The English language social advertising blog Houtlust is back from hiatus. After a re-branding it has shed its unpronounceable name Houtlust and traded it for Osocio. The concept is still the same: short, mostly graphical reviews of startling social advertising campaigns (see the example we wrote about earlier). Dutch founder Marc van Gurp has been joined by bloggers from over the world. (“Houtlust”, by the way, is a name meant to evoke the image of a pleasant wooded area, and is therefore etymologically related to the more neutral “Holland”, wooded land. In some Dutch areas, and indeed in Germany, the l in “holt” is still pronounced.)
December 8, 2007
December 4, 2007
Comedian Martine Bijl “loses” antique picture books
Comedian/singer Martine Bijl decided to clean house last summer and chose to get rid of the remains of an abandoned hobby: many antique picture books she had collected over the years. She contacted Amsterdam auction house De Eland, who promised to take care of everything. Wondering what had happened to the cheque, she contacted the house after a couple of months only to find out that she wouldn’t get any money. The auction house had decided to throw away the 13 boxes of books after a cursory glance in some of them had revealed that they were not worth anything.
According to the print version of newspaper Het Parool, some of the books had an estimated value of hundreds of euro each. By British artist Arthur Rackham (1867-1939), Bijl owned De Ring van de Neveling (1911, 1912; text by Wagner/Kloos), Britsche Balladen (Verwey), and Midzomernachtsdroom (Shakespeare, Burgersdijk). By French artists J.J. Granville (1803-1847) Bijl owned the rare Scènes de la vie privée et publique des animaux (1853). It’s the auction’s house standard policy to throw away any lot that it expects will not net more than 25 euro, which a box of regular books rarely would.
Tags: antique, auction, martine bijl, picture book, shakespeare, wagner
December 3, 2007
Donald Duck magazine takes kids’ money for copyright lesson
Illustration copyright 2007 Disney.
– Scrooge: Plus a fine for PIRACY! Ten thousand euro, you sneaky thief!
– Donald: M-mercy! I am so sorry! And I finally BOUGHT the original CD!
This week Donald Duck magazine has decided that their customers should be treated to what amounts to a lesson about copyright. In a two page story (issue 49-2007) Huey, Dewey and Lewey download the latest Jan Goudsmid CD, but only so that they can already listen to it until they can afford to buy the real thing. Donald Duck suddenly realises how much money he could make if he bought a 20 euro CD and sold 100 copies at 10 euro a piece, and starts to put his nefarious scheme into practice. But record company owner Scrooge McDuck finds out and puts a stop to Donald’s plan.
Downloading music for private use is legal in the Netherlands, but selling unlicensed copies is not. The over-the-top moralistic tone of the story caught the attention of FOK forum subscribers, who immediately started pointing to the similarities between this story and the Brein foundation’s party line. The dialogue is preposterous at times. Donald: “Why don’t you guys keep this [downloaded copy]?” The nephews: “But that’s not fair! This CD is COPYRIGHTED! If nobody would buy CDs anymore, the record companies and artists would become beggars!” (Remember: the record company is owned by Scrooge McDuck.) One of the FOK forum subscribers: “They used to print »(advertisement)« about items like that.”
Disclaimer: I have written for Donald Duck magazine myself. Although they paid significantly less than the competing Sjors en Sjimmie franchise, it was always fun to write stories for them, simply because they pretty much let you decide what to write. As a result, stories for the magazine may have a tone of voice that implies grown-ups talking down to kids, but typically the stories are just fun adventures. Moralistic tales like this copyright story are rare. Indeed, in the next story of this week’s issue Chip ‘n’ Dale try to break into what looks like a military compound in order to steal nuts. Their three attempts fail because the compound is well secured – even underground – indicating the owners’ unambiguous desire to keep out intruders. But in the end, the two chipmunks luck out, and end up with a mountain of nuts. Moral of that Disney story: crime pays.
Also: the MPAA is a member of Brein. Disney is a member of the MPAA.
Update December 4: Thom Roep (Dutch), Donald Duck’s editor-in-chief, denies to FOK that the Brein foundation is in any way connected with this story, and admits that the dialogue is a little heavy handed for a magazine that dubs itself “het vrolijke weekblad” (the happy weekly):
Specifically the things that the nephews say on page 25, frame 7 [the bit I quoted before – Branko] should have been a lot less goody-two-shoes, and does indeed not correspond to the style of the magazine, which often tries to look at certain situations with a somewhat cheeky wink. We regret it a lot that this story has caused so much irritation and reactions, and we will definitely stay alert to remain a “happy weekly” in the future.
Tags: brein, copyright, dewey, Donald Duck, huey, Lewey, Scrooge McDuck
November 27, 2007
Animal sculptures from rusty old tools
Joshua Pennings is an artist from Grave, Noord-Brabant who makes animal sculptures from rusty, discarded tools and parts. The size of these works ranges from a couple cubic decimeters to a couple cubic meters.
Tags: art out of garbage, grave, metal, Noord-Brabant, rust
November 25, 2007
Rebuilding Roombeek disaster area nets city of Enschede the Golden Pyramid
The city of Enschede has won the Golden Pyramid award 2007 for “inspiring contractorship.” The jury revealed yesterday that the municipality and architect Pi de Bruijn won the award for the way they handled the rebuilding of Roombeek, the neighbourhood just outside the city centre that was largely destroyed when a fireworks factory exploded in 2000, killing 23 and wounding 950. An area of 63 hectares (155 acres) was destroyed, and a new neighbourhood was planned on top of the old road map. Interestingly, residents were very much involved in deciding how they would like the neighborhood to look like, compared to the prevailing Dutch mentality that even beauty must be regulated. De Bruijn could not completely give up the idea of regulation and stipulated that houses along Museum Lane should be designed by well-known architects.
The result looks surprisingly lived-in. A number of buildings that were still usable were kept to increase that effect. The subscribers of the Skyscraper City forums have been following the developments with their digital cameras since 2004, giving a good sense of a developing neighbourhood. Dutch broadcaster AVRO followed the jury of the Golden Pyramid award during their judging, and has produced a 25 minute program about the Roombeek project.
(Photo by Think Blink, some rights reserved.)
Tags: Enschede, fireworks disaster, Golden Pyramid award 2007, rebuilding
November 16, 2007
Boy arrested for “stealing” virtual furniture
The police in Amsterdam have arrested a 17-year-old boy at an undisclosed date for removing virtual furniture from other people’s accounts in the virtual community Habbo Hotel. According to the police of Amsterdam-Amstelland (Dutch) the suspect hails from Breda. Four more suspects, all 15 years old and from Gennep, have been questioned. The police are charging the five with computer trespass, theft, destruction of data and buying stolen properties, although the article sums up the case as one of fraud. This is the first time people have been arrested in the Netherlands for stealing virtual goods. The police received reports from five victims.
Habbo Hotel is a commercial online community for teens. Members can go to chatrooms and buy furniture, called “furni” according to Wikipedia. The furniture can then be placed in so-called guest rooms, or traded with other members.
(Link: ananova.com)
Tags: police, stealing, virtual furniture, virtual reality
November 14, 2007
Copyright “trolls” Cozzmoss catch two infringers
Copyright trolls are the copyright equivalent of patent trolls, but not as common. However, they operate on the same principal: they buy “intellectual property” and use it to legally extort money from the naïve. The Verbal Jam blog reports (Dutch) about a Dutch company called Cozzmoss that has recently managed to extract hundreds of euros from non-commercial bloggers. Their website (Dutch) might look clunky, but their approach is anything but. First, they let authors sign over their copyrights to them, which makes legal action that much easier (no squabbling over who you represent). Then, they only appear to attack people with limited knowledge of the law, and third, they seem to limit their claims for damages to relatively small amounts, amounts that do not exceed the money you would lose if you would let it come to a lawsuit.
Dutch copyright law does not allow the infringed upon party to recoup insanely high statutory damages, but the cost of going to court is still substantial, whether you win or lose, which is why parties usually settle out of court, and this is the sort of reaction that Cozzmoss seems to hope for. People with shallow pockets who won’t contest your claims will settle relatively meekly.
Except of course that bloggers blog: Jolie.nl has a long list of bloggers that have written about Cozzmoss during the past fortnight, and only few of them show any understanding for what the others call “vultures” and “bounty hunters,” both perfect analogies if you ask me.
One of the bloggers that got caught in the trap is Cinner (nomen est omen?), who republished an interview with professor Bram Buunk on her website. In the interview, the social-psychology professor belittles people like her who have chronic fatigue syndrome as not really being ill. Another blog called Ango copies newspaper articles with permission from the local paper, but they found out the hard way that the paper doesn’t own all the articles it publishes. Strictly speaking, Ango is in the clear because it was acting in good faith – they too chose to take the 500 euro hit from Cozzmoss instead of risking a court case that might have cost thousands.
Tags: blogging, copyright, Dutch copyright law, infringers, steal, swindle, trolls
November 12, 2007
Alarm clock with radio, mp3, photo frame
If the idea of a Chumby is a little too much for you now, you might want to first try out its little brother with training wheels. The Philips AJL308 alarm clock with LCD screen comes with a built in FM radio, MP3 player, DIVX player, dual alarm times and photo frame. No weather report? Come on Philips, don’t make us look out the window!
Tags: Alarm clock, Chumby, LCD screen, mp3 player, Philips
November 11, 2007
Librivox wants readers for Camera Obscura
Librivox is a project that produces public domain audiobooks. It has its volunteers record their readings of books that are in the public domain. Currently, the project is looking for new volunteers that want to participate in recording Nicolaas Beets’ Camera Obscura, a collection of short stories and essays in Dutch. To help out you need little more than a relatively modern computer, recording software (the free, cross-platform Audacity will do just fine) and a fast internet connection (to upload the result). The only piece of equipment that you may not have is good microphone. A good microphone almost certainly means an active USB mike, either a condenser mike or a dynamic one. You can use the cheaper microphones that typically come with your PC, but these often produce too much noise for the signal they provide.
See also at 24 Oranges: Dutch audiobooks at Librivox. Disclaimer: I am a volunteer of both Librivox and Project Gutenberg, the organization that provides Librivox with most of its source texts.
November 9, 2007
Zone 5300, 2007 autumn edition
Literature opens doors, and eyes, and windows on the soul, some people say. But who is going to close all these entrances again? For instance, in the new Zone 5300 Maaike Hartjes reports from Japan that one of the most popular forms of manga for women there is gay manga for girls, including gay manga for girls set in Lord of the Ring’s Middle Earth and illustrated with a drawing of a smooching Aragorn as portrayed by Viggo Mortensen. How am I ever going to unknow that?!
Or what about this: the heyday of Holocaust porn? Let me rephrase that. What about this: Holocaust porn? Apparently quite popular in Israel during the Eichmann trial. Zone writes about tall blonde nazi women in tight leather skull adorned uniforms brandishing whips and presumably about to suck the life juices out of camp prisoners. The 2007 documentary Stalag by Ari Libsker explores the phenomenon.
At this point I am too jaded to get worked up over the fate of Virgil Mankiewicz, a man from Nebraska who got sentenced to death because his Siamese twin brother Homer got sentenced to death.
There’s also a short interview with Raoul Deleo, one of the two makers of De eenzame snelweg (The Lonely Motorway), a book describing the trip the authors took along the same route that Jack Kerouac describes in On The Road. Kerouac typed out his book on scrolls, and in true “method drawing” fashion Deleo copied that idea by constructing a case with a built-in scroll to draw on while on the road (see illustration).
Furthermore, there is a look at the fantastic work of Chuck Groenink (for instance: teabags hanging from a ceiling, dripping like corpses in a slaughterhouse), comics by Merel Barends and Jakob Klemencic, an excellent episode of Fool’s Gold (which I reported about earlier), and Wasco’s interpretation of Dick Bruna’s Zwarte Beertjes book covers (see illustration).
Tags: Chuck Groenink, Dutch comics, Fool's Gold, Maaike Hartjes, Zone 5300