media

Sony’s latest cockup with DRM in CD’s shows that they haven’t a clue – or rather that the media bods in Sony don’t have a clue. More than ever, Sony needs to split its hardware and media divisions before one drags the other down. Such a spectacular failure in DRM attached to physical media sets a huge precedent – Sony will have to change tactic. Their real fight now is with Apple since Apple’s DRM is flowing onto iPods without people really noticing while their own attempt got caught by being stupidly aggressive. Anyone who has visited a used CD store recently and looked at the prices, can see that the very CDs that the music industry fought so hard to push, with inferior artwork to vinyl, are its worst enemy – they have created the sneakernet Napster. The price of used CD’s is dropping as they change from a…

I wonder if this Slate article, Are Subway Searches Legal? – The rules for searching bags. By Daniel Engber was written by someone that : thought he had a point then realised that his argument was flawed; added the paragraph at the bottom marked ‘bonus explainer’ which tries and fails to defend against the flawed logic in the main piece; ran the story anyway. There are very real civil liberty concerns post 911, they highlight the fact that democracy is built from a peaceful society. But cummon, screening bags for bombs before travelling is not one of them. There is nothing that takes away your liberty more than being blown to pieces. Summary – piece highlights a claim that searching subway bags is ‘unconstitutional’, realizes that could be argued that is no diff from air travel searches. Tries to say that air travel is different because: 1. You have other…

PBS’ Guns Germs and Steel documentary took an hour and several tons of jet fuel to explain, well nothing. The documentary merely stated, but neither explained nor tested the hypothesis. A great shame, because the book is still a hypothesis worthy of testing. I saw Jared Diamond talk about a year ago, and he had plenty of new evidence to add. P Z Myers says it best: “The information density is appallingly low, and what we got in an hour was the equivalent of reading a handful” of pages from the book.”

I received a boat-load (very small boat) of email about me moaning about political blogs. So just to redress the balance, the mainstream media is crap too. Bah Humbug. As an example, I always had a feeling that Wall Street Journal opinion pieces were written by cub hacks, or even cub scouts, rather than the editor. Its an otherwise excellent newspaper, ruined by painting by numbers editorial. As Josh Marshall points out, today’s is a particularly side-splitting classic of obsequious, foppish garbage, worthy of the court of Louis XVI: “Wall Street Journal headline: “‘Karl Rove, Whistleblower.’” Translation: Rove told the truth, shower him with medals, everyone else has no integrity and is wrong. Marshall: “… can you blame them? Most of the kids there want White House jobs or other GOP-based promotions.” Talking Points Memo: by Joshua Micah Marshall

When 911 happened, most people hadn’t heard of bloggers or Wikipedia, there was no Feedster or Technorati, Google News did not exist*, there was no Flickr and people did not have camera phones. These products and services are not a result of 911, but this was the event that created one facet of what is now an unshakable trend, real-time, ubiquitous, truly democratic media. The second phase of the web, where people could publish as easily as they could browse, was being born. The thing that people used to laugh at when we pitched it originally while at Moreover, actually happened. After the attacks last week in London, I thought that this would be the point where image sharing reached mainstream awareness for news gathering. Camera phones with ability to post via the web are more widespread than in the US and photo sharing has reached an inflection point. In…

One of the problems that I have with the current Supreme Court ruling over file sharing is the assumption that this stuff can be legislated absolutely. As media is reduced to an atomic state of bits, it starts to show quantum-like uncertainty, is it a thing like an LP or a transmission like a song on the radio, a particle or a wave? Hidden within the Supreme Court ruling is the other side of the coin: Just as people have created software that allows people to share things they don’t own, with copy protected digital media nobody owns anything. Everything you buy is actually rented. Why is it legal to develop software which necessarily prevents ownership of something you buy? At the moment I buy albums in flea markets for 10c a song, read books that I bought in the UK in the US and can read all the books…

What is acceptable on TV: a.) A nipple – not actually visible, but it’s shape visible through clothing. b.) Two people re-enacting creating life in a loving manner – fictionally. c.) Minor swearwords. d.) Encouraging violence and hatred. Racism, homophobia, misrepresentation and extortion. Answer d.) And for this madness, Max Blumenthal encourages people to complain to the FCC about a specifically odious example. At the moment 90% of FCC complaints come from one organization on the lunatic fringe. If Max can encourage enough bloggers to write to the FCC, at the very least it will help redress the balance. It may even help the FCC re-address how they deal with the fact that their complaints currently come from a minority group and therefore their guidelines do not reflect the ‘true moral majority’, the mainstream of America which is largely benign and moderate. Here is where you file complaints. Complaints can…

Tabloids are big in the UK, and its always been a mystery to me why in a country like the US, which is the king of popular culture, there is no real-news tabloid. I like tabloids cos they are funny and I like Sploid even more because it is like Slashdot meets the Onion, edited by Richard Dawkins.

The really strange thing about the Durst scandal is that they are suing for copyright infringement for ‘linking’ – posting a link to something that may infringe copyright. So lets get this right, if that is indeed against the law then the everyday business of: Google Yahoo MSN er… the entire web, is illegal. Fred Durst Sues Over Stolen Sex Video – March 4, 2005: “the Limp Bizkit front man has filed a $80 million lawsuit against web sites that posted the footage and stills from the singer’s X-rated romp with a former girlfriend.”

It turns out that the reason there has been 1000 times more complaints to the FCC isn’t just because activists are spamming them in general. It is because a single group – the Parents Television Council – is responsible for 999 out of 1000 complaints. Activists Dominate Content Complaints Thanks Nick – and yes, this may be a shoe on the other foot scenario, but in my opinion its the right, not the left, that tend to be most vocal and indignant online.

The FCC obscenity complaints stats show: Number of complaints and fines in – year: 2000, complaints: 111, fines: $48,000 year: 2001: complaints: 346, fines: $91,000 year: 2002: complaints: 13,922, fines: $99,400 year: 2003: complaints: 202,032, fines: $440,000 year: 2004: complaints: 1,068,802, fines: $7,928,080 There have been 10,000 times more complaints in 4 years and 20 times as much in fines. If complaints are as representative of Americans’ feelings as 4 years ago, and 10,000 times more people really are offended by broadcasting, then the FCC is 500 times less effective (since its obscenity guidelines are governed by popular consensus and fines levied accordingly). If the fines are legitimate and comprehensive, and that there is therefore 20 times more obscene material being broadcast now than 4 years ago then the FCC has to spend 500 times as much in tax payer money to deal with unwarranted complaints (if it deals with…