Veoh, begone!

I had installed the Veoh software on the old VAIO a little while ago because it's the only way to view some of their videos (principally, anything that's significantly over 5 minutes long, though I'm learning now that it's not the only way, but I digress...).

Veoh doesn't make a big deal about it, but the fact is that their software has P2P features (if you try to kill the instance running in the tray, you get an "are-you-sure?" prompt with a note about how the program helps upload and download "your" videos, which sounds innocuous enough, implying that the software is just a utility to help you do things, when actually it's sitting there using your bandwidth).

Well... a little while ago, I downloaded a curious video from Veoh, and Veoh has since been notified that the file is copyrighted. The way I found out about this was when Veoh deleted the file from my machine.

This is, apparently, in line with Veoh's TOS, which read:

"Veoh may, without notice to you, remove or block any User Material and/or Video Material and Publisher Material from the Veoh Service, including disabling access to such User Material and/or Video Material and/or Publisher Material that you have downloaded through the Veoh Service."

There are a couple of points that bother me about this:

If I had really understood the TOS, I'm not at all sure I would have downloaded and installed their viewer/P2P application, as I don't want to be granting every Tom, Dick, and Harry permission to delete files from my machine. I mean, before you know it, everyone you deal with in the world will want to be able to root around on your hard drive and delete stuff (or do other things to it). This one is my bad and the key to avoiding Nastiness™ in the future: mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

It burns me that the method Veoh chose to "disable access" to the file was to delete it, and then empty my Recycle Bin. After all, the whole idea of sending files to the Recycle Bin (as opposed to just deleting them straightaway, which is possible if you hold down a Shift key while pressing Delete) is to afford the user a way to recover files that, for some reason, should not have been deleted. I never empty my Recycle Bin until my hard drive cries "Uncle!" because I've been known to fetch stuff out of there months after putting it in.

Come to think of it, it turns out that - perhaps unintentionally, but I suspect not - Veoh has gone ahead and done exactly what I expressed concern about in the first point above: they went to a directory (Recycle Bin) that contained files they didn't own, and deleted them. (I suppose one could argue that files in a Recycle Bin are the cybernetic equivalent of garbage bags left out for collection and that deleting them is no big deal, but then we're starting to split hairs.)

Now you may be saying "Well, you know, that file was copyrighted, and needed to be deleted; how else should Veoh have proceeded?"

That's a fair question, and off the top of my head, I can't offer a packaged solution. I'd venture to say, however, that there's got to be a better way. Until that better way is found, Veoh is off my machine and I'm going to be more careful of what I install in the future.

Cheers...

Tight as a tripwire...

When I started Semagic, there were about a million things racing through my head, but now, faced with a (nearly) blank screen, I don't know what to say.

I've not been a pleasant person to be around today, I'm afraid. I am so wound up, it's not funny. And part of me keeps reaching out to beat myself up every time I consider what must be done, because invariably, what must be done comes down to me, in the sense of both how the situation with my father being in the hospital affects my day-to-day life and how it will require me to step up to the plate as far as my dad's life is concerned. I'm not sure I'm ready, but I'm not sure I can afford not to be.

Because it occurs to me that, despite all that was going on during the year my mom spent as a drooling vegetable, I kept my distance and let my dad take care of day-to-day stuff. He paid the bills, he visited her every day, without fail, he arranged for the lawyer to straighten things out with the bureaucracy, he ultimately dealt with the funeral home, etc. and I'm sure he wouldn't have had it any other way. But now that he's in the hospital, who's going to do all that stuff?

Only one person comes to mind.

Am I up to it? There's the optimist in me that says yes, there's the "realist" in me that looks at my own financial situation and says there's no way, and there's the little kid in me who never quite did anything well enough to please his old man that simply doesn't know, but figures he's got to give it a shot, because there simply isn't any other choice.

The doctor says he'll be in the hospital for a while, and then in rehab, so I figure the time constraint on my doing something will have more to do with someone having to take the reins than having to take care of him at the house.

Cheers...