July 23, 2003
Saving the Net
Doc Searls in the Linux Journal: Saving the Net. Excerpt:
... The Internet has been blessedly free of regulation for most of its short life. But the companies that provide most Internet service--telcos and cable companies--are highly regulated. They are creatures that live in a regulatory environment that bears little resemblance to a real marketplace. As natives of regulatory habitats, they see nothing but Good Sense in regulating the Net. After all, any regulation will help assert their ownership over the sections of the Net they control and legitimize the limitations they place on what their customers can do with, and on, the Net.These companies have deep alliances with the big "content": industries (in the case of cable, they are one and the same) that want to see control extended beyond the Net, into the devices that connect to the Net, including PCs, which have also been blessedly free from regulation. Intellectual property protections have been built into consumer electronics devices for a long time. These guys see no reason why PCs, as a breed of consumer electronic device, shouldn't be subject to the same restrictions, in the form of digital rights management (DRM), run by content providers and burned into hardware at the factory. In fact, they're counting on the anti-circumvention provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to prevent any hacks around those DRM systems. Once those cripples (for which there is zero demand on the customers' side) are in place, you can count on Dell, HP and Gateway PCs and laptops that are much less ready to run Linux. ...
Downloaders face the music
SF Chron: Firm sleuths out illegal file sharers. BayTSP tracks down IP addresses, IDs of music downloads. And a chart of illegal downloads.
Witch hunt against the BBC
From mi compadre Robert Scheer: The witch hunt against the BBC. Excerpt:
As Paul Reynolds, a veteran BBC military affairs analyst, said of the British intelligence dossier cited as the source for Bush's now-repudiated claim about Iraq's nuclear program: "Of the nine main conclusions in the British government document 'Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction,' not one has been shown to be conclusively true."
Blogs in the workplace
Chicago Tribune (registration required): Firms Find Way To Avoid Getting Blogged Down. Originally used by individuals for online diaries, the Weblog format is being adopted by more employers as a way to replace the e-mails, faxes and phone calls that slow office life.
mentor cana said:
In corporate blogging: a paradox ?! I've tried to make a point that blogging in corporate environment might be a bit paradoxical. For blogging to be successful in corporate environments, perhaps a change towards more open culture is needed.
Blogger journalism
Just tripped across this example of first-person blog journalism from last week. Blogger Andy Baio reported on the elderly driver who careened through a farmerís market just outside Baioís office window in Santa Monica, Calif., on July 16. He had been walking down that street 20 minutes before.
Baio described ìthe dead and dying" lying in the street and relayed first-hand reports from office co-workers who saw the driver. He also posted a map of the accident scene, laid out a detailed chronology of events, and pointed to media coverage and photographs of the bloody scene.
A new look for Pho
The Pho list, which discusses the intersection of art and commerce, has redesigned its home page and begun to list weblogs kept by its members.
New Music Download Service Launches
PC owners got a new Internet music download site Tuesday, one boasting the cheapest per-song rates but carrying many of the restrictions that have stymied rival music services. ...Different songs on BuyMusic have different restrictions for how often they may be burned onto CDs or copied to other PCs or portable music devices. They can all be burned onto CDs at least once. ...
Music companies play Whack-a-Mole
It hardly matters that Shawn Fanning is has a new music-downloading program. His legal, fee-based file-sharing network is going to be mauled by the very same monster he unleashed when he gave the world Napster.Consider the case of a company called NYCWireless, a loose collection of people offering "hotspot" connections to the Internet. Its co-founder Anthony Townsend received a warning in the spring from the recording industry saying someone on his network was downloading music illegally, and unless that person was stopped, the industry would prosecute.
But NYCWireless operates a series of hotspots in New York's Bryant Park, meaning passersby with nothing more than a laptop computer and a Wi-Fi card can log in while sitting on a park bench, without having to register first. There is no way Mr. Townsend could warn the user or even identify who it was....
Why the creative shall inherit the economy
Virginia Postrel in Wired mag: The Aesthetic Imperative. Why the creative shall inherit the economy. (By the way, that's an illustration of Virginia, not of Scott Menchin, who drew it.) Plus, views from Bruce Sterling, Rob Glaser, and J. Bradford DeLong.
The FCC's media ownership snafu
My bud Jane Black has a new piece in Business Week Online about FCC chairman Michael Powell's failture to make a case for relaxing rules on media mergers, leading to a populist revolt.
And Salon has a new article, Congress to Big Media: Not So Fast, suggesting that the growing public backlash against the FCC's media merger rules could create problems for the Bush administration.
M-I-C-K-E-Y: He's the Leader of the Brand
LA Times: Disney is honoring the 75th birthday of Mickey Mouse and boosting its merchandising by planting the character in "hip new places," such as ESPN and "Sex and the City." Thanks to the keen-eyed IWantMedia for yet another pointer.
Hollywood intensifies anti-piracy efforts
In Hollywood's most aggressive attempt to dissuade people from pirating movies on the Internet, the studios, networks and motion picture theaters will roll out a series of trailers and TV commercials with anti-theft messages.Stressing the importance of copyright protection, the campaign begins Thursday evening with an unprecedented television "roadblock" on more than 35 network and cable outlets, with each network donating 30 seconds in the first primetime break.
On Friday, every major exhibitor will donate time to play daily trailers on all screens in more than 5,000 U.S. theaters. The campaign strategy was created and executed under the auspices of the MPAA Public Relations Council, which is made up of the MPAA's Public Affairs team and the senior public relations executives from the seven member studios: 20th Century Fox, MGM Studios, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Universal Studios, Warner Bros. Studios and Buena Vista Pictures, an affiliate of the Walt Disney Co.
"We're talking directly to the public about the dangers of piracy," MPAA president and CEO Jack Valenti. ...
Dan G. isn't impressed.
Read a mag via wi-fi
Wireless Week: Zinio Systems has signed a deal to deliver more than 70 digital magazines, such as Business Week and Motor Trend, to users of wireless Internet network Wayport. Thanks to IWantMedia for the pointer.
Key 'Influentials' Are Web Junkies
Advertising Age: "Influentials" prefer the Internet to any other media for acquiring daily information, says a new study from WashingtonPost/Newsweek Interactive. Thanks to IWantMedia for the pointer.
Art and commerce collide in book world
Business Week: Three novels set in the book publishing world -- "The Last Days of Publishing," "Foul Matter" and "The Storyteller" -- dissect the sorry state of the industry. Thanks to IWantMedia for the pointer.
House Votes to Roll Back Key Patriot Act Provision
Reuters: Last night the House passed an amendment to the Commerce, Justice, State Appropriations bill denying funds to enforce the "sneak and peek" provision of the Patriot Act. The act was cosponsored by Dennis Kunich, a liberal's liberal, and Butch Otter, a true blue conservative. Thanks to Politech for the pointer.
Hunting for Bambi
Here's the Hunting for Bambi website that everybody's talking about (the official site is down due to overwhelming demand). Bambi has the news media flummoxed. (Is it real? Snopes says no: Has a Las Vegas business been conducting hunts of naked women for customers armed with paintball guns?)
Pvt. Jessica Lynch comes home
Australian media blogger Greg Tingle asked my opinion about the media attention lavished on Pvt. Jessica Lynch's return home today. Here's my response:
I was astonished to see that for some time today, Washingtonpost.com had the Jessica Lynch homecoming as its main story, complete with a large color photo. It's true, Jessica's story does garner eyeballs, as America searches for an affirmation to emerge from the Iraq rubble.
Where have you gone, Jessica Lynch, our nation turns its lonely eyes to you ...
My take on this affair is that the media have been playing up the story with a journalistic hook of 'is this really a story or a media creation by the military?,' but nonetheless the end result is more flag-waving coverage that satisfies our post-9/11 hunger for patriots and heroes, real or imagined.
Death too good for Uday and Qusay
Salam Pax on the news that Uday and Qusay were killed Tuesday:
just to tell you that i would be really dissapointed if Uday and Qusay were really killed in Mosul. this is just the easy way out for them. they should have been humiliated in public, images of them handcuffed and being pushed around.
