A Need

The filesharing is a result of improvements in technology and a need to share and be social with each other. When new technology emerges and it is superior to existing technology the market needs to adapt to the new needs of citizens in our digital society. People don’t want to wait another few days (or weeks) for the end of the show they are watching. A lot of people would rather enjoy music digitally right away instead of buying a CD and converting it themselves. People have a need to be spontaneous at home and deciding what movie they would like to see now instead of planning it beforehand or having to walk off to rent a movie somewhere.

Intellectual Property Law

As I see it copyright is a ”monologue” where people are meant to consume instead of participating in the further shaping of the copyrighted piece. This limits the communication and creativity that would otherwise take place. Before our digital age copyright had a good place in our society preventing physical copies to be made elsewhere which was directly damaging to the sales. Today when a technological change has made copying of digital material almost costless the old copyright law no longer applies in the same way it used to. The intellectual property law needs to change to reflect this but the established companies are happy with the profits from their old business model and do what they can to maintain this model. For society to adapt copyright to our digital age we need to either change intellectual copyright law or we are forced to change other existing rights such as Secrecy of Letters (Brevhemligheten), Source Protection (källskydd) and Mere Conduit.

A Need For Control

The filesharing debate is essentially about the right to knowledge and the sharing of it. Today knowledge-hoarders have power since they are the ones sitting on more knowledge than others have. With a bigger access to knowledge the society gets more equal. Inside larger corporations they have the possibilities of remixing each others work with that corporation. Having an opportunity of remixing leads to an increased creativity. The creation of copyright was meant to allow creativity but today it acts more as a restrictor of creativity. ”To discuss the actual conditions of creation, one should also discuss how the act of creation is done”

[Pics: Movie watching, CC-BY-NC-SA, julianrod / Leaf, CC-BY-ND, jaypeq21 / control, CC-BY-NC-ND, alphadesigner ]

For a further discussion around the need to change copyright take a look at my blog-post ”Copyright Worked In The Past But Not Anymore”
For more around the concept of copyright as a monologue listen to ”Larry Lessig on laws that choke creativity”.]

I’m reading a book called ”The Social Study of Information and Communication Technology”. One part of the book takes up an example that shows how a tool can be perceived very differently from a slight incident. They are unaware of the surveillance until they see it and they don’t like the spying on their every action even if they have nothing to hide.

”The case dealt with a fairly large application of Lotus Notes used for new product development within a worldwide team-based organization. Dedicated Notes applications were built to allow multidisciplinary and multinational teams to work jointly on common projects, regardless of distance between locations. Implementation of the new system was carried out according to a participative methodology, an incremental introduction of the system, and comprehensive training. Usage was immediate, ubiquitous, and successful. One day, however, a cheering message broadcasted over the network by a top marketing manager in London made every user realize that the new transparent platform could be deployed by headquarters as a powerful controlling eye, able to access any working document and local bulletin board of all the distant teams. Such a possibility made usage fall immediately and significantly. Attempts to revamp the system succeeded only when the applications were redesigned to replicate the pre-existing routines and organizational structures, thus losing much of the original innovative design, transparency, and collaboration opportunities.
This case provides evidence, among other things, about the ambiguity of new technology. Despite the careful planning and design, and the extensive training, the new groupware technology appeared to the user suddenly as an ambivalent, threatening stranger. The latent tensions between the professional dimension and the existential one exploded as a consequence of a small incident” (p. 26)

This story tells us a lot of useful things. One of the most significant ones being that the average user is very unaware of what the technique actually does and how it can be used until someone ”misuses” it. The surveillance of people is normally not a problem as long as they are not aware of it.

Another issue that becomes clear through this is that people are not comfortable sharing everything with others even if they have nothing to hide. Right now there is a lot of argument about not having to be afraid of surveillance unless you have something to hide. This is clearly not the case in this example.

The third thing we learn is how little is needed to shift the usage and opinions of people. Find the right thing to say and we can change everything instantly. One wrong (or right) thing to say changes the focus of the mass from seeing a productive and efficient tool to seeing a tool for controlling and spying.

The public space is important for people to have a space to live and feel free. Unfortunately with the progress of commercialism the public space is shrinking and becoming more sparse. What you can do in an open area is becoming more restricted at some places.

One example of the restriction of public space is that in Sweden (and many other places) we are not technically allowed to take pictures of what we want. I’m not sure of the exact details but I remember a lecture this spring with Staffan Teste, a copyright lawyer, that told us we were not allowed to take pictures of famous buildings (e.g. city hall) since the copyright was owned by the creator. Not being able to take pictures of what we want becomes a small problem.

If you walk by a mural or a graffiti piece you like it has copyright by creation that limits the use and spread of the pictures. This is probably against the will of the creator but we still have to find the creator and ask if it’s ok to use the picture since copyright is automatic. Even billboards and advertisements with a hint of creativity has copyright protection. Showing the pictures in this case is important for a high diffusion where as many as possible can take part of the pictures.

Another very interesting article I found the other day is about a guy that lost an eye in a hunting accident. He replaced the eye with a prosthetic eye that doubles as a video-camera. This raises a lot of interesting copyright issues about where he can go and what he can do if he constantly records everything. There is some very interesting comments in that post as well.

[pic: CC-BY-NC-ND Xavier Donat]

Time for an update for my readers about what kind of person I am and a few things that matter to me. I use Twitter a lot and the lists that people have put me in there summarize me pretty good. What I have not yet been able to be listed as is a dual-citizen (Swedish and American) and my love for traveling and exploring cultural patterns and local parts. I am also very found of organizational learning as well as how to improve the pedagogy in various fields. Transparency and entrepreneurship are two other fields that highly interest me. Most of the rest of the areas I have a burning interest for I have been listed for in Twitter.

A few of my twitter-listings:
Netpolitics
Sweden
Overseas
Advertising-Marketing-PR
SM-Internet
PR-Students
Public Relations
Jonkoping
Communications-Expert
Art-Design-Media
Advertising Folks
PR of Sweden
Creative Marketing
Design
Knowledge
Educators Sweden

Borrowing the title from a very famous book called ”The Inmates are Running the Asylum” by Alan Cooper. This book talks about the problem for normal people when all functions and digital objects work according to ”programmer logic” which might seem like the best and easiest way for them since their brains are already wired to think in that way. For the rest of the population it requires a learning curve instead of working intuitively. One example of how complicated some objects can be are the remote-controlled who usually are very confusing unless you’re used to that or a similar model already. Everyone interested in usability should definitely read Cooper’s book.

The reason I’m writing this post about usability and technocracy right now is the frustration from spending an hour yesterday trying to install a new version of Tweetdeck. The first and biggest problem I have is with Microsoft and their ”safe” Vista7 that doesn’t allow me to install what I want even though I’m the sole administrator and user of this computer. Microsoft has decided that the average user is better off with less control of their own computer and therefore it requires a lot of tweaking and looking to find the right settings if one wants to do something more advanced. The second problem I encountered was that I had to update Adobe Air, a program that is required to run Tweetdeck. This program runs in the background of Windows and is very hard to find and uninstall. It kept telling me I had the wrong version installed even though I tried several times to wipe it out completely and make a fresh install. Even though I am a fairly technical guy I never managed to fix it and gave up after all that time I wasted on trying. Now running Seesmic instead of Tweetdeck because it was too technical to fix the issues that arose…

I am very much against the control that Microsoft exerts over the user. Unfortunately Adobe has decided to not support Linux at this stage which forces me to use a desktop I don’t like to be able to use Photoshop and Illustrator:/ Another company I’m liking less and less is Apple and their Iphone. The phone is a brilliant product and very easy and good to use but it destroys the market for the rest of the smart phones. By being as dominant as Iphone is right now on the market, all the suppliers produce apps primarily for Iphone and then if they have the time and resources for other phones. This is an evil circle where Iphone gets more and more users due to their good apps and the increased number of users create an even bigger incentive for the suppliers to produce apps for Iphone primarily.

Tech rant. end.

[pic: CC-BY-NC-SA, ewar woowar]

If we didn’t have pirates and copying then Walt Disney would not be the empire it was today. 20th Century Fox is another major company today that started with pirating film since the Motion Picture Patent Company (MPPC), consisting of 10 major companies, was using bullying and monopolizing to keep small independent film companies out of the market. There are a few more that started of as pirates to later on go and build an empire. The problem is that they forget their past and act as the big bullying actors of the past.

Once a firm becomes an established entity with a good profit they often restrict innovation in order to maintain their business profits. New innovations means a shift of power which is often bad for established players. One example is the delaying of FM-technology that RCA did to keep their share on the AM market even though they realized that FM radio was clearly a superior alternative. This restriction and suing of people to delay progress keeps repeating at each introduction of a new innovation that shifts balance within the market (radio, tv, cds, mp3, torrents etc). Another way of restricting innovation is locking down content in complicated laws and bureaucracy needed to clear rights. Netflix is an innovator that has had to fight it’s way to the position it is in today but that still has a long bureaucratic path in order to launch their business more global.

Innovation shakes the profitability of the market for the established players, sometimes to the better but sometimes to the worse. It is often the small and new players that are most keen on evolving their business ideas in order to make their way into the market. The larger a firm gets the larger the bureaucracy becomes and this means that the organizational learning most of the times gets very limited in its possibilities. The bigger control a firm has over the supply to a certain market the harder they will sue and use dirty tricks to keep other out of this market. With only a few players in the market the power shifts away from the consumers and towards the suppliers.

Pic: CC-BY-NC-SA, .nele
Sources: History of Film – The History of the Movies , Piraterna : de svenska fildelarna som plundrade Hollywood , Edwin Armstrong: Genius of FM Radio

The reason why I’m trying to post something daily is not to increase readers, there are a lot better ways to do that. The reasoning behind the constant updates is mainly to produce a lot of content (which hopefully maintains a high level later into this ”experiment” as well).  Producing a large amount of content is good for formulating thoughts into coherent and processed output in various fields. It is also good since I get used to a high production rate, this makes it very easy later on when I step down the tempo.

Having this deadline each day forces me to constantly think about the blog and also about what to write here. It is also good for later on when one needs to get more used by working against daily deadlines. If I get used to it now it won’t be stressful and bad later on. A deadline is also good for me since it forces me to reflect further and more coherent then I would do otherwise. I normally don’t like to write much and tend to focus more on cognitive aspects of information.

[apologise for grammar, logic and dullness in above post that have arised from writing this at 4.30am]

A comparative analysis, with respect to the word-painting,of the track `Thus Saith the Lord´ from Handel’s ”Messiah” and the three tracks: `Thy hand Belinda; Darkness shades me´, `When I am laid in earth´ and  `With drooping wings ye cupids come´ from Purcell’s ”Dido and Aeneas”.

During the Baroque era there was a group of composers and academics known as ”the Florentine Camerata”. They had been formed since they thought that the voice was more important then the instrumental part of the music. This lead to the creation of recitatives. There are two types of recitatives: ”Recitativo secco” (sparse accompaniment, to the voice, by keyboard and bass) and also ”Recitativo accompagnato” (requiring a tighter rhythmic control).
The Opera was born 1607 when Claudio Moneverdi composed ”L’Orfeo”. This piece contained recitatives, solo vocal numbers, choruses instrumental dances and interludes. In time the ”Aria” also became an important part of the opera.

Handel was born in Germany in 1685. His father opposed music but allowed his son to take courses from a composer named Zachov. When the father passed away, Handel became a full time musician. Moved to Hamburg in 1703 and started playing second violin in the orchestra. Produced his first Opera, Amira, in 1705. Moved to Italy and learns a lot from big composers there, the following year. Moved to England 1710 and got an annual pension of £200 from Queen Anne (increased to £600 by his former ruler in Hanover). Became the director of a buisness venture producing Italian operas called ”Royal academy of music”. After eight years the academy had to close because of the  lack of support. He realized that Opera was declining in interest and started unwillingly produce dramatic Oratorios. He wrote 4 anthems for the coronation of George II (1727) which have been sung at every british coronation since then. Had a stroke 1737 but recovered and produced ”The Messiah” 1742. Died in London 1759.

In Handel’s piece ”Thus saith the lord” (part of the Messiah) he makes use of word-painting to emphasize the importance of certain words. The piece is a recitativo secco.  When singing ’shake’ the singer is emphasizing it using the devices of making it melismatic and descending. The second time he sings ”I will shake” he repeates it and makes ’shake’ melismatic (again). On the word ”come” he uses ”piú forte” (louder). He does this again on the word covenant but he makes it melismatic as well.

Henry Purcell was born in Westminster, England 1659.  Son to a courtmusician, bacame a chorister in the chapel royal at the age of ten. Started tuning the organ in Westminster abbey. Became the composer for the court violins in 1677. Became the abbey organist 3years later. Later organist at the chapel Royal (1682). Was James II’s harpsichord player and taught the aristocracy music. His only true opera was ”Dido and Aeneas”, written 1689. Died in London 1695 and was buried under the organ in Westinster Abbey. Famous for his skill in writing all the music kinds known at the time. Combined elements of French and Italian baroque and traditional English musical forms.

In Purcell’s piece ”Thy hand Belinda; Darkness shades me” (from ’Dido and Aeneas’) he makes some use of word painting. This piece is a recitative accompagnato with a basso continuo. When the singer sings ”darkness” he makes it melismatic”. When singing ”death” I believe it is a minor chord the second time, emphasizing the importance of the word this second time.
In Purcell’s piece ”When I am laid in earth” (from ’Dido and Aeneas’). This piece is an Aria. The singer repeats ”am laid”. He uses a tremólo for the words ”forget” and ”fate”. He sings ”ah” melismatic. The tremólo device is used again on the words ”wrongs” and ”create”.
In Purcell’s piece ”With drooping wings ye cupids come” (from ’Dido and Aeneas’),  a chorus, the singers goes up and then down again (pitch) on the word ”cupids”. The word ”never” is repeated several times, homo-phonically, with a break after. The words ”watch” and ”here” also had a break after them. While singing the word ”soft” they sings it soft and also repeat it several times. On ”droop” the singers use descending notes.

The use of melismatic devices is used by Purcell and Handel to emphasize certain words. Other things they have in common when word-painting is the descending notes (in the third piece by Purcell, ”droop”) and to repeat certain words/sentences. A technique used only by Handel is singing louder on the word which is meant to be emphasized. Purcell uses 3 devices that Handel does not make use of: tremólos, changing chord second time of word and having a break after the words which are to be emphasized.

[pic: CC-BY Steve Snodgrass ]

One of the most famous campaigns against file-sharing was the one that BPI (British Phonographic Industry) did. The logotype they created was a cassette band with two bones crossed over it (this logotype was later stolen to be a part of TPB’s logotype). The text that BPI used for the logotype was ”Home taping is killing music” and they also added ”And it’s illegal”. Sadly for them the focus was on that it killed the music and not that it was illegal, this focus created a lot of reactions.

A few more parodies on their campaign:
”Living is killing the funeral industry”
”Home Growing is killing the Drug Trafficking Industry”
”Piggybanks are killing the American economy and causing recession”
”Crystal meth is killing the stupid population”
”sleeping at home is killing the hotel industry”
”bicycles are killing the automotive industry”

These are all just as logical and valid as the original one in my opinion.