Five years after the major distribution of broadband, and evidence of the internet being such a powerful media platform, the mainstream media corporation have sunk their teeth into what they think is a worthy investment, with terrible consequences for the avid users.

‘Right To Binary’ is a documentary which will seek to point out what the internet is under attack by, some of the previous threats which it has overcome, and what it may soon be under threat from.

For my first short film, Right to Binary, I need any of you reading this to break out your video camera, point it at yourself and speak about copyright issues which you have experienced on the internet.

You could speak about a number of things, such as:

• How the issues were dealt with.
• How you think the system of copyright and content usage could be improved and why.
• Whether or not you agree with the system of copyright and piracy/P2P/file-sharing and why.
• Your opinions on copyright, piracy and file-sharing as a whole.

Haven’t experienced a copyright issue? Well heck, it doesn’t matter! Make a video anyway, broadcasting your opinions only. That would be just as good.

The quality of video is not at all important, however, you’re strongly encouraged to record audio to a high enough quality that any spoken audio is clear and easy to understand. The length of your video could be 5 minutes, it could be an hour. It doesn’t really matter how long it is, we just want to know what you have experienced and what your opinions are.

Please show evidence of the issues that you faced in almost any format. This could include printing out any letters or emails that you received, recording your screen with your video camera, or grabbing an image of any evidence and saving it as a JPEG photo with your video clip in the same folder.

Anyone who sends in a video will have the chance to be in the film, which will be shown at a variety of film festivals in the South West region of England, throughout 2011. The film will also be released in full online.

All video clips must be completed by the 10th of September 2010, and sent to samcaplat@gmail.com with the subject line, “Right to Binary – Copyright”.

The best method of sending your video clip would be to use: https://www.yousendit.com

If you are to take part in this project, I look forward to seeing your videos, listening to your stories and taking note of your opinions.

Thanks for reading,

Sam Caplat.

“TinyGrab is a simple yet extremely powerful utility for Mac OS X and Windows. Harnessing the power of pre-existing and new OS screenshot taking capabilities, TinyGrab instantly uploads and allows you to share with a small URL—all in under 30 seconds!”

Along with the motto, “Simple.Screenshot.Sharing”, it sounds good, doesn’t it? Well, that’s because it is. TinyGrab has been a program which I have supported since the first time I used it. So when I heard that TinyGrab was very close to going under due to lack of funding, I acted upon the appeal and donated a small amount. I was not the only one to act upon this appeal though, with larger businesses like MacHeist and The Rackspace Cloud chipping in to aid in keeping TinyGrab ‘above the water’.

Keeping a program like TinyGrab in service can be extremely financially draining, due to the resources that it requires, so they need all the help that they can get from users.

If you are already a TinyGrab user, be it on your desktop and/or iPhone, and you feel that the program has been beneficial enough to you, I urge you to donate a small amount using the following link: http://is.gd/cy0Ov – Even better yet, purchase the program for your desktop for a one of payment of £10!

If you are not a user, visit the site, try it out for yourself, and then decide in good time whether it’s worthy of your donation.

It would seem that once you’re popular enough to be featured in such media texts, there is no such thing as ‘being nice’. A media text author will, in most cases, pull anything accidental or bad that someone has done out of the bag to use against them, for a usually large audience to read. In the worst case, the majority of said audience is very impressionable, and then rumours begin to spread as a result.

People are more concerned about who has scratched their arse and fallen victim to it being caught on camera, with the title, “Oops, caught in crack fiasco!”, (which would be more appropriately titled, “Come and discover that they’re humans too!”), than they are with their own school grades.

This kind of disgusting treatment is one reason why I am very weary of trying to become world-famous. I don’t know how to go about it, but one day, I would like it very much if I had the opportunity (and the knowledge) to direct a feature film that would be watched by millions, resulting in world-fame. But again, if world-fame results in nit-picky journalists writing incorrect and hateful columns about me and my personal life, why would I ever want to amount to such a thing?

We, as a population, idolize celebrities far too much. The majority of them have worked to get where they are, granted, but their content, on occasions, is very mediocre. That being it may, they don’t deserve to be treated how they are in the majority of media texts.

I plead with anyone who reads this: Put down the magazine, turn off the TV – Go outside.

Mike Shinoda

“These people love to put a twist to your words
To infer that you said something fucking absurd!”

During my month of working at the Red Lion Free House, I experienced bullying, miscommunication and inefficiency from the managers. I was regularly spoken down too in a discriminative and disgusting manner, there was a serious communication issue between myself and my managers and I was held responsible for issues which I was not responsible for. Even when attempting to discuss these issues with my managers in an informal manner, I was bullied and singled out.

Now that I can count the amount of unprofessional managers I have worked for on one hand, I cannot stress enough to those who read this who may be approaching the working age and have intentions to apply to jobs, or may have already started a job – You, as an employee, as a human being, have rights. I can personally guarantee you that your manager will treat you with disrespect, as a young worker. Assert your rights, informally and formally.

Until I can sort out the issues which I am experiencing with my work, I am back to job hunting to fill the time I am now left with as a result.

Unknown

“It’s only after we’ve lost everything that we’re free to do anything!”

The previous two photos I’ve taken so far during this project have proven to be quite well received, and I will embed them below for you to see.

I hope you enjoy viewing this little journey, and better yet, following me on it too! If you have Flickr, add me as a contact – (if my photography makes an impression on you, that is).

http://flickr.com/photos/samcaplat

Before reading any further, I urge you to listen to an ‘Audioboo’ which I agree very strongly with, by Ben Carr: http://is.gd/cdyCz

I have always maintained that the community in America is much stronger than the community in the UK. I’ve also never really considered myself to be a part of this “strong” UK community, because of the ridiculous occurences I’ve witnessed, experienced and heard about within it.

This “community”, and the bonds between those who choose to be a part of it, seem to be so tied up in popularity and numbers. I’m not on YouTube because I intend to reap the benefits of some sort of “break” that I might experience in the future; I’m on YouTube because I genuinely enjoy dedicating my time to creating content for people to view.

I would rather say to people, “I have a large audience on YouTube because I spent the time building it up myself, through my dedication and love to content creation”, rather than, “Oh my god, I’m such an icon right now, I’m so famous, because I have 2000 people who are subscribed to me because I uploaded a video of me spinning my cat around in circles”.

I think it’s time that people came to realise that if you’re not happy with something that you are actively involving yourself in, it’s time to go.

Mike Shinoda

“Can somebody please just explain to me
What happened to the way that we always said we’d be
Right now I dunno why I push through the pain that I got through
And I’m losin’ hope, give me one reason not to.”

Now that I’m back, I’m happy to say that I’m going to attempt to get back into regular blogging, and when I say that, I mean it. Too many people online say that they’re going to push themselves, and in the end, don’t. I’ve been inspired in so many different ways within the last two weeks; so much so it makes me want to scream and cry at the fact that I cannot produce anything in the way of video content until I can gain access to my hard drive again. (Since the ports in one of my Western Digital enclosures decided to stop working, I’ve been accessing the drive via a ‘Sata to USB’ dock, which also stopped working as of Tuesday just gone.) In light of this, I’ve been looking into different ways of expressing myself. After discovering Mike Shinoda and Banksy’s artwork, and listening to many different musical artists, I’ve been inspired to take up music and painting (and possibly spray paint art), both as hobbies only. Photography and Video will always be the two things which really make me tick, but painting and music are two things which also really interest me. I really want to try and stimulate my brain in many different ways, instead of just focusing on one or two things.

I don’t know when I’ll have something to show for these new found interests, but I hope the answer is soon. Until then, it’s time to cover Bristol in pai… I mean, to go and… revise?

Banksy – http://tinyurl.com/wnd84

Mike Shinoda – http://mikeshinoda.com

Credit to Michael Aranda and Patrick Cirelli.

This post has been edited short, for personal reasons.

I hope you are all well, take care, all of you.

Sam Caplat

Today wasn’t interesting in any way, the same old routine really, I get up at 12:30, have a good stretch, look at the bed for about 10 minutes and wish that I was back in it, Sleeping, make myself a cup of tea, check my emails, go for a walk, come home, Skype call someone, chat for hours on end, then go to bed.

In other news, (Not really news, just something else that you have to read that will literally kill you inside and resort you to selling your soul so that you don’t have any emotion while reading this horribly boring blog, or just not having a soul at all.)

I got an email off of an old friend today, this old friend being a woman called Heidi, who, from memory, is absolutely lovely and is currently arranging with me when I can go and see my younger brothers which I haven’t seen for many, many years. (I won’t go into detail about anything of what I just said, thats all I’m saying, but I’m happy about it!)

On that note, I think I shall get some sleep. Goodnight internet, it’s been great being with you!

Sam Caplat.