101 Culture - Watching digital technology change culture

A tweet for a track

What a brilliant promo strategy for these two musicians:

Get their latest track here, for the price of a tweet.

@solobasssteve made lots of brilliant noise during the recent Digital Economy Bill debates.

Downfall's downfall. The sequel.

The Guardian is reporting that German film producer Constantin are stepping up their campaign to stop people remixing the bunker scene from Downfall where Hitler rants.

I've written about this before. But it's worth mentioning again. This campaign doesn't make sense.

The scene has cemented itself in popular culture. It;s become a vehicle for people to express themselves. That's such an achievement for the director and production company, let alone the incredible amount of free publicity generated for the film.

Even the Director is flattered, 'I find those parodies tremendously amusing'.

It's funny. It's good for your business. It's flattering for your art. Leave it alone!

And since Asi's set up a Facebook group, we ought to all have another rant about it. And join!

C'mon. Someone please make a remix featuring the lawyers losing it over the copyright infringement.

YouTube culture. Euk...

YouTube comments threads must be the most spiteful place on the web.

Great cartoon from xkcd via Katy Beale.

The Commons isn't a house in Westminster - it's us.

Every now and then, I wonder if this is just a (social) media blog and I should stop banging on about a new culture.

And then someone like Tamsin Omond comes along and restores my hope and faith - that we can make our world better using this here technology (and a load of hard work).

Her idea is that The Commons is not a house in Westminster. It's you a me. And that all this new tech will allow a new democracy rather a representative one.

It's very simple and I like it.

She makes the brilliant point that we need a global democracy to solve global problems. We had no say in American subprime mortgage selling but it triggered our recession.

Tamsin's standing as an independent candidate in Hampstead and Kilburn. One to watch, I'd say.

Have a look at the intro video. And please notice the sunflowers which I planted in a tatty bed opposite Parliament along with Lyla and Richard.

Pretty sure that's Richard's footage as well!

Thanks to John Grant for bringing her to my attention.

Information overload and invisible advertising

A lovely video from Studio Smack which renders the street in black and all commercial information in white. It does a nice job of showing the level, and probably uselessness of, the commercial information around us.

I guess TV really was a wonderful gift to advertisers.

Music – in any abstracted sense – has no value.

This post on earning money from music, by Steve Lawson (a musician), is so good that I had to quote it here.

Go read the original. Or check the little excerpt here:

"It’s fundamentally about the costless replacement of the irrepairably broken role of the paid ‘gate-keepers’ who acted in the old system as a deeply expensive and impenetrable barrier between musicians and their potential audience.

We don’t need ads now, we need fans.

Because fans = money.

Music – in any abstracted sense – has no value. None at all.

The value is in the relationship between listeners and the music. So we make the most awesome music we can, to load it with as much pure potential value as we possibly can, and then we invite listeners to realise that value, and infect their friends with it. To be carriers of viral value.

That’s awesome. Absolutely fucking awesome. And worrying about how many Spotify plays it’ll take to pay your rent is beyond moronic."

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Excellent to hear that from a jobbing musician rather than all the media pontificators like me.

But now you've got this far, you might as well remind yourself of the ever brilliant Amen Break film:

Networked society for the third sector

This is a very clear deck from Simon Collister on networked society (as opposed to broadcast) and in reference to the third sector. Take a peek:

The collaborative, creative and probably illegal responses to #debill

Despite the tragic fact that the Digital Economy BIll became the Digital Economy Act, there's been an encouraging response online. Although it seems futile for now, the creative way that people have collaborated in response to it is a reminder of the power of the web. Plenty of the responses probably fall foul of copyright laws, of course. But that's all part of the problem that needs solving.

Here's a quick roundup:

Future of the Internet - a campaigning tool which makes it appear like any site (you choose the prefix) has been blocked by the government. Eg. www.google.com.futureoftheinternet.co.uk

www.votethemout.co.uk - and www.theyworkforthebpi.com - two sites where your postcode can be entered to see how your local MP voted

whatdebill.org- where one can register oneself as not recognising the act

And probably the tool most in the spirit of the web, Let's Thank them, to thank those MPs who opposed the bill - lovely!

And I'm sure there are plenty of others. And if you want some smart insights into the debarcle from a social media perspective, check Simon Collister's very comprehensive post over at We Are Social.

So the lesson is simple. Copyright law is outdated. It's more about protecting rights-owners profits that protecting rights.

But we knew that already. That's why Tim Berners-Lee has been banging on about freeing raw data for ages. In a world were everyone can collaborate and publish together, it's best, and probably safest to share everything.

Watch this if you need reminding:

http://www.ted.com/talks/tim_berners_lee_the_year_open_data_went_worldwide.html

PressPausePlay - Teaser

via youtube.com

PressPausePlay - a film about the production, distribution and consumption of creative works.

This is the teaser. It looks interesting. Watch!

Digital Economy Bill: unintended consequences

Mike Butcher, editor of TechCrunch Europe, has summed up the Digital Economy BIll more eloquently than anyone else.

And in a demonstration of the benefits of information sharing, I'm going to break the Copyright of the Telegraph Mediagroup Limited and republish/promote it here.

Am I stealing it or promoting the Telegraph? It's not clear. And that's why we need to take things slowly on the Digital Economy Bill.

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“Unintended consequences”. That was the phrase used by Labour MP Tom Watson when speaking against the Government’s Digital Economy Bill, a piece of legislation rushed through the Commons tonight which is so vast and all-encompassing that it left MPs debating the finer points of WiFi security (although without much expertise).

“Unintended consquences” pretty much sums it up. And not just unintended, but potentially disastrous.

During the 1960s Chairman Mao told farmers to kill crop-eating sparrows, an edict which produced a plague of the insects which the sparrows normally ate. Likewise, the Digital Economy Bill, in trying to support artists’ copyright and tackle illegal file-sharing, is about to produce a new culture – in which ISPs and bewildered householders are deluged with threatening legal letters from the entertainment industry.

These innocents will have no idea their teenage children, neighbours, or even someone parked outside their house, has been slurping their WiFi and downloading the latest Hollywood movies and Top 40 albums. In the past the lawyers had to go after the infringers, with actual proof. Remember being innocent until proven guilty? That’s out now. Now, the holder of the internet account (Mum, Dad, Granny and the small business that can’t afford the legal fees) will be held to account for what happens over their connection.

A new way for lawyers to create another ambulance-chasing industry? How’s that for unintended consequences?

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Full article here.

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