While preparing for my journey to South Korea I stumbled upon the documentary Welcome to North Korea directed by Dutch filmmakers Peter Tetteroo and Raymond Feddema and winner of an Emmy Award.

It´s astonishing how the North Korean government succeeded to keep foreign media out of their country, apparently the only way to sustain the power balance as it exists now. Apparently, the first fast food restaurant was opened. At the same time Kim Jong-il’s health seems to be deteriorating. Inthe event of his death, one of his sons is likely to be successor. Lastly, the North Koreans want to restart negatiations on stopping their nuclear program.  Maybe these changes may lead to a relaxation of the tensed relations of North Korea with the rest of the world.

Anyhow, watch the open source documentary hosted by www.archive.org. It’s not a Internet bite size length documentary but a lengthy 53 minute one. So sit down and relax.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I’ll be traveling to South Korea in a few weeks. For a quick impression what the “most wired place in the world” entails watch the following video on the Internet, gaming and addiction.

When you follow this link you’ll also find some links to some general and web statistics. For instance, apparently 43% of all Koreans maintain a weblog. South Korea has about 20,000 PC Bangs, Internet cafés. My infrequent experience with Internet cafes are abroad to check upon email. These PC Bangs however are predominantly used to play games. In the Netherlands there are so-called LAN parties where gamers meet to play. Apparently the popularity seems to decrease as broadband Internet access becomes cheaper.

Furthermore, the Korea Communications Commission is planning to boost wireless Internet up to 10 Mbps and connected Internet services to 1 Gbps. This also provides a better HDTV image. In the Netherlands the fastest regular Internet connection you can subscribe to is 120 Mbps and HDTV is just beginning to get adopted.

Sometimes, the summer recess in the television programming schedule creates opportunities for documentaries to see the light in the Netherlands that otherwise would lose their slot to sports programs or a quiz. This evening the Dutch public service broadcaster aired the documentary RIP: A remix Manifesto, an account of the history and state of copyright law in the US in the digital information age.
It shows that, not only copyright issues are of all times, but it also seems to reach the level of absurdity regarding Digital Rights Management (DRM). Responsible are the lobby groups in the US representing the large media companies such as Viacom, Warner and NewsCorp.

Copyright law is still going strong, also in Europe. In Sweden the owners of the Pirate Bay (a bit torrent site) have been convicted. In the Netherlands the owners of the bit torrent site Mininova also are being prosecuted.

The documentary makes an interesting and relevant side step to science by referring to extensive patenting by medical and pharmaceutical companies.

Fortunately, not all is lost because awareness is growing that sharing in the long run may be beneficial to all, given the increasingly being used Creative Commons licenses. Brazil seems to be leading the way in this respect.