Miasma in the House of Bite Me
Grassroots journalism & current events, cyberculture, technology, privacy, with a little new criticism, feminism, postmodernism, radical pedagogy, & new media theory thrown in.
I find this former distinction between journalist ears and eyeballs and ordinary ears and eyeballs totally fascinating.
Miasma
May 31, 2003
'Off the Record' Gates/Jobs Comments Posted Online
The organizers of the Wall Street Journal's D -- All Things Digital conference made reporters promise that all sessions were off the record unless the speakers specifically agreed to put the comments on the record. Regular conference attendees were under no such restraint, and as a result we have coverage from the audience, not the journalists.
Denise Howell has posted Bill Gates' and Steve Jobs' remarks on her weblog. Should I post my own coverage soon, now that Denise (and others in the audience) are filing their own stories? Why shouldn't I? (I won't because I said I wouldn't.)
Among the many lessons here are these: First, conference organizers cannot make an event off-the-record only for the official journalists anymore. If they truly want it that way, they'll have to get everyone else to make the same agreement. Second, in the world of blogs and other self-publishing, these kinds of arrangements are unenforceable in any event.
Bloggers Report Alt News From G8. News from inside the protests at this year's G8 summit in Evian-les-Bains, France, reached the world quickly by way of on-the-spot bloggers. Offering an alternative to mainstream press coverage, some sites uploaded photos from demonstrators' Web-enabled phones. By Elisa Batista. [Wired News]
At protests accompanying the Group of Eight summit in France, more than one group was trying to get out the news. As journalists filed stories to editors, protesters posted their own commentary on weblogs.
[...]
"Until now, the traditional media likes to retain only the rare outbursts of some isolated groups and not echo the debates and conferences which have nourished the everyday lives of the militants (protesters) for several days," Chambon wrote in French on the Fraternet website . He later translated for Wired News.
Differentiating himself from mainstream reporters who covered the G8 summit of the world's seven industrial powers and Russia, Chambon offered updates as often as every half-hour on the activities of the protesters, including comments on the banners they held and the slogans on their T-shirts.
Most of the protesters, including Chambon, were fighting for "peace and justice" in the world and were against globalization, he said. Other protesters sought protection for the environment and forgiveness of Third World debt.
Chambon counted 100,000 protesters while AP reported a crowd of 50,000.
Like the mainstream media, Chambon also recorded police reaction to the demonstrators, although his accounts differed from news organizations' reports. While he admitted to some scuffles between police and protesters, he seemed to lay the blame on the police.
By Alexander Wolfe, exclusive to EmbeddedWatch.com
May 31--If your company is thinking about delivering interactive video-on-demand cable-television programming or movies via satellite to consumers, maybe it'd better start thinking about paying royalties to Microsoft first. That's because Microsoft has just been granted exclusive United States patent rights to a "networked interactive entertainment system" which "allows viewers to create their own customized lists of preferred video content programs, such as movies, games, [and] TV shows."
Specifically, Microsoft on May 27, 2003 obtained patent number 6,571,390 from the United States Patent and Trademark Office for their invention--that's their government-legitimized claim--entitled "Interactive entertainment network system and method for customizing operation thereof according to viewer preferences."
Indeed, judging by the summary description included in the patent filing, it looks like Microsoft may have locked up rights to any system which offers up time-shifted movies or television programs over cable, broadband, or satellite systems. (The industry calls programming which customers can start up from the beginning at any time via their cable box "video on demand.)
That may be what Microsoft had in mind from the beginning. The patent's summary goes on to state: "An interactive entertainment network system has a video-on-demand application which allows viewers to create their own customized lists of preferred video content programs, such as movies, games, TV shows, and so forth. Lists of programs are provided in one or more scrollable lists. Once grouped, previews for the set of programs are displayed. The video-on-demand application allows the viewers to browse the previews at their own rate, skipping forward to the next preview or backward to the previous preview. During this automated browsing, the video-on-demand application enables the viewer to add any of the programs of interest to a customized list. The viewer can retrieve the customized list at any time. If the viewer orders a program from the customized list, the program remains available to the viewer for a rental period (which is adjustable). Upon expiration of the rental period, however, the program is no longer readily accessible until ordered again."
from the bold-new-law-enforcement dept.
Roundeye writes "So the folks at monsterpatterns.com dumpster-dive to get envelopes containing discontinued sewing patterns and sell the envelopes via their website. The sewing pattern company McCall invoked the DMCA to get the site shut down. Monsterpatterns is now suing to protect their 'fair use rights' to advertise and sell the discarded patterns. You might recall that this isn't the first time the sewing industry has cracked down on bootlegging grandmas and their suppliers."
Pattern publishers say many needlepoint fans, Napster-like, are cheating
them by swapping designs on the Internet for free. But members of the sewing
set say it's just friendly sharing.
By P.J. HUFFSTUTTER, Times Staff Writer
If the $40-billion global music business thought it had problems with the
emergence of a revolutionary Internet tool called Napster, consider the
now-terrified needlepoint industry.
For years, grandmotherly hobbyists, hungry for doily-and-swan patterns, have
forked over $6 and $7 for them. Without a peep of complaint, they have
provided a steady stream of revenue to pattern publishers such as Cross My
Heart and Pegasus Originals.
In a good year, Pegasus can pull in about $500,000 from selling the
copyrighted patterns to its aging customers.
No more. Taking a cue from music-bootlegging teenagers, sewing enthusiasts
have discovered that they too can steal copyrighted material over the
Internet, thanks to anonymous file-sharing techniques. "I'm only sharing
[the patterns] with my friends, and their friends," said Carla Conry, a
mother of six who runs PatternPiggiesUnite!, a 350-person underground Net
community of stitchers who swap the patterns. "Why shouldn't friends help
each other out and save a little bit of money?"
What is neighborly fun for Conry is outright theft to needlepoint companies
and the artists who create the patterns. Sales at the South Carolina design
shop Pegasus have dropped as much as $200,000 a year--or 40%--since 1997, in part because of such swapping, said founder Jim Hedgepath. He and a handful
of companies and pattern designers are gathering evidence to wage a legal
battle against the homemakers.
"They're housewives and they're hackers," Hedgepath said. "I don't care if
they have kids. I don't care that they are grandmothers. They're bootlegging
us out of business."
Like the record industry, the sewing world has been unable to come up with
any practical alternative to innovative file-swapping communities that
proliferate online.
Some of the same entertainment conglomerates whose music divisions are
fighting Napster--such as Time Warner--are also feeling the pinch from the
pattern-swapping. Legal experts are just starting to wrestle with the
implications of new technologies that will permit the instant distribution
of information. Business people are trembling at the prospect that
file-swapping won't stop at music, videos and needlepoint. There are already
rumblings that it has spread to knitting and crocheting.
"Where will it end?" wailed Marilyn Leavitt-Imblum, 54, who designs
needlepoint patterns. "I just don't understand how these [people] can stitch
a stolen angel and still live with themselves."
Dean closes in. Howard Dean is closing in on the lead in New Hampshire, with 16% to Kerry's 17%. Dean is appealing to voters by being outspoken in an environment in which many of his fellow democrats are submissive to Bush's approval rating, and due to anticipation of his universal health care plan, which he is soon to unveil. Already established as the most net-savvy candidate, Dean has hundreds of real-life meetups planned for today. [MetaFilter]
This needs no further comment, but to register it in utter outrage.
Miasma
A librarian on PATRIOT. A Cal State librarian intern has written a stirring op-ed for the LA Times about the way that the PATRIOT Act forces librarians to act in a way that betrays their calling.
An elderly woman approached the reference desk recently to ask for help in finding a novel. My impression was that neither her vision nor her legs were up to the task of the search, so I retrieved the book for her from the large-print section. While I was thus engaged, my patron was busy reading the placard that the library where I intern has placed at the reference desk. Its purpose is to inform patrons about the USA Patriot Act [the law passed after the Sept. 11 attacks to expand the government's surveillance powers in terrorist investigations]. It took her a while to absorb the meaning before she spoke.
She said: "What does this mean? This is like the Red Scare. You surely aren't going to participate in this, are you? I have lived a long time, and never thought I would see this happen again."
If it were the guy whose voice is on the audio books of the whole Harry Potter series, I would SO be there. Nothing against Ms Rowling, but I go to bed with that guy's voice every night. I'd even rather watch the movies with the sound down and listen to that guy's voice. It is classic!
Still, I'm getting worked up, wanting this book to be out. What a victim of the hypefest. Oh, who cares?
Miasma
Harry Potter reading webcast on June 26. JK Rowling will read from the new Harry Potter novel at 4PM London time in the Royal Albert Hall on June 26. The event, including a Q&A, will be webcast.
The Karma of Literature... BookCrossing.com