Pirate Bay and the Sausage Factory
Ubiquitous high-speed Internet, combined with data compression technologies and digital file formats, has resulted in a media-sharing free-for-all; circumventing the media container (vinyl, tape, CD and DVD) and becoming deeply ingrained in our culture. Mayhem ensued: The entertainment business sued. The latest in a series of legal irons is now being applied to Pirate Bay. The Media Industrialists (as I will call the American Trans-national Media Conglomerates in this paper) would have us believe that the Pirate Bay trial is about protecting copyright and intellectual property. The real issues are around the rights of digital citizens in the face of legal measures designed to correct failing business practices while restricting fair use.
Incorporating ideas from Corry Doctorow, Lawrence Lessig, Matt Mason, Richard Stallman and others, my paper Pirate Bay and the Sausage Factory is now published online at Scribd.
admin Miscellaneous copyright, law, p2p, social media
Erick Schonfeld sparks a flurry of activity on
Techcrunch with his observation that the Internet is shifting to real-time:
Once again, the Internet is shifting before our eyes. Information is increasingly being distributed and presented in real-time streams instead of dedicated Web pages. The shift is palpable, even if it is only in its early stages. Web companies large and small are embracing this stream. It is not just Twitter. It is Facebook and Friendfeed and AOL and Digg and Tweetdeck and Seesmic Desktop and Techmeme and Tweetmeme and Ustream and Qik and Kyte and blogs and Google Reader. The stream is winding its way throughout the Web and organizing it by nowness.
admin Miscellaneous social media
Simon Dumenco blogs for Advertising Age, drawing parallels between the housing bubble and the Twitter bubble. What’s left after the crash?
There’s a parallel, of course, to the housing bubble. At some point it suddenly dawns on millions of people that they’ve paid way too much for way too little actual value. (If you’re one of the people who has read every one of Mr. Kutcher’s more than 1,400 Twitter updates … well, just realize that you’ll never, ever get that time back.)
Is it a case of the few exploiting the many? Story here.
admin Miscellaneous social media
Eliot Van Buskirk provides insight into how the Peer-to-Peer model of file sharing is working its way into the business models of media moguls:
Facebook, MySpace, imeem, YouTube and other social media sites — which the labels now recognize as a major part of their revenue streams going forward — incorporate several aspects of Napster and other early, rogue file sharing networks: buddy lists, user uploads, filtering content by user, viral marketing, ad-supported content and the potential of mining valuable data. The complete DNA of social media was right there, from the very start of P2P.
Full story on Wired.com
admin Miscellaneous music, social media
When local newspapers fail, can hyperlocal websites deliver? This excerpt from
The New York Times:
The sites, like EveryBlock, Outside.in,Placeblogger and Patch, collect links to articles and blogs and often supplement them with data from local governments and other sources. They might let a visitor know about an arrest a block away, the sale of a home down the street and reviews of nearby restaurants.
admin Miscellaneous newspapers, social media
This from
Leena Rao on
TechCrunch:
Students in Moldova are using Twitter as a tool to mobilize opposition against a communist victory in Moldovian elections. According to reports, close to 10,000 protesters gathered at Moldova’s parliament in Chisinau, Moldova’s capital and were able to eventually break through police lines to storm into the building. From looking at the tweets on the subject, it appears that the demonstration turned into a violent coup attempt.
admin Miscellaneous protest, social media
This from
OntheMedia:
Is Google making us stupid? Is it making us smarter? Have we lost our ability to concentrate? Are we more social or more isolated as a result of our constantly interconnected lives? Brooke Gladstone takes a look at some of the research that attempts to answer the question: how is the internet affecting our brains?
admin Miscellaneous education, social media
Mark Cuban asks: (and a lively discussion ensues)
Mar 29th 2009 6:16PM
Here is a question for all you legal scholars out there. Is a tweet copyrightable ? Is a tweet copyrighted by default when its published ? Can there possibly be a fair use exception for something that is only 140 characters or less ?
I got to thinking about this when I tweeted about an NBA game. I tweeted to the people who follow me. While I never asked that they not distribute it to other tweeters, i did not give anyone permission to republish my tweets in a commercial newspaper, magazine or website.
So when an ESPN.com or any other outlet republishes a tweet, have they violated copyright law ?
Is twittering the process of publishing in 140 characters or less, or is it a private communications to those that follow you ? Even if you dont block outsiders from seeing it ?
You could also extend this to Facebook. Do you own your status update ? Is it a private communications between you and friends, or is a published work ? If a newspaper or website wants to publish your status update, do they need permission first ?
admin Miscellaneous copyright, social media
Ian Brown has an insightful take on Twitter in the Globe and Mail
Randomness is the hooligan we all fear. Unmerited suffering, the premature death of loved ones, physical disaster - these are the sources of what Julian Huxley, the famous evolutionary biologist, called “injustice at the hands of the cosmos.” That cosmic injustice “represents the persistence of chance and its amorality in human life.”
So - I thought - what’s the standard answer to the awful fact that none of us knows how or when we’ll die?
Carpe diem. Live for today, in the moment, while you can: This is it, it’s not a rehearsal, today is the first day, etc.
And what is Twitter? Twitter is a communications technology, a form of mass instant messaging, that specializes in recording the details of life in the moment.
Is Twitter the new public square or a Tower of Babble? Full story here.
admin Miscellaneous social media
This story in the East Bay Express details the practices of Yelp.com, a social media site that pays posters to go out and review business practices. Local business owners say Yelp offers to hide negative customer reviews of their businesses on its web site … for a price:
“Hi, this is Mike from Yelp,” the voice would say. “You’ve had three hundred visitors to your site this month. You’ve had a really good response. But you have a few bad ones at the top. I could do something about those.”…But when John asked Mike what he could do about his bad reviews, he recalls the sales rep responding: “We can move them. Well, for $299 a month.” John couldn’t believe what the guy was offering. It seemed wrong.
Yelp recently ran ads on Craigslist in Vancouver soliciting Bloggers. Something smelled fishy, and this story outlines the abuse that can rise from business practices applied to social media. In depth story here.
admin Miscellaneous social media