http://www.thepunch.com.au/author-bios/alan-baxter/ Alan Baxter is a British-Australian writer living on the south coast of NSW, Australia. He writes dark fantasy, sci fi and horror, reviews music for Metal As Fuck, blogs, rides a motorcycle and loves his dog. He also teaches Kung Fu. Read extracts from his novels, a novella and short stories, as well as heavily biased opinion, at his website – http://www.alanbaxteronline.com – and feel free to tell him what you think. About anything. en Copyright 2012 The Punch penberthyd@newsltd.com.au penberthyd@newsltd.com.au Sat, 26 May 2012 20:00:49 +0000 Sat, 26 May 2012 20:00:49 +0000 Politics, opinion, world news, sports news, latest news, views, Barack Obama, Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard, Nathan Rees, Malcolm Turnbull, Peter Garrett, Barnaby Joyce, Australian, federal politics, opinion polls, election, The Punch, thepunch, punch ExpressionEngine 1.6.7 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss 15 http://www.thepunch.com.au/images/punch-logo-rss.png http://www.thepunch.com.au/ 144 70 Politics, political opinion, world news, sports news and the latest news and views updated live, daily on The Punch - Australia's best conversation. Search The Punch keywords http://www.thepunch.com.au/search/ http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/Counterpunch-Im-an-author-take-my-stuff-for-free/ Digital Rights Management doesn’t work. DRM is a method of locking digital media so it can’t be shared. Except it fails. For every form of DRM employed, pirates instantly break it. DRM only inconveniences honest, paying customers. For example, in the case of eBooks, a person might justifiably want to have their book on their PC and their tablet, but DRM can prevent that. I regularly get Google Alerts about my books being mentioned online and many times it’s when they appear illegally on filesharing sites. For every download like that, it’s a drop of cash not going to keeping food on my table, right? Actually, probably not. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Alan Baxter) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/Counterpunch-Im-an-author-take-my-stuff-for-free/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/Counterpunch-Im-an-author-take-my-stuff-for-free/#item7713 Tue, 21 Feb 2012 20:00:54 +0000 Alan Baxter | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/mans-best-friend-is-theproduct-of-its-owner/ It’s illegal to teach your children responsibility by buying them a dog to look after. At least, that’s what my local council would have you believe. The other morning my wife and I and our dog went to the local oval to meet with a friend and her dog. We live in a small rural area, nothing but dairies as far as the eye can see. At nine o’clock in the morning the only people in the park were the five of us – three humans and two dogs. Everyone was having a tremendous time, the dogs playing, the humans talking. Then a ranger turned up and told us we weren’t allowed to have dogs on the oval, even on a lead. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Alan Baxter) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/mans-best-friend-is-theproduct-of-its-owner/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/mans-best-friend-is-theproduct-of-its-owner/#item6567 Thu, 01 Sep 2011 19:35:38 +0000 Alan Baxter | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/Thrash-metal-and-video-games-dont-make-you-a-killer/ Many Norwegian stores have removed violent video games from their shelves after Christian Fundamentalist terrorist Anders Breivik claimed he prepared for his attack by playing them. Yet there’s been no word from bookstores on when they’ll remove the Bible from their shelves. What a load of bollocks. After all, Breivik claimed he played video games to prepare, but the only reason he had anything to prepare for was due to a truly twisted ideology that certainly didn’t come from game play. Every time we suffer an atrocity like this, people immediately look for somewhere to place blame, while ignoring the fundamental causes. More often than not it’s heavy metal music or violent video games that cop the accusations, which is nothing more than lazy scapegoating. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Alan Baxter) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/Thrash-metal-and-video-games-dont-make-you-a-killer/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/Thrash-metal-and-video-games-dont-make-you-a-killer/#item6469 Wed, 10 Aug 2011 19:55:46 +0000 Alan Baxter | Author bios | The Punch