A Remix Weekend: Book And Movie About Remix Culture Released
We just covered Larry Lessig's recent opinion piece about how to save remix culture (which, tragically, was entitled "a defense of piracy" -- which it's not). However, that was just a teaser from his new book, REMIX, which has now been released. And, of course, true to form, Lessig will soon release a copy of the book online for remixing purposes. And, as Mathew Ingram tells us, today an "open source documentary about copyright and culture" called RiP: A Remix Manifesto is premiering as well. That movie was made, in part, with the help of many people working on making it better. Here's the trailer:
The movie apparently focuses on Gregg Gillis, better known as Girl Talk, the remix artist we've discussed in the past plenty of times. It certainly looks like the book and the documentary will go together well (Lessig appears in the film), and hopefully will get people realizing that creativity has always involved standing on the shoulders of giants, and being able to improve on the works of those who came before you -- and with draconian copyright laws, we're often stamping out that possibility.
Is Web 2.0 About Exploitation Or Empowerment?
Earlier this year, at the Mesh Conference in Toronto, I had the pleasure of meeting Nancy
Baym, a professor of communications at the University of Kansas. She's been doing
tremendous research into questions concerning online "fan" communities around musicians.
She's just posted her latest paper, with Robert Burnett from Karlstad University in
Sweden, examining the question of whether or not Web 2.0 "fan communities" are really
about exploitation or empowerment. This is a question we've addressed before, given that web
2.0 critics, such as Nicholas Carr, like to ignore that there are non-monetary benefits in
the economy, and thus assume that any activity done for reasons other than money are
exploitation.
The paper takes a balanced look at the Swedish independent music scene, which relies
heavily on fan communities to act as filters and promoters of the music. The record
labels don't focus so much on "selling music" so much as building up attention that can
then be monetized in many different ways. Thus, they encourage fans to share and promote
their music for them. So, is this use of fans exploitation?
The paper shows that, contrary to the "exploitation" view, the fans often get plenty of
value out of the whole process, if not directly in monetary terms. As the paper notes,
the concept of "exploitation" suggests a cost to the participant, but if they get more out
of participating than they give up, then it hardly seems like exploitation. Instead, it's
a reasonable choice in a non-monetary market, where they get more value than they put in.
Plus, the paper notes that some of the fan participants eventually do make some money out
of their efforts as well. That shouldn't come as much of a surprise. There are plenty of
folks who became highly involved in a hobby and are eventually able to turn that into a
business.
But the bigger issue for many fans, is simply being able to build relationships with the
musicians they love -- and with other fans. To them, that's worth a lot more than money,
and it's hard to see how building strong relationships and friendships can be seen as
exploitation.
On top of that, the paper notes that the fans also make use of certain strategies to make
sure -- implicitly or explicitly -- that they're not being exploited. In other
words, whether they realize it or not, they're aware at some level of the
possibility of being exploited by the situation, and they make certain choices to protect
against that possibility. Overall, a very interesting paper that's worth reading, and I
look forward to more research on this topic.
Admittedly, this was an independent production done quickly on something of a whim, and Wang was worried about being able to get it going through normal distribution channels -- but it's yet another experiment to watch, as more movie makers realize that there's more to making successful, money-making movies than getting people to pay for every single viewing.
All Fear The Mobile Phone Botnets... That Don't Actually Exist
For many years, we saw stories, usually pushed by security software companies, about how mobile phone viruses were some huge threat that had to be dealt with quickly before they spread around the world. Of course, that hasn't actually happened -- and there are some good reasons why it's unlikely. In fact, it seemed like such stories had been decreasing lately, perhaps in part due to some security firms scolding competitors for mobile virus FUD.
So, we were a bit surprised to see yet another story on the subject, this time suggesting that we're on the verge of (I'm not making this up) a "Cell Phone Zombie Uprising." Some researchers are predicting that mobile phones would be perfect for botnets, though, again it's not clear how that would actually happen, given the limitations of phones. While it is true that phones have become more powerful (and open) over the past few years, there still hasn't been much evidence that viruses and such are a real threat. Most phones are designed well enough to not make it easy for apps to just install themselves -- so consider us skeptical until there's real evidence of a mobile botnet rising.
Insurance Discounts For Software That Won't Deliver Calls To Cars In Motion
Remember how we couldn't figure out who would ever buy some new software that would stop calls from reaching mobile phones that were in motion? The (weak) idea behind the software is that it prevents drivers from accepting phone calls. Of course, it seems cheaper and more effective to just ignore your phone while driving -- or if that's too difficult, to just turn it off while driving. So it seemed difficult to believe that anyone would actually pay for such software.
Except we didn't count on one thing: car insurance companies.
Apparently Nationwide Insurance will (seriously) give drivers a discount on their insurance for buying the software. So, effectively, this is just a slightly indirect transfer from a gullible insurance company to a software company, but probably won't do much to actually stop people from yakking while driving. It's admirable to try to decrease dangerous driving habits, but this software is a gimmick, not a real safety technique.
Tribune Company The Latest (And Biggest) In A Growing List To Drop Associated Press
While the Associated Press was wasting time stupidly threatening to sue bloggers for pointing people to AP stories without paying, perhaps the folks there should have been paying a bit more attention to actually making sure its business model worked. As we've been noting, over the past few years, its strategy has put it in pretty much direct competition with its members (the AP is made up of numerous member newspapers).
That's creating problems, as we've seen a variety of newspapers have recently been refusing to renew their contracts, notifying the AP that they don't want to participate anymore. There have been some notable names, from the Minneapolis Star-Tribune to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, but none of the "major" newspaper companies had bailed... until now. The Tribune Company, publishers of the Chicago Tribune, the LA Times, the Baltimore Sun and others has surprised many by telling the AP it's not renewing. That could be the big domino, as many other newspapers may follow suit. The article here notes even that some newspapers have been experimenting with picking days when they try to publish without a single AP story to see how it goes.
What's amazing is that, so far, it doesn't seem like the Associated Press recognizes that there's a real problem. They simply seem to shrug off each defection. At some point, the AP needs to realize that it needs to change, rather drastically, if it's going to survive. While the AP isn't like an ordinary company -- it's a non-profit cooperative made up of member news organizations -- that doesn't mean it doesn't need to have a working business model. Without that, and with big members dropping like flies, it won't be able to exist at all.
UK Releases Details, But Delays, Plan To Surveil Every Bit Of Communication
We recently noted that some articles were appearing in the UK about a plan by the government to track all phone calls, emails and internet surfing histories in that country in a giant database. The whole thing sounded so extreme we even doubted it was true. However, it appears to be based in fact, as the government is outlining the details of the plan, while at the same time agreeing to delay introducing it for at least year, in order to hear from the public (or, perhaps, to hope that public dislike of this proposal dies down enough that it can be introduced quietly). The backers of the plan stress that all they want is the data about the communications, rather than the communications themselves. So, that would mean they're interested in who called whom, not what was said, and who emailed whom, not what was written. That may be small comfort to some, but it still seems like a huge privacy violation, and the database is almost certainly to be abused and misused by those who have access to it.
Performance Rights Society Goes After Childrens' Charity
We've noted in the past that the Performance Rights Society (PRS), which is in charge of collecting performance rights royalties throughout the UK, has basically been pushing the boundaries of the definition of a "public performance" -- and it's reaching the point where if anyone else hears the music you're playing, you may owe PRS a royalty. For example, they first went after car repair shops where mechanics in the garage area were apparently listening to personal radios loud enough for customers in the shop to hear. Then, they went after police stations that had personal radios playing loud enough for others to hear.
The latest in its effort to look about as obnoxious as possible is to (seriously) go after a non-profit children's community center for using a TV, radio and CD player to keep kids entertained. As the folks who run the community center note, they already have a TV license, and have purchased the CDs legally. Yet, PRS wants them to pay again -- and not a small sum, either. It'll be another £3,000 to actually use these products that were legally purchased. It's almost as if the folks on the "royalties" side of the music business want to look as evil as is humanly possible.
Sorry, But Google Ads Aren't Driving People To Gamble
Google has apparently banned advertisements for online gambling operations in the UK for years. Even though online gambling is legal in the UK, there were strict rules on advertising that Google didn't want to have to deal with. However, those rules have now been relaxed, so Google is now starting to accept those ads again... and are being attacked by a variety of different groups, including the Church of England, claiming that the global financial crisis could be made worse if Google drives people to gamble.
Can we take a break here and inject a little common sense into the discussion? Google is not the guilty party here.
An ad on Google is not going to drive someone to gamble. If someone wants to do some online gambling, they'll find a way to do it. If they do a search on online gambling, they'll find plenty of sites in the organic results, let alone the paid spots. And it means they sought it out. This isn't to deny that some people have a problem with being unable to moderate their gambling, but to blame it on Google ads is simply grandstanding over something that has no impact on the issue.
Can You Copyright Neighborhood Boundaries?
Another day, another crazy ridiculous copyright lawsuit. A mathematician who focused on creating more accurate maps that designated actual neighborhoods, rather than just zipcode-based neighborhoods, is being sued by a company called Maponics, who claim it owns the copyright on the neighborhood boundaries the mathematician created. Seriously. The mathematician, Bernt Wahl, developed some neighborhood maps for a company a few years back, and that company sold the copyrights on those maps to Maponics. But Wahl has kept creating new maps, and gives them away free to researchers. After all, they're maps. It's basically factual information, and Wahl considers his neighborhood boundary definitions to be public domain. But Maponics is basically telling Wahl he can no longer make any more maps, and only it can sell his neighborhood maps. Yet another example where copyright is clearly being used to stifle, rather than encourage, creativity.
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