Universal Music snubbing Apple and its customers

Anymore I love reading about what the major music labels are doing, because it's so damn entertaining!

Re: DailyTech - Universal Jumps to SpiralFrog's Free Downloads: iPods Not Welcome

In what appears to be a snub to apple (like NBC's recent move from the Apple Store to Amazon.com) Universal music has chosen to sell it's music through a music service that doesn't work on the iPod, I assume it uses the irrelevant and unsuccessful Microsoft DRM, but the truth is it doesn't even matter.

Has Universal ever been more irrelevant?

They're behaving exactly like a spoiled child.

This is a fight Universal fundamentally has no chance in the world of winning, because it's not about Apple. It's about them waking up and finally realizing that mp3 IS the standard. It's the only one true way to sell music in this era.

A recap, first Universal makes Apple the king/master by demanding DRM on their music, apple delivers the only successful DRM option, then Universal rails against the master they've made. Finally Universal tries to snub it's master by choosing to make some other 3rd party the general public has never heard of their master.

What Universal fundamentally doesn't seem to get is by snubbing apple's Fairplay DRM and the open MP3 format they're snubbing ANY and ALL successful or working options to sell music to their customers. They're giving them no choice BUT to steal music! Which is why Trent Rezner of NIN, one of their biggest artists is off in Australia telling his fans to just go ahead and steal the music. (read on.. I'm getting to it)

I have one further suggestion for Universal based on their brilliant logic.

Universal: 99% of all P2P shared music is ripped straight of a CD! (epiphany) Why don't you simply stop selling CD's as well? Anyone selling CD's is clearly inducing copyright theft. You must stop selling CD's!

Furthermore I would suggest Universal then start selling ties, and start calling themselves a clothing company, because they certainly aren't by definition in the music industry anymore. They seem to be doing anything but selling music.


In related news (as mentioned above) Trent Reznor of NIN and also represented by Universal Music was so disgusted by the price gouging by Universal on NIN CD's in Australia, a topic that he spoke out against months ago, that he told his fans at an Australian concert "...Has anyone seen the price come down? Okay, well, you know what that means — STEAL IT. Steal away. Steal and steal and steal some more and give it to all your friends and keep on stealin." Enjoy the clip yourself, I've embedded it below. It's short, sweet and clear. There's no question about the issue.



This just makes me laugh and laugh. Universal has outlived it's utility in the music age. It's whole *idea* of the music industry is, is dead. The only competency they have left is as a marketing arm to promote bands in traditional media. Which is funny because anymore radio and TV are increasingly loosing relevance to word of mouth music sharing on the internet. Web services like Last.fm and iLike.com have far more relevancy in shaping tastes and developing the music market then pretty much all of traditional media combined.

The CD is dead as a format. Therefore there's no need for distribution, so what it all comes down to is there's just no need for Universal at all.

Adios Universal, unless you pull your head out of your *ss and start selling mp3's you're dead... of course you've been dead to many like me for a long long time anyway.

youtube, free speach and the tyrany of private public spaces

Let me just start at the end,

F*ck youtube.

Ever day I become more appalled by youtube's complete disregard for it's users.

Sooner or later people are going to realize youtube is a complete tyrant that has no respect for their freedom of speach or right to fair use.

Youtube is one tyrant putting other tyrants, namely big media companies, concerns over individuals right to free speach and fair use. I don't understand how there hasn't been a mass exodus from youtube. Enough already. Vote with your feet people and leave. There are far better video hosting sites. Two of my personal favorites are blip.tv and vimeo.com. Most importantly though, host your own vlog.

I'm not calling for a boycott here. I just wonder why there hasn't been more backlash. I hear more and more cases about DMCA take down abuse on youtube every day and I wonder why people don't do the obvious thing and simply leave youtube.

Case in point, I just stumbled on a nice little post by Washington DC vlogger Kenya Allmond about the deletion of one of her videos by youtube. Apparently it was just 3 minutes of her friend singing along to a few lines of a prince song as they drove down the road. She has reposted it without sound to see if youtube delete's it again.

Yesterday I received a lovely notice from YouTube indicating that one of my videos was removed due to copyright infringement. The notice also stated that repeat incidents of copyright infringement would result in deletion of my account and all the videos uploaded to said account.

What was the video? Did I record something from TV and post it? Did I rip a DVD and post it? It was none of these. It is a video of the boyfriend lipsyncing to Prince’s “Kiss”.

Excerpt from: Kenya Allmond: In My Own Words � YouTube Video Removed for Copyright Infringement

Great eh? How absurd is it that a person can't even share a clip of their friend singing a song while driving down the street? Why do people still use youtube again?

This may seem trivial, but it's not. It's a basic free speach issue. Our right to be secure in our ability to communicate with and share our personal moments with whomever we choose. Video is the new frontier of free speach. Just as you can quotes from a book we need mechanisms and established methods for quoting or referencing in video.

Let's go over some key points:

• youtube doesn't even bother to review DMCA take down merits



• youtube often simply deletes videos and even whole accounts without pre-warning



• youtube not only deletes the video but all the comments, discussion and related material that go with it... effectively "disappearing" it (sort of like a corrupt regime might "disappear" political dissidents) so no record exists of potential wrong doing, not even how many videos youtube has "disappeared".



• once deleted accounts and videos often can't be resserected even though clearly the reason for doing so is often flimsy and unstated



• youtube automates the process for big companies to take down literally anything they feel like regardless of merit



• youtube doesn't even bother to tell you who requested a take down, why, nor offer you any due process



• often videos are deleted without review simply because the title mentions an artist, show or movie



• often videos are taken down because someone sings, quotes lyrics from, or even plays a song



• youtube is extremely quick to respond to take downs without review but very slow to respond to DMCA counter notices

All this adds up to one thing. Youtube really doesn't respect its users. They've put big media's interests far above citizens rights to free speach and fair use. I encourage people to go find someone who does respect their rights. Like Kenya use a better video host like blip.tv or vimeo.com, and host your blog on blogger.com or wordrpress.net or even your own domain.

Meanwhile on a respectable video host vimeo.com, a site that respects it's users freedom of speach and fair use the hot meme for over a year has been "lip dubbing" with 1114 vidoes as of this writing. Put a song on the ipod and lip sync the lyrics into the camera as you listen along. Clearly on youtube the majority of these lip dubbing videos if not all would be removed.



This is Nagi. from Knock Knock and Vimeo.

Virtual architecture in Second Life

Someone recreated the famous all glass house by Mies van Der Rohe in Second Life. I being both an architecture geek and second life wannabe geek (not to mention being grade A vlog geek) of course am overjoyed to see the virtual tour on video. I can't believe I've never gotten down there to see this thing after spending 11 years in Chicago. Maybe I'll at least get a chance to go check it out in second life now. I wonder if this recreation of architectural wonders in second life is becoming quite the trend? I must admit my favorite video game ever was grand theft auto and it wasn't hurt to much by it's fairly amazingly accurate recreation of famous European cityscapes.



from: YouTube - Archiblog visiting Farnsworth House, Second Life (via mefeedia)

Universal to sell DRM free songs

It's happening as predicted. Since the announcement by that Apple would be selling non-drm music in iTunes from EMI other major labels are slowly falling in line.

The New York Times is reporting that the Universal Music Group is going to be selling part of its catalog sans DRM for the next few months to gauge consumer interest. This is great, but the only catch is that these DRM free songs won't be available via iTunes. Universal, in an effort to lessen Apple's dominance of the digital music market, will be offering up the DRM free music via Amazon, Google, RealNetworks, and Wal-Mart for $.99 a song (a price many accredit Apple to pioneering).

From: Universal to sell DRM free songs, but not on iTunes - The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)

Also

You might recall that Universal recently decided not to renew their contract with Apple to sell music in iTunes, and switched their commitment to a month by month basis. What does all this mean? I am betting that this experiment will succeed, and that Universal will reverse their decision and sell DRM free tracks via iTunes, why not sell your wares on the top online music store?

Boingboing.net has a good take on universal's inevitable move to selling non-drm music too.

The original article is on NYTimes

'I Like Turtles', a viral video post mortem

The only thing better than a random seventeen second news clip "going viral" on the internets and being seen by at least three quarter million people is a three thousand word post mortem on the spectacle from the Washington Post.

Re: For the 'I Like Turtles' Boy, 17 Seconds Of Fame - washingtonpost.com

There was a time, not long ago, when a 10-year-old boy could head to a neighborhood fair, get his face painted like a Halloween zombie and blurt out something utterly inane to a local TV news correspondent and nobody would ever think about it again. Oh, there'd be an audience that night, much of which would chuckle and think "Whaaaaa?" But that would be the end of it.

The moment would not endure as a video snippet, posted on Web sites and viewed more than 500,000 times, nor would it inspire T-shirts, or parodies or remixes or mash-ups. It would not lead a company in, say, England to track down the lad and offer him -- or rather, his parents -- cash to turn his baffling three-word apercu into a cellphone ring tone. He would not hear from the Jimmy Kimmel show. A handful of strangers would not call hoping to send him pets.

"P2P networks harm national security"

This has been going around lately, and it just amazes me how ignorant this article is.

Congress: P2P networks harm national security | CNET News.com

Politicians charged on Tuesday that peer-to-peer networks can pose a "national security threat" because they enable federal employees to share sensitive or classified documents accidentally from their computers.

At a hearing on the topic, Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) said, without offering details, that he is considering new laws aimed at addressing the problem. He said he was troubled by the possibility that foreign governments, terrorists or organized crime could gain access to documents that reveal national secrets.

Also at the hearing, Mark Gorton, the chairman of Lime Wire, which makes the peer-to-peer software LimeWire, was assailed for allegedly harming national security through offering his product.

...

The most scathing criticism came from Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.), who launched into a lengthy monologue in which he deemed Gorton "one of the most naive chairmen and CEOs I've ever run across," and accused his company of making the "skeleton keys" that grant access to material harmful to U.S. national security.

"I'd feel more than a shade of guilt at this point, having made the laptop a dangerous weapon against the security of the United States," Cooper said. "Mr. Gorton, you seem to lack imagination about how your product can be deliberately misused by evildoers against this country." (Cooper also, at one point, claimed that Gorton's own home computer was probably leaking sensitive documents.)

Aparently either one or both congressmen Henry Waxman and Jim Cooper are in the pocket of the Hollywood lobyists.

Come on Henry and Jim, clue in... everyone knows the route to getting p2p networks outlawed is to claim they induce child pornography.

"Save the kids!" Jim & Henry. That's the battle cry to go for. It's a much more righteous way to pass legislation outlawing p2p then hollywood or some percieved threat to national security. Not that you could outlaw p2p without completely shutting down the internet... because of course fundamentally the internet is a peer based network.

Email is a far greater threat to national security then p2p. Perhaps we should ban all government emplyees from using email. We can start with Henry Waxman and Jim Cooper.

No parody required, white house politics

I couldn't not blog this, the white house is it's own disgusting parody.

Re: Democrats Urge Perjury Probe of Gonzales | World Latest | Guardian Unlimited

Senate Democrats called for a perjury investigation against Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on Thursday and subpoenaed top presidential aide Karl Rove in a deepening political and legal clash with the Bush administration.

``It has become apparent that the attorney general has provided at a minimum half-truths and misleading statements,'' four Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee wrote in a letter to Solicitor General Paul Clement.

[...]

In response, White House spokesman Tony Fratto said, ``Every day congressional Democrats prove that they're more interested in headlines than doing the business Americans want them to do. And Americans are now taking notice that this Congress, under Democratic leadership, is failing to tackle important issues,'' he said.

"doing the business Americans want them to do"

That just made me laugh out loud.

According to polls the majority of Americans support impeachment... and the approval rating of the president is at record lows... so... I would say that the white house spokesman touches properly on the vital issue... and of course comes to the exact opposite conclusion as to what the reality of the situation is.

The obvious reality is the Democratic leadership IS doing what the vast majority of Americans want... holding the White House accountable.

This is a perfect example of spin at it's most outrageous and ridiculous ends. Parody is no longer required. The White House has become it's own mockery.

Darknet culture and the Harry Potter leak

My friend Raymond from Copenhagen did an awesome write up on some of the behind the scenes culture that went on before the Harry Potter leak and the corresponding Newsweek article.

It's truly fascinating and unlike anything I've read before.

Re: Evil Vlog is... Darknets and the Harry Potter leak

Here are some Cliff notes on his writeup and the corresponding Newsweek article

1) the NEWSWEEK writer admits to downloading, or at least attempting to download, a pirated copy of the book

2) it's overwhelmingly obvious based on the opinions of those in the Newsweek article this leak will in no way effect sales of the book and does in fact enhance the experience of the fans.

2) What really undermines and subverts the piracy efforts are scores of fan fiction... only a true fan would be able to tell the real from the fake.

4) Raymond's posts takes a look at the behind the scenes culture and collaboration on transcribing the book by multiple groups who are all competing to be the first to release a pirated copy. They are not driven by anything other than pride and being big fans.

5) Raymond's post documents the remarkable transparency of these groups, even documenting the Newsweek reporters direct contact with one of the P2P groups transcoding and leaking the book on Pirate Bay.

6) The Newsweek article while pointing out the inherent impossibilities in stopping piracy both inside the publishing world and by fan culture also documents how remarkably pervasive watermarking technologies are getting. While the age of DRM may be finally slowed or stopped moving forward we're now entering an even more dangerous age of ubiquitous watermarking. Soon every digital good you make and every digital good you buy will be watermarked and traceable back to you. This is a very scary thought, which has implications well beyond piracy such as freedom of speech.

Hopefully more later, that was just the cliff notes.

T-Mobile announces seemless VOIP / cellular package

Of all the rotten times to launch an amazing new service.

On July 5th T-Mobile announced T-Mobile HotSpot @Home. In a word it is a cell phone that also does VOIP.

For only $10 extra a month you can make calls from the same phone both via cellular and VOIP potentially saving yourself thousands of dollars a year.

To put it another way, this service offers all the ubiquity of a cellular network with all the inexpensiveness of VOIP.

Re: IPhone-Free Cellphone News - New York Times

It’s called T-Mobile HotSpot @Home, and it’s absolutely ingenious. It could save you hundreds or thousands of dollars a year, and yet enrich T-Mobile at the same time. In the cellphone world, win-win plays like that are extremely rare.

Here’s the basic idea. If you’re willing to pay $10 a month on top of a regular T-Mobile voice plan, you get a special cellphone. When you’re out and about, it works like any other phone; calls eat up your monthly minutes as usual.

But when it’s in a Wi-Fi wireless Internet hot spot, this phone offers a huge bargain: all your calls are free. You use it and dial it the same as always — you still get call hold, caller ID, three-way calling and all the other features — but now your voice is carried by the Internet rather than the cellular airwaves.

These phones hand off your calls from Wi-Fi network to cell network seamlessly and automatically, without a single crackle or pop to punctuate the switch. As you walk out of a hot spot, fewer and fewer Wi-Fi signal bars appear on the screen, until — blink! — the T-Mobile network bars replace them. (The handoff as you move in the opposite direction, from the cell network into a hot spot, is also seamless, but takes slightly longer, about a minute.)

I say hurrary!

This first generation service may not be perfect but at the very least it shows that T-Mobile "get's it".


Cellular companies are no longer in the voice communications business... they're in the internet communications business.

This service is a huge step forward. For a cellular company to embrace VOIP to save their customers money and in so doing potentially make much more profit itself is unprecidented.

But this isn't the only way for a cellular company to utilize the internet to make more profit.

Many may also see a direct parrellel between this service and the potential offerings of the iPhone. The iPhone is after all among other things a device that already has all the hardware capabilities of T-mobiles new service. It is an "internet communicator" to quote Steve Jobs... yet it has no VOIP application on the phone.

I assure you hackers and many others are VERY hard at work trying to bring VOIP to the iPhone.

Personally my friend Adam (a non-blogger but brilliant guy non-the-less ;) thinks Apple is trying to use the iphone to leverage itself into the world of communications in exactly the same way it used the iPod and Pixar to leverage their Apple from simply computers into media. This final piece of the puzzle would of course give Apple the unprecidented power to sell and deliver digital media and services DIRECTLY with it's customers anywhere and anytime.

What's more with already ubiquitous WiFi and the potential for ubiquitous WiMax sometime in the next 2-10 years my friend thinks Apple is going to try and leverage the iphone into being a communications company by either buying out a current cellular company or slowly using their leverage to turn all important cellular services into a mere commodity regardless of whether the end use of their networks is voice, data, text messages or accessing ANY webservice.

This may sound like a long shot, but it is VERY similar to what apple is now doing with the iTunes Music Store in shaking up the music biz and turning major music labels product back into a simple 99 cent commodity.


Not only do I think my friend is right on all counts but I'll one up him.

Given DRM dies in a fast and firey death as it is extremely anti-competitive and a huge hindrence to fluid markets the commoditization of BOTH these markets (digital media AND cellular data) will bring TREMENDOUS innovation to both markets over time accellerating the pace of innovation and creating ironicly explosive growth and revenue for Apple's unwitting and often disagreeable partners.

In so commoditizing cellular services into merely data access providers much like internet service providers I think the cellular companies will find a cornicopia of growth like they've never seen before as millions of webservices innovators, so called web 2.0 companies, strive to deliver services over their networks.

As cellular networks stop trying to be the gatekeepers of cellular networks like Cable TV operators... offering extrmely limited services like 10 cent text messages and $2.99 ringtones and finaly offer full unprecidented access and integration with the internet like the iPhone and T-Mobile's new Hotspot @Home service... the tremendous innovation in web based services will add tremendous value to their network and with it exponetial usage and revenue increases.

The most basic lesson here for cellular network providers is this:

Better to make a penny a kilobyte then a buck a minute.

Cellular services only THINK they are in the voice communications business.

Soon they will wake up and realize they have it all wrong. While they were slumbering on their profits or trying to find more ways to nickle and dime their customers to death their industry changed.

Cellular network providers are no longer in the voice communications busines they're in the mobile internet access business.

Rupert from twittervlog, one of my favorite video blogs as of late, posted this excellent video of his thoughts on videoblogging since returning from Pixelodeon Fest 2007 in L.A.



His words are of equal merit.

Today, I realised that everything i've been looking for is right here in front of me.

It's happening right now.

It might not be your dream, but it's mine, and I've only put the pieces together after meeting everyone at Pixelodeon and seeing all the curated sessions of films.

This is why i've fallen in love with internet video distribution. Funny how it's taken me so long to realise the obvious.

I guess i was too busy looking ahead for the one big idea, and not realising that it wasn't a 'show'.

As we say in Jedi school:
It's not the End, it's the Means Whereby.

And as the Dwarf said in Twin Peaks:
Let's rock.

I don't know this Jedi school that Rupert speaks of and I've never had the pleasure of following Twin Peaks, but Rupert's sentiment hits home for me.

Being in Los Angeles Pixelodeon was highly focused on the growth of videoblogging as an industry with a heavy focus on so called shows and "episodic content", but in it's optimism over future growth as an industry what most pleased me is it retained and remembered it's roots. It is at it's core simply a new method of communications and therefore as much of a communications industry as an entertainment industry. And of course this changes everything.

This is something I think audio podcasters so often forget in their own strive to grow into an industry.

We call video blogging "video blogging" and not "video podcasting" because it isn't television and it isn't only about news and entertainment. It's roots and all the things that are important to it come from blogging world and remebering those roots are what keep videoblogging going strong.

Like blogging, videoblogging at it's core is just ordinary every day people speaking their mind, sharing their stories and simply communicating. In that videoblogging has and is succeeding beyond many of our wildest dreams.

In the video blogging world we are already living the dream, vlogging IS a success... all the beautiful things we've dreamed of have come true... all the "overwhelming intangibles" have been there since the first day people picked up their camera and posted videos to their blog.

This amazing ability between people across the world to connect on a deep, profound and personal level is inherent in the video blogging medium. Much more so then good old fashion text blogging, photo blogging or even audio blogging.

One might say though that this "message in the medium" has even been inherent in the web since before blogging, and that videoblogging is simply an extension of the obvious... of what the internet already is with all it's blogs, wikis, bulletin boards, mailing lists, and even it's earliest bulletin boards. However, it is clear that videoblogging is currently and for the near and foreseeable future the height of this fulfillment and that as we move forward this new space will continue to bloom as it becomes accessible to more and more of the world. I truly believe we haven't even begun to reach the full potential of this sector; video as a tool for mass communications... not communicating TOO the masses... but for the masses to communicat with each other.

So while many, myself included, will always be struggling to take it to the next level, to grow this fledgling little hobby of ours into an entertainment and communications industry and to continue to improve on it and make it ever more accessible throughout the world the truth is we're already living the dream. We're already doing what we want to do.

Like blogging the majority of us may never make money off our video blogs, at least not directly, but that is of no consequence for us. Videoblogging connects us in new ways and opens not just new doorways but a whole realm of possibilities around the world. It's a very large step down that path to the new global village.

It is not about the entertainment for us... it's simply about a radical new shift in communications. All the power of CNN to connect with people around the world and much more is now afforded to anyone with a digital camera and internet access.

In many respects videoblogging has fulfilled on all those misdirected concepts of ubiquitous video telephones and then some. That we didn't realize that realtime one to one video wasn't the solution is inconsequential. The real answer is web-time one to many... and whatever role those original concepts of video telephony held we can now see that while they had may have their place they are to video misdirected. They are in fact as misdirected as the concept that Alexander Graham Bell had that the telephone would be the new radio, broadcasting messages to the world.

Recently I've read a lot of hype about the iPhone and despite the slow AT&T EDGE network, and despite the fact that it doesn't have a video camera and can only shoot still photos... despite this and yet because it is has ubiquitous and powerful wifi accessibilty with full and unprecedented access to all webservices (read: END to END interoperability) it will wether it gets it's video capabilities soon... or wether AT&T and the EDGE continue to suck... or even if apple refuses to open the platform to software development it has truly changed the game and will accelerate this world where we will all be able to participate in a ubiquitous and immersive media rich communications revolution. It has accelerated this eventuality by at least one or two years.

As our ability to both create and respond to each other with rich many-to-many audio, text, video and photo becomes untethered from the desktop the power and utility of these medium as tools of communication will expand exponentially.

Apple's iPhone's with it's many great promises and despite it's few minor flaws brings new and unprecidented access to this world of media rich communications on the street, in the world and puts it at our fingertips and in our pockets. That it doesn't yet fullfil every promise hardly matters. It has changed the game, set new precident and laid out the model for all others to follow. Within a year or two's time we'll not just have $500 iphones and $1000 Nokia N90 series phones but sub $100 phones which are capable of ubiqutiously accessing and creating many to many video, audio, and photo communications around on cellular networks, wifi, and hopefully even wimax... where everything we know now about these communications will simply explode and we'll realize huge new potentials and efficiencies we have yet to even dream of.

The model is already set, and some would say has been since the internet began, with it's inherent end-to-end architecture. All that remains now is to sharpen the toolsets and services, to cheapen and improve the hardware, to make it more accessible, and to enjoy, revel in and evangelize these new freedoms.

Rupert's video, shot so simply with a Nokia video cam as he speaks his mind rushing to work down london streets, not only summarizes the optimism I've felt about videoblogging since I discovered it myself in 2004 but is also for me a demonstration what it's all about, communicating and connecting with friends, family and people of like mind you have yet to meet no matter where they are in the world.

Re: Waking up at Twittervlog.tv

P.S. Thanks, Rupert for the inspiration, I hope you don't mind my theivery of the idea and spirit of your message and I hope that maybe I've expanded on it in some worth manner if not just exposed it to a few more eyeballs. ;)

Ramblings on Viddler's time based commenting and tagging and on what makes Mozilla kick so much a**.

Originally posted as a comment to FactoryJoe, Thoughts on Mozilla. I more or less posted here for archival reasons, but if you find it interesting feel free to comment. Disclaimer, this is a comment, I did not proof read it or even spell check it. You've been forwarned. :)

Re: FactoryJoe, Thoughts on Mozilla

Just checking out the viddler interface.

Viddler’s time based tagging and commenting is interesting but let me know when they get the comments out of flash and use the blog API (blogger.com, moveabletype, wordpress) to post them as "real comments" to your blog post where they belong… where they can be read with the rest of the comments, where they can be tracked with co.mments.com and other trackers, where they can be syndicated with RSS… where I can actually READ them instead of them being in a tiny little 320×240 little window.

The bottom line is there’s two different conversations here. There’s the one in viddler, which is… whatever… can’t follow it. And then there’s the one in the page… which is awesome and useful…. and I can actually read… and which I will actually get responses on because I’m tracking it with co.comments.com.

Now… as to comment on what I read and hear here [on the original blog post].

Mozilla is a PLATFORM… this is why it rocks and [Microsoft] IE SUCKS. Because mozilla is open source, it can be extended… innovation can happen… Greasemonkey, plugins… exetentions… to a lesser extent themes. You’re right, most people DON’T care what browser they use, but if that was the ONLY case then Mozilla would be DEAD and has no future. Mozilla’s job is to MAKE people care! There’s NO way around that. In order for mozilla to succeed people MUST care. Mozilla’s success right now is because they ARE making people care. My DAD uses mozilla. My dad would never go back to IE. Why? Because of security and popups for one. And btw, he see’s that as the same issue. Because in many ways it is. IE craps all over him.

Extentions he’s installed = 0. Theme’s he’s changed to or installed = 0.

Why do I say this. Because just like Apple who buys or simply outright steals the best 3rd party OS innovations and hacks like quicksilver, and the current application switcher and tons of other innovations. Mozilla needs to roll the BEST of these innovations, the most popular, the most sought after into the DEFAULT mozilla. Because Mozilla CAN and IS winning at making a large part of the population CARE about their browser. Security, pop up ad blocking… maybe a few other key components… but people WILL NOT configure mozilla… they will not sift through it’s endless preference panes no matter how well designed and simple they are… **intelligent defaults are extremely important** and even more important still they will NOT go through and install plugins. The best of breed plugins need to be integrated into the core mozilla. It’s good for the developers of those plugins to aknowlege their hard work and integrate it into the core… and it’s GREAT for the customers. That cycle of encouraging innovation through creating an OPEN PLATFORM… I’m thinking grease monkey too… by courting the developers… by making great API’s… by using copy left open source licensing to encourage branching. That and lots of consultants and strategists and developers donating their time and energy is the key to mozilla creating a product that’s so much better than Microsoft IE that people CARE to install it.

[read: If it's not good enough to be included and configured properly in the default install for Joe User, then it isn't worth installing.]

Personally, I have infinite thanks for Mozilla. If you set a side the fact that I use firefox and love it… take that completely out of the equation all together… mozilla has still been a RESOUNDing success. Even if it only had 15% of the market share… and not the 20 or 25% it has… even if it never progresses beyond 20% it’s still a success because it has brought innovation and openess back to the web space. Of course… to most people commenting here they’re like “no sh*t, you don’t say”.. but I had to say it. Even though I would hope Mozilla would take 50% market share or more and make I.E. the #2 browser it really doesn’t matter in the scope of things. All that matters to me now is that the mozilla foundation turns a 10% or 20% PROFIT while staying true to it’s manifest (being open and not evil) and keep innovating so that it can sustain itself as a very equitable business and keep innovation alive in the space for another 5, 10, 20 years.

Anyway… just thought I really just wanted to comment on viddler, because I was checking it out, but I thought since I wrote so much on viddler interface I should also respond to the actual post.

One last thought on viddler. While the interface is interesting there’s a lot more to a company than a cool flash interface… look at blip.tv. My fav video blog host. The key to blip’s success thus far is serving the core videoblogging community… which unlike youtube.. wants to have their own domain… their own blog, the ability to monetize… to OWN their own content and have control over it… to not have it deleted or removed because of some arbitrary DMCA notice. Anyway… none of that has to do with a slick interface. It has to do with strategy and architecutre and business direction. Then again.. blip could REALLY stand to have a slick viddler flash interface… maybe the two should partner… of course maybe viddler sees blip as competition. They shouldn’t, but maybe they do.

The Munny Show, DIY vinyl toy show

As mentioned on many occassions I love Bill Streeter's mini-docs (mini-documentaries) on St. Louis alternative arts and culture scene. They range from interviews with local artists to local events like local semi-pro wrestling and ladies roller derby.

Bill posted his latest mini-doc, this one on the Munny Art Show in St. Louis. The Munny is a design-it-yourself vinyl doll. Watch the video, it's pretty cool.

Watch movie (MP4 video)

Original post on May 24, 2007 from LO-FI SAINT LOUIS DOCUMENTARYS (RSS feed)

Play Flash version Play Quicktime version A Munny (pronounced like “money”) is a vinyl toy that comes completely blank so it can be customized. Star Clipper Comics sponsored a Munny Art show last week for St. Louis Artists to show off their own customized Munny creations. LO-FI SAINT LOUIS was there to document the event. Music by Dan Warren, via the Podsafe Music Network.

(Via Mefeedia)

The revolution will not be televised

The first videos of students using the OLPC "$100 laptops" has come out today. Appropriately on a videoblog called OLPC.tv.



While the true utility of these laptops for teaching in developing countries has yet to be proven (critics say more fundamental needs like lighting, text books need be addressed) the saying "the revolution will not be televised" does come to mind.

The silent and distributed revolution of knowlege, education and power does not suit itself to primetime TV. It's not something you can point to like a riot or a mas demonstration. In this case, if it works it's going to be happening in tens of thousands of tiny little school houses all over the developing world. If this does work the change in the next 10 or 20 years could be far more dramatic.

Original post: olpc.tv - Students playing music

Amazon to launch music store with DRM free music

As predicted it's happening, the wall is crumbling. Now that apple has announced DRM free music offerings in their music store on EMI we knew soon others would follow. Amazon was as predicted the next, also partnering with EMI to sell EMI's catalogue DRM free.

Jeff Bezos puts it very clearly in the amazon press release.

"Our MP3-only strategy means all the music that customers buy on Amazon is always DRM-free and plays on any device," said Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com founder and CEO. "We're excited to have EMI joining us in this effort and look forward to offering our customers MP3s from amazing artists like Coldplay, Norah Jones and Joss Stone."

To paraphrase, "MP3-only mean it will play on any device." That's something everyday ordinary people who don't spend all day obsessing about their music can not only understand, but always have understood. The market wants MP3 and always has. It's just taken the music labels 8+ years to listen to them.

That's two major stores and one label down. About four more major labels to go.

My prediction is this holiday season will pay big rewards for Apple, Amazon, EMI and others selling DRM free music. Putting a serious haste in the step of anyone still not selling mp3's. By this time next year nearly all the major labels will be selling non-DRM music and there will be over two dozen major online music stores like Apple, Amazon and other early players like the wonderful emusic, CDbaby and innovators like ArtistShare.

Users will once again have choice, as to where they want to buy, what hardware they want to use and where they want to listen. This combined with podcasting will put an end to things like satelite radio, win and real media, digital music stores like napster that sell DRM music, and whole industry of middle players that have sprung up to serve this inequity in the market. This includes the P2P black market. Well may actually start seeing a slow down in it's explosive growth, though any decline in p2p's popularity will take years.

It occurs to me that in as little as 3-5 years time that people won't even remember what "DRM" was in the first place... that most people won't even know this battle was fought to keep the future of music, media, culture and innovation open. It's a silent fight mostly, one the majority of the public doesn't really even fully understand let alone will most realize this battle has taken nearly *10 years*, and cost billions in lost revenue. We'll be taking it for granted again in no time. In five years time music mainstream artists profits will be at an all time high and the music market will have realized it's explosion not only in profits by the major labels, but in the breadth of new music and artists in the market.

The copyright con game and the new economics of IP

A VERY well known and very popular icelandic photographer on flickr, Rebekka Guðleifsdóttir who has recieved a lot of recognition for her self portraits, Icelandic landscapes and doing some innovative advertising work for Toyota caught an otherwise reputable art dealer in the UK red handed selling her landscapes on their site and ebay. She's chronicled almost $5000 worth of sales of ebay alone. The story has received a LOT of attention on digg and other online news sites, but that isn't even the half of it.

Like every good story, this one has a twist.

According to a commenter on digg, the company claims they were conned. They were sold the photos as part of a collection. Even though it IS ultimately their responsibility to make sure rights are cleared and the company their dealing with is ruputeable this brings to mind some VERY serious issues about the sale of intellectual property. In the old world the owner would always have the negatives but with digital photography there are no films and no negatives. So how is a company supposed to ensure that the people they're buying the photographs off of ARE the rights holders and owners of the photos?

From the comments on digg

I emailed them, this is the reply I got (almost immediately):

-----------------------------------------

Hello Dave.Many thanks for your email.

Can I start by saying there are 2 sides to every story and I will try to tell you our side.

In August 2006, we were contacted by "Wild Aspects and Panoramics LTD" a company based here in London, they offered to show us some imagery, that they stated would be high resolution and we would have sole reselling rights.We were visited by a salesperson from the company and we liked what we saw

Anyway 2 weeks passed, emails were sent back and forth,basic research was done by us to enable us to resell them and then the paperwork was signed and a considerable amount of money was paid(£3000.00)by us , for us to start selling these images in the form of canvas prints.

6 months later we had a letter from a law firm in Iceland, stating we were using someone's images, we googled the claimants name, lo and behold we found we had been duped!.

As requested we immediately removed the images from the internet and destroyed any copies of the images we had.

We emailed the law firm to state we had dealt with these requests and to apologise to their client.

We took legal advice, they told us say nothing more than we had, not reccomending we contact the claimant and tell her what had happened, by the way we were very keen to do that, but we were told to avoid all contact.

In the meantime we started our own investigation into the above company's contacts and sources but have since found nothing more because the telephone doesn't get answered, mobiles are permanantly off and emails are getting bounced back, it seems we were conned too.

As digital artists and designers, we know the importance of integrity, hence the immediate halt and removal of images from the internet, if we had no morals, surely we would still be selling them to recoup our costs?.

As Rebekka has now decided to make this public, we can set about explaining to her why this has happened and of course, to apologise.

Many thanks O-D
Our response will be sent to rebekka first, if shes happy with it, it will get posted up.

The only solution I can come up with is, deal with a reputable sources, but that only works when dealing with third parties. There are hundreds of thousands, even millions of independent photographers out there. The only way I know to validate ownership of digital photos is to present the unaltered and UNPUBLISHED series of shots before and after the photos being published at time of sale. But even this is not an absolute, nor is it easy. Many photographers throw out unused shots.

The only other advice (besides purchasing from reputable sources) is companies start demanding indemnification clauses in purchase contracts should the rights of materials come into question so that the 3rd party or photographer who sold them the pictures is required to take the legal burden.

Of course none of this will help Only Dreamin UK, their ass is grass as the saying goes, whether they were victims of a con or not. I'm certain the photographer Rebekka will eventually get her monies worth out of them, but it's no picnic for her either.

One piece of advice to Rebba and all FLickr Photographers. I ABSOLUTELY LOVE highres photos, props to all you who like me make your high res versions available on Flickr. ALWAYS HOLD SOMETHING IN RESERVE! If you have a 8mp camera only post a 4mp image. Personally I tend to publish most of my photos at 1600x1200. It's perfect for desktop and screen viewing and yet if someone wants to buy, sell or publish they're probably going to need the original.

This is not just great for photographers but ALL artists. Musicians publishing mp3's on their sites have become commonplace. There's absolutely no reason though to publish the 256bit version of your song. Not only does it eat up more bandwidth, but the people don't care enough to buy your music won't care anyway. Publish the 128 bit version (or lower) and keep the 256 to sell to those who love your music enough and care enough about the quality to bother buying it.

It's no secrete, fidelity and experience are the key to the new value chain. On some level all IP in the future will be free. Not just because of P2P, and not just because it's a great moral imperative, but because it makes great economic sense. You can't sell a photograph without making available a decent size still freely available for viewing and hence downloading on the web. You can't sell music without allowing people to listen to it (and hence download it). This is a given, on some level all intellectual property will be free, it must be free. Put that in your notebook because it's a fundamental property of the new world order and the new world economy though obviously many in the media world of old (RIAA / MPAA) still have yet to grasp what this means.

Some examples...

The 1600x1200 version for your desktop on your computer mill be free, and if you want to print it out in 8x10 color, also free, but the 20x30 print for your wall.. that'll cost you. Want an image for a billboard or ad campaign, better be ready to shell out some major bucks. The better the experience, the more the fidelity, the more it's going to cost you... and don't forget to buy the t-shirts, posters, concert DVD's, coffee mugs and other merchandise to bring Johnny out of the headphones and into your world.

The same goes with music... and for many, many artists this is already true. Care to listen to that new album by Johnathan Coulton, th 128 bit is free. You can buy the CD, or 256 bit from CDBaby, iTunes, or any of various e-tailers. But if you really want to *experience* Johny, you'll buy a ticket to one of his concerts.

Filesharing is not simply music theft, it's just the new world order knocking very loudly on the door of those companies to stupid to understand reality. Like prohibition the black market will probably all but dry up as legal alternatives and higher fidelity options take shape. When you put the entire album up on your website in 128bit mp3's, and sell the 256 bit versions on eMusic, CDbaby, or iTunes in mp3 or even a better format for anywhere from 25 cents a song to $1.29. Now we've got a working model.

I know I've said this 1000 times (quite literally), but it was Jack Vallenti former head of the MPAA who said, "how do you expect us to compete with free?"

I've been repeating this model of experience and fidelity nearly since he said that about 4 or even five years ago. What inspired me to rethink the "product", no longer shinny plastic disks but fidelity and experience, was not only Jack's statement but the thriving industry of bottled water.

Here we live in the U.S. A world where pretty much noone dies of thirst barring some extreme circumstance, water is all but free, it flows from public fountains, there's water fountains and public bathrooms everywhere, and yet the bottled water industry THRIVES! What does it thrive on! It's 100% all in how you package it and how you experience it of course!

1) PORTABLE, and CONVENIENT TO ENJOY... People buy bottled water first and foremost because it's conveniently packaged. The package ALLOWS us to carry it around, it makes it PORTABLE. Notice anything similar to the mp3 vs. DRM debate here? It's no secrete that the CD is completely out of date. No one caries around CD players and a whole host of CD's these days. CD's are a "package of inconvenience". The exact same can be said of DRM formats like Windows Media, Plays-for-sure, and Apple's Playfair. Why in the F%*@# would we pay for things that make our lives less convenient and more complicated!? This packaging is analogous to putting in a quarter at the water fountain, especially music services like Real Player Rhapsody, the new Napster and a whole host of others. Drink as much as you like, just as long as you're at the fountain, but you can't take it with you.

Noone gets this better than Steve Jobs who's spent the last year lobbying EMI and other major labels to sell non-drm music. They're selling it at a premium too! And it WILL SUCCEED!

2) CONVENIENT TO PURCHASE... We buy it because purchasing it is more convenient than the alternative.. It's easier to find a gas station with bottled water than it is to find a water fountain or get water out of a sink faucet somewhere.

Again, compared when you look at the music world. The standards have changed and the industry has not. What could be less convenient of an experience than having to go to a music store, or worse, having to download or run some special piece of software or hardware just to be able to purchase music. It's simply easier to hit mininova.org to look for that latest album. In many cases faster to download too. This is not to say sometimes we don't enjoy the experience of a music store, but for the most part... the idea is dead. Music is above all about convenience. We want it when we want it, where we want it and how we want it. For most of us that will purchasing it off whatever web based retailer we prefer, whether it be emusic, amazon, or otherwise, downloading it immediately, no matter what computer we're on... wether a public lab, home or work, and putting it onto our music player wether the awesome $10 GPX FlashSD unit someone showed me the other day day or a 80 gig iPod, which is quickly becoming the Cadilac of media players. And let's not forget how we listen to it... in the car, on the subway, EL, bus, train, or plane.... ironically... the home entertainment center is the last place we listen to music these days. The best thing about music its portable... if we're sitting at home and are going to be tethered to a computer or the living room that time is increasingly occupied by visual media that requires our full undivided attention. Music's place in the world is on the go.

3) It's a KNOWN EXPERIENCE... It's the same reason we buy Starbucks or McDonalds, we buy bottled water because we know whether we buy it here or in Canada or Europe that Evian is going to taste like Evian, a Starbucks Mocha Frap is always going to taste like a Starbucks Mocha Frap. (If this isn't true... then someone's got a major freaking problem with their brand!) There is no mistake here... Starbucks strategy is to make their coffee shops so enticing an experience that that they will literally become the "third place" in your life. Home, Work, and Starbucks. Though not for me, god bless them for trying, I still enjoy them a lot more than I enjoy Dunkin Donuts or McDonalds. Come to think of it, I can't remember when the last time I bothered eating or getting a coffee at either of those two places.

What is the known experience the music industry is selling us. A scratched CD!? A static-y radio that fads in and out with all sorts of commercial interuptions? What about the digital music experience sold to us by the mainstream industry? Special software that we must install and learn how to use? Music that will only play on certain computers and devices? Lack of choice? The options the mainstream music world offers us are anything but a known experience. For all but the most technical among us (ironically those most capable of using file sharing), the mainstream music world offers us an experience that is an UNKNOWABLE EXPERIENCE. Want JayZ you have to buy from iTunes... the Beatles, classical, folk... who the hell knows where to buy them. Around every turn is a new twist. Every interest requires a different piece of software, a different player, a different store.... but only one peer-to-peer network.

The future is this... if I like Amazon, my music better be available via amazon. If I like the Apple Music store, don't expect me to visit amazon. If I like my iPod, it better play on my iPod. If I like a $10 GPX FlashSD mp3 player that plays for 18 hours on a single AAA then it better play on that. If I want to listen to it on a plane, train, subway, ell, or my car stereo it better work there too.

This is why web based musicians, p2p, mp3, and podcasting are the present and future, and why they're kicking the snot out of radio, CD sales and the whole traditional music world... and it ain't caus' they're *%$^%$ free. When you pull your head out of your *ss and look at the thriving succes of the $5 coffee undustry, and $1.50 bottled watter industry you realize the future why the future of music is more bright than it's ever been in history.

Where's my convenience!? ...my anytime, any computer, any media player, any software... my choice of store... amazon, itunes, emusic, cdbaby or even the real world... downloading the entire album for free at 128 bit to see what I like on my way to work.

Where's my portability!? ...play it on my car stereo, ipod, $10 generic Flash player, my home stereo, work computer, home computer, my friends care stereo or home computer... the subway... where there are no wires and no airwaves.

Where's my fidelity!? ...not just 256 bit mp3, but what about multi-track formats, lossless compression, enhanced Dolby or other imaging, or even buying the tickets to hear it live!? Give me a REAL reason not to buy it in simple mp3.

Where are my great experiences!? ...from concerts to purchasing experiences... where's my concert hall, intimate club experience, my starbucks of music stores (oddly starbucks has started it's own label), my choice of online purchasing experiences.

Where's my great packaging!? ...flash cards, thumb drives, posters, videos, Why not just simply sell it ON it's on $10 mp3 player branded for said artist!? (Why not, flash based mp3 players cost less then most albums now.)

The point is that now that words have left the page, art has spill from it canvas's and music has escaped it's little plastic discs it can now take any form it wants in the world. It's truly a brilliant time. Now that music and film are as free to create as it is to transmit... mearly as free as a no.2 pencil we can now re-imagine music and media and shape it into nearly any form we can dream. Wether that be a pair of sunglasses like Oakley or cute little brick like apple's iPod or iPhone or a pen, or whatever we like. It's truly a wonderful time to be a consumer and a designer of musical and media experiences.

What's this got to do with copyright infringement and stolen photos? The more reasonable options the artists (and above all the middle players) the less like copyright infringement is to be a problem. You don't have to give away the whole enchilada for free, but you also don't have to demand it be eaten at your restaraunt with your silverware, drinks and sides. Give them takeout, package it, sell it in a variety of stores, in the most convenient form possible. This goes for you two you television basket cases... clip culture is a beautiful thing.