blog/archive/2017/12/12.rss

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   4                 <title>Petter Reinholdtsen - Entries from December 2017</title>
   5                 <description>Entries from December 2017</description>
   6                 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/</link>
   7
   8
   9         <item>
  10                 <title>Cura, the nice 3D print slicer, is now in Debian Unstable</title>
  11                 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Cura__the_nice_3D_print_slicer__is_now_in_Debian_Unstable.html</link>
  12                 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Cura__the_nice_3D_print_slicer__is_now_in_Debian_Unstable.html</guid>
  13                 <pubDate>Sun, 17 Dec 2017 07:00:00 +0100</pubDate>
  14                 <description>&lt;p&gt;After several months of working and waiting, I am happy to report
  15 that the nice and user friendly 3D printer slicer software Cura just
  16 entered Debian Unstable.  It consist of five packages,
  17 &lt;a href=&quot;https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/cura&quot;&gt;cura&lt;/a&gt;,
  18 &lt;a href=&quot;https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/cura-engine&quot;&gt;cura-engine&lt;/a&gt;,
  19 &lt;a href=&quot;https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/libarcus&quot;&gt;libarcus&lt;/a&gt;,
  20 &lt;a href=&quot;https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/fdm-materials&quot;&gt;fdm-materials&lt;/a&gt;,
  21 &lt;a href=&quot;https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/libsavitar&quot;&gt;libsavitar&lt;/a&gt; and
  22 &lt;a href=&quot;https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/uranium&quot;&gt;uranium&lt;/a&gt;.  The last
  23 two, uranium and cura, entered Unstable yesterday.  This should make
  24 it easier for Debian users to print on at least the Ultimaker class of
  25 3D printers.  My closest 3D printer is an Ultimaker 2+, so it will
  26 make life easier for at least me. :)&lt;/p&gt;
  27
  28 &lt;p&gt;The work to make this happen was done by Gregor Riepl, and I was
  29 happy to assist him in sponsoring the packages.  With the introduction
  30 of Cura, Debian is up to three 3D printer slicers at your service,
  31 Cura, Slic3r and Slic3r Prusa.  If you own or have access to a 3D
  32 printer, give it a go. :)&lt;/p&gt;
  33
  34 &lt;p&gt;The 3D printer software is maintained by the 3D printer Debian
  35 team, flocking together on the
  36 &lt;a href=&quot;http://lists.alioth.debian.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/3dprinter-general&quot;&gt;3dprinter-general&lt;/a&gt;
  37 mailing list and the
  38 &lt;a href=&quot;irc://irc.debian.org/#debian-3dprinting&quot;&gt;#debian-3dprinting&lt;/a&gt;
  39 IRC channel.&lt;/p&gt;
  40
  41 &lt;p&gt;The next step for Cura in Debian is to update the cura package to
  42 version 3.0.3 and then update the entire set of packages to version
  43 3.1.0 which showed up the last few days.&lt;/p&gt;
  44 </description>
  45         </item>
  46
  47         <item>
  48                 <title>Idea for finding all public domain movies in the USA</title>
  49                 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_finding_all_public_domain_movies_in_the_USA.html</link>
  50                 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_finding_all_public_domain_movies_in_the_USA.html</guid>
  51                 <pubDate>Wed, 13 Dec 2017 10:15:00 +0100</pubDate>
  52                 <description>&lt;p&gt;While looking at
  53 &lt;a href=&quot;http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/cce/&quot;&gt;the scanned copies
  54 for the copyright renewal entries for movies published in the USA&lt;/a&gt;,
  55 an idea occurred to me.  The number of renewals are so few per year, it
  56 should be fairly quick to transcribe them all and add references to
  57 the corresponding IMDB title ID.  This would give the (presumably)
  58 complete list of movies published 28 years earlier that did _not_
  59 enter the public domain for the transcribed year.  By fetching the
  60 list of USA movies published 28 years earlier and subtract the movies
  61 with renewals, we should be left with movies registered in IMDB that
  62 are now in the public domain.  For the year 1955 (which is the one I
  63 have looked at the most), the total number of pages to transcribe is
  64 21.  For the 28 years from 1950 to 1978, it should be in the range
  65 500-600 pages.  It is just a few days of work, and spread among a
  66 small group of people it should be doable in a few weeks of spare
  67 time.&lt;/p&gt;
  68
  69 &lt;p&gt;A typical copyright renewal entry look like this (the first one
  70 listed for 1955):&lt;/p&gt;
  71
  72 &lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;
  73   ADAM AND EVIL, a photoplay in seven reels by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
  74   Distribution Corp. (c) 17Aug27; L24293. Loew&#39;s Incorporated (PWH);
  75   10Jun55; R151558.
  76 &lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  77
  78 &lt;p&gt;The movie title as well as registration and renewal dates are easy
  79 enough to locate by a program (split on first comma and look for
  80 DDmmmYY).  The rest of the text is not required to find the movie in
  81 IMDB, but is useful to confirm the correct movie is found.  I am not
  82 quite sure what the L and R numbers mean, but suspect they are
  83 reference numbers into the archive of the US Copyright Office.&lt;/p&gt;
  84
  85 &lt;p&gt;Tracking down the equivalent IMDB title ID is probably going to be
  86 a manual task, but given the year it is fairly easy to search for the
  87 movie title using for example
  88 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.imdb.com/find?q=adam+and+evil+1927&amp;s=all&quot;&gt;http://www.imdb.com/find?q=adam+and+evil+1927&amp;s=all&lt;/a&gt;.
  89 Using this search, I find that the equivalent IMDB title ID for the
  90 first renewal entry from 1955 is
  91 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0017588/&quot;&gt;http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0017588/&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
  92
  93 &lt;p&gt;I suspect the best way to do this would be to make a specialised
  94 web service to make it easy for contributors to transcribe and track
  95 down IMDB title IDs.  In the web service, once a entry is transcribed,
  96 the title and year could be extracted from the text, a search in IMDB
  97 conducted for the user to pick the equivalent IMDB title ID right
  98 away.  By spreading out the work among volunteers, it would also be
  99 possible to make at least two persons transcribe the same entries to
 100 be able to discover any typos introduced.  But I will need help to
 101 make this happen, as I lack the spare time to do all of this on my
 102 own.  If you would like to help, please get in touch.  Perhaps you can
 103 draft a web service for crowd sourcing the task?&lt;/p&gt;
 104
 105 &lt;p&gt;Note, Project Gutenberg already have some
 106 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?query=copyright+office+renewals&quot;&gt;transcribed
 107 copies of the US Copyright Office renewal protocols&lt;/a&gt;, but I have
 108 not been able to find any film renewals there, so I suspect they only
 109 have copies of renewal for written works.  I have not been able to find
 110 any transcribed versions of movie renewals so far.  Perhaps they exist
 111 somewhere?&lt;/p&gt;
 112
 113 &lt;p&gt;I would love to figure out methods for finding all the public
 114 domain works in other countries too, but it is a lot harder.  At least
 115 for Norway and Great Britain, such work involve tracking down the
 116 people involved in making the movie and figuring out when they died.
 117 It is hard enough to figure out who was part of making a movie, but I
 118 do not know how to automate such procedure without a registry of every
 119 person involved in making movies and their death year.&lt;/p&gt;
 120
 121 &lt;p&gt;As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 122 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 123 &lt;b&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&quot;&gt;15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
 124 </description>
 125         </item>
 126
 127         <item>
 128                 <title>Is the short movie «Empty Socks» from 1927 in the public domain or not?</title>
 129                 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Is_the_short_movie__Empty_Socks__from_1927_in_the_public_domain_or_not_.html</link>
 130                 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Is_the_short_movie__Empty_Socks__from_1927_in_the_public_domain_or_not_.html</guid>
 131                 <pubDate>Tue, 5 Dec 2017 12:30:00 +0100</pubDate>
 132                 <description>&lt;p&gt;Three years ago, a presumed lost animation film,
 133 &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empty_Socks&quot;&gt;Empty Socks from
 134 1927&lt;/a&gt;, was discovered in the Norwegian National Library.  At the
 135 time it was discovered, it was generally assumed to be copyrighted by
 136 The Walt Disney Company, and I blogged about
 137 &lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Opphavsretts_status_for__Empty_Socks__fra_1927_.html&quot;&gt;my
 138 reasoning to conclude&lt;/a&gt; that it would would enter the Norwegian
 139 equivalent of the public domain in 2053, based on my understanding of
 140 Norwegian Copyright Law.  But a few days ago, I came across
 141 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.toonzone.net/forums/threads/exposed-disneys-repurchase-of-oswald-the-rabbit-a-sham.4792291/&quot;&gt;a
 142 blog post claiming the movie was already in the public domain&lt;/a&gt;, at
 143 least in USA.  The reasoning is as follows: The film was released in
 144 November or Desember 1927 (sources disagree), and presumably
 145 registered its copyright that year.  At that time, right holders of
 146 movies registered by the copyright office received government
 147 protection for there work for 28 years.  After 28 years, the copyright
 148 had to be renewed if the wanted the government to protect it further.
 149 The blog post I found claim such renewal did not happen for this
 150 movie, and thus it entered the public domain in 1956.  Yet someone
 151 claim the copyright was renewed and the movie is still copyright
 152 protected.  Can anyone help me to figure out which claim is correct?
 153 I have not been able to find Empty Socks in Catalog of copyright
 154 entries.  Ser.3 pt.12-13 v.9-12 1955-1958 Motion Pictures
 155 &lt;a href=&quot;http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/cce/1955r.html#film&quot;&gt;available
 156 from the University of Pennsylvania&lt;/a&gt;, neither in
 157 &lt;a href=&quot;https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015084451130;page=root;view=image;size=100;seq=83;num=45&quot;&gt;page
 158 45 for the first half of 1955&lt;/a&gt;, nor in
 159 &lt;a href=&quot;https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015084451130;page=root;view=image;size=100;seq=175;num=119&quot;&gt;page
 160 119 for the second half of 1955&lt;/a&gt;.  It is of course possible that
 161 the renewal entry was left out of the printed catalog by mistake.  Is
 162 there some way to rule out this possibility?  Please help, and update
 163 the wikipedia page with your findings.
 164
 165 &lt;p&gt;As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 166 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 167 &lt;b&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&quot;&gt;15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
 168 </description>
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