lab yesterday, and was moved into place this morning.</p> - -<p>We set up a fairly powerful desktop machine using Debian -Buster/Testing with several (five, I believe) RTL2838 DVB-T receivers -connected and visualize the visible cell phone towers using an -<a href="https://github.com/marlow925/hopglass">English version of -Hopglass</a>. A fairly powerfull machine is needed as the -grgsm_livemon_headless processes from -<a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/gr-gsm">gr-gsm</a> converting -the radio signal to data packages is quite CPU intensive.</p> - -<p>The frequencies to listen to, are identified using a slightly -patched scan-and-livemon (to set the --args values for each receiver), -and the Hopglass data is generated using the -<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/IMSI-catcher/tree/meshviewer-output">patches -in my meshviewer-output branch</a>. For some reason we could not get -more than four SDRs working. There is also a geographical map trying -to show the location of the base stations, but I believe their -coordinates are hardcoded to some random location in Germany, I -believe. The code should be replaced with code to look up location in -a text file, a sqlite database or one of the online databases -mentioned in -<a href="https://github.com/Oros42/IMSI-catcher/issues/14">the github -issue for the topic</a>. - -<p>If this sound interesting, visit the stand at the festival!</p> - - -