calum.org Accept, or change

Here is an interesting philosophical look at the problems and intricacies surrounding digital copyright.

For example, is it illegal to distribute 1 bit of a file that has been encoded as an MP3 from a copyrighted CD? Plainly not. Especially as the record company isn't the creator of the MP3, and due to the variances in encoding, it's likely that each encoding will be unique. Are 20 bits illegal? Are 1000 bits illegal? And what happens if someone stands on the street corner shouting out the bits that make up an MP3 file of a copyright music track?

I bought an MP3 player last weekend. I wanted 2 things from it : OGG support, and Linux support.

Ever wished you could get a Radio 4 comedy program in OGG or MP3 format, but all they have is streamable Real Audio? Follow these simple instructions, and your wish will be granted.

Dump the stream to a file. (Note - you won't see any output while it is doing this, so you'll need to check the size of the output file to make sure it's working. It will exit when it has finished though.)