The problem faced by this documentary film is common to all such works - which, unlike newspapers etc., must secure permission to quote when it uses news film clips, etc.
"[The series Eyes on the Prize] is no longer available for purchase. It is virtually the only audiovisual purveyor of the history of the civil rights movement in America. What happened was the series was done cheaply and had a terrible fundraising problem. There was barely enough to purchase a minimum five-year rights on the archive-heavy footage. Each episode in the series is fifty percent archival. And most of the archive shots are derived from commercial sources. The five-year licenses expired and the company that made the film also expired. And now we have a situation where we have this series for which there are no rights licenses. Eyes on the Prize cannot be broadcast on any TV venue anywhere, nor can it be sold. Whatever threadbare copies are available in universities around the country are the only ones that will ever exist. It will cost five hundred thousand dollars to re-up all the rights for this film."
Larry Lessig sees this as a larger problem, and I think he's right...
Folks, before reading this short contribution from me this week, I humbly ask that you stop what you are doing, and back-up your email. I didn't do it for two years, and I am now paying the price. My entire Entourage database corrupted and is unrecoverable. Two years gone. Among the many things I lost were countless drafts for essays, since I do most of my writing in Entourage. Don't be dumb like Cicero, lost in Roman technologies of wood and bronze. Back it up!.
Mark Pesce, futurist creator of VRML, has recently published an essay entitled Piracy Is Good? Mr. Pesce's article points out the folly of the current media empires that are under siege by technologies that route around their ability to control and distribute media. His article extends beyond big media's present challenges to where human evolution is headed.
Everywhere centralized, managed systems appear to be at odds with the most innovative, pervasive and viral trends of this era. As Mr. Pesce points out, news media is being supplanted by blogs; VOIP is overcoming fixed-line telephony; social networks are changing marketing and relationships. Shrink-wrapped, retail distribution of software, music, movies and everything else captured with bits is being supplanted by Gnutella, Limewire, Acquisition and BitTorrent. If an idea is loosened into this robust hive of interconnections, it can take flight if it has merit; it can be amplified, improved-upon, and refined if a swarm develops around it and makes it into a meme.
I can't quite put my finger on it, but something about patriotic Neoconservativsm seems to be at odds with swarming's cultural and political effects.
Music and MP3s. Newspapers. TiVo and Hollywood. Tune in to Palo Alto VC Tim Oren as he discusses electronic distribution, and how the wise or unwise reactions of existing players are affecting the futures of our media industries.
A couple weeks ago, we talked about the rise of "iPod Nation," and how smart marketing could enhance its status as an "ideavirus" product. All true. However... along comes DrunkenBlog with a super-bright piece called Convergence Kills:
"That's why Apple is freaked about what Real is doing; it knows the iPod is going to be a surprisingly short-term success story, and that its era of growth is going to die out much faster than expected. This might sound stupid at first, due to how little Apple actually makes from the store, and how well the iPod is doing now..."
...but there's a definite method to its madness, and Apple may no longer be a hardware company at heart. Rick Seidner has called Drunkenbatman's post "one of the smartest pieces I've ever read about the digital media player market" - and when you read it, you'll see why.
"Discovery" is part of our motto, and a growing focus here at Winds of Change.NET. Glenn Halpern of HipperCritical ran a report on Friday that takes readers on a wild ride across the spectrum of science and discovery.
Topics this week included: Alzheimer's doesn't affect all memories; Human brains work like robots; Voles and the science of love; Fifty new embryonic stem cell lines; Double-click patent; The energy debate; Bioterror research - defense or offense?; Diabetes breathalyzer; Self-replicating robots; Discovering Atlantis; Wild 2 comet is strange; The youngest black hole; Water on Mars; Science and religion; New clues on climate change; Drunken worms; Safe fugu; Beetle love
This Slashdot URL has lots of links, and the full text of a proposed new American law:
"C|Net News is reporting that a new copyright bill, to be introduced next week by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), will likely overturn the Betamax decision [JK: which held that VCRs were not illegal because they also had legitimate non-infringing uses] and threaten all sorts of innovation. EFF broke the story and Copyfight has been all over it. Don't miss the comments of law professor Susan Crawford who says, 'This is amazing. Now we're waaaaaay beyond contributory and vicarious theories of liability, which are court-created and pretty darn broad on their own.' "
Meanwhile, Cory Doctorow walks into Microsoft and proceeds to give their view of Digital Rights Management (DRM) a hard shove:
"Here's what I'm here to convince you of:
1. That DRM systems don't work
2. That DRM systems are bad for society
3. That DRM systems are bad for business
4. That DRM systems are bad for artists
5. That DRM is a bad business-move for MSFT "
These are our rights and our futures they're talking about. Some fascinating issues, too.
Blogger and Stanford Law Professor Larry Lessig may be a leftie, but his much-needed focus on a broken intellectual property system have earned him a high place on our roster of honoured blogs. What follows is excerpted from a recent speech carried in WIRED:
"And finally, let me talk about the economy. There will be no real economic recovery that doesn't begin here. Silicon Valley set the pulse of the last great economic boom. It is the key to reviving that growth again.
Yet we will kill that recovery if we continue our crazy dance with protectionism. Protectionism is competition through government favor rather than merit. It is power used to defeat change. Over the past five years, this valley has suffered protectionism of one sort: intellectual property laws out of touch with their animating purpose. If trends continue, it will suffer something worse."
He continues:
Here's one from John Paczkowski of the San Jose Mercury:
"A study published Monday confirms what anyone who isn't somehow affiliated with the Recording Industry Association of America has long known: File sharing is not the major cause of declining music sales over the past few years. According to the study -- which tracked music downloads over 17 weeks in 2002, comparing data on file transfers with actual market performance of the songs being downloaded -- the overall impact of file sharing on sales was almost imperceptible:
"The combination of the personal computer and the Internet is the ultimate in empowerment for the masses, right? The technology defies borders, routes around censorship, and allows the voices of individuals to be heard on the same stage as the rich and powerful, right? That's what John Walker, founder of Autodesk, used to think too. Now he's not so sure, and in a sobering mongraph titled "The Digital Imprimatur: How big brother and big media can put the Internet genie back in the bottle," he explains why...
