taestell

The recent SOPA/PIPA fight and MegaUpload shutdown reignited the debate about whether piracy is good or bad for artists.

Successful indie artist Jonathan Coulton on MegaUpload:

Even some of the illegal usage was likely the kind of activity that approaches what I consider to be victimless piracy: people downloading stuff they already bought but lost, people downloading stuff they missed on TV and couldn’t find on Netflix or iTunes, people downloading stuff they didn’t like and regretted watching or hearing and never would have bought anyway, people downloading a Jonathan Coulton album […] and loving it so much that in a year they decide to buy a ticket to a Jonathan Coulton show and walk up to the merch table and hand me $20. I know not everyone will think all of those things are victimless crimes, and even I can admit that some of them maybe kinda sorta have victims, but my point is that you canít easily say that every illegal download is a lost sale, because itís a lot more complicated than that. 

[…]

So if you can stand me sounding a little crazy, listen: where is the proof that piracy causes economic harm to anyone? Looking at the music business, yes profits have gone down ever since Napster, but has anyone effectively demonstrated the causal link between that and piracy? There are many alternate theories (people buying songs and not whole albums, music sucking more, niches and indie acts becoming more viable, etc.). 

David Lowery of the bands Cracker and Camper van Beethoven listing some of the “lamest arguments in favor of illegal file sharing”:

“The RIAA is secretly behind filesharing. They make more money suing people than by selling albums. There are Youtube videos explaining all this therefore it’s true. Therefore it’s okay to steal from cracker and camper van beethoven”

Response: The RIAA was also behind 9-11, Global Warming Hoax and the Kennedy assassinations. Usher is behind Justin Bieber. And Camper Van Beethoven tests cosmetics on lab animals.

[…]

“Louis C.K. is successful and his stuff is on Youtube. Therefore it’s okay to steal Crackerís songs.”

Response: Ask Louis CK if he would prefer his income stream or his idol George Carlinís Income stream from album sales, video sales, book sales in the 1970’s and 1980’s. Louis CK is making a lot of money. But nothing like George Carlin. And in the process he is helping Google/Youtube add to the piles of gold bullion that Google keeps in secret spaceship deep inside the mantle of the earth below their mountain view “campus”.

[…]

“In the middle ages there were no music sales. It was all based on live performance.”

Response: Yes and doctors bled you or covered your torso with leaches when you were sick. Also it was permissible to beat your wife with a stick as long as the stick was not larger in diameter than your thumb.

[…]

“The Record labels and Musicians failed to adapt to the new hi tech reality. So it’s okay to steal music by Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven.”

Response: So it’s okay to steal handmade boots, organically grown farm produce from family farms, and custom motorcycles? You’re right I’ve been stealing custom choppers for years. How stupid of me. You win.

It’s intersting to see the difference of opinion between two artists — one who became popular from YouTube videos and self-produced albums, and one who came up thouth the traditional record label model.

They’re both right, but they’re not arguing the same issue. Lowery is right that stealing music is illegal. And Coulton is right that there is no proof it causes artists to lose money.

And there are some flaws with Lowry’s logic — stealing a motorcycle is not the same as stealing a digital file. A motorcycle can only exist in one place at a time; a file can be copied infinately, retaining the same quality and usability.

It would be fascinating to hear Lowry leave his logical fallacies behind and respond to the point that record companies’ old model is outdated and no longer profitable. Even record companies themselves are realizing this and attempting to sign artists to new “360 deals” that include a cut of live performance, merchandise sales, and other income.¹

The companies that are going to struggle in today’s world are the ones that cling desperately to old business models and are unable to adapt. Warner Brothers increasing the wait time for DVD rentals by a month is not going to cause the masses to buy more DVDs; it’s going to cause people to stop caring about WB movies, pirate them instead, or simply wait an additional month to watch them (bringing in no additonal revenue to WB).

CBS doesn’t allow its shows to be streamed on Hulu. All the networks block Google TVs from streaming TV shows. Cable companies only allow paid HBO subscribers to use HBO’s iPad app, and prevent HBO from selling subscriptions directly to the public. All of these restrictions are business decisions, not technical limitations; and they all will result in far more piracy than revenue for those companies.

UC Magazine has posted a nice collection of campus photos from the 1930s and ’40s

The Chicago Sun-Times:

What we will not do is endorse candidates. We have come to doubt the value of candidate endorsements by this newspaper or any newspaper, especially in a day when a multitude of information sources allow even a casual voter to be better informed than ever before.

Additionally, senior management of the newspaper will be prohibited from making financial contributions to political campaigns — the same rules journalists are required to follow.

I’m waiting for more newspapers to follow in the Sun-Times’ footsteps.

staff:

Introducing: Highlighted Posts

Every now and then, a post comes along that’s meant for big things. It could be pulling the wraps off your new project, promoting your next show, raising awareness for a cause, or just sharing a truly incredible photo. 

Today you’ll have a new option to Highlight those extra-important posts. For one dollar, your post will stand out in the Dashboard with a customizable sticker to make sure your followers take notice!

At least Tumblr is trying to find an innovative way to make money instead of overloading the site with ads or pushing “promoted posts” from P&G into your Dashboard.

To all the people freaking out about this: Calm the **** down, take a breath, and enjoy your usage of the free service called Tumblr.

chartier:

Good news, everyone: the upcoming Reeder 3.0 for iPhone (and hopefully iPad) will support Fever, an alternative to Google Reader with some slick features. Granted, you need basic HTML/PHP chops since Fever is self-hosted, but it’s my preferred feed reader and the only reason I don’t use it regularly is because there haven’t been any good apps. Until… well, soon.

Reeder is already the best RSS reader client for iPhone, iPad, and Mac, and they keep making changes that improve their apps. I don’t have a problem with using Google Reader as the syncing platform, but I plan to give Fever a look.

Yesterday, The Atlantic Cities shed light on Chinatown buses, the intercity curbside bus services that gave rise to competitors such as MegaBus and BoltBus.

According to the map, there is direct Chinatown bus service between Cincinnati and New York — something that MegaBus doesn’t offer.

It turns out that two Chinatown bus services offer daily routes. Both pick up passengers in the northern suburb of Springdale, near the Tri-County Mall.

Update: John Yung provides more details at UrbanCincy.

Rethinking The Oreo For Chinese Consumers:

Lorna Davis, who is in charge of the global biscuit division at Kraft, says the Oreo did OK. But it wasn’t a hit. It was almost pulled out of China. […]

It turns out that if you didn’t grow up with Oreos and develop an emotional attachment to the cookie, it can be a weird-tasting little thing. And this started a whole process in the Chinese division of Kraft of rethinking what the essence of an Oreo really is. […]

And why should an Oreo be round? They developed Oreos shaped like straws. In China, you can buy a long rectangular Oreo wafer, the length of your index finger.

See also: History of the [U.S.] Oreo emboss

But I’m not convinced the bans will work, particularly among young people. Why? Because texting is rapidly becoming their default means of connecting with one another, on a constant, pinging basis. From 2003 to 2008, the number of texts sent monthly by Americans surged from 2 billion to 110 billion. The urge to connect is primal, and even if you ban texting in the car, teens will try to get away with it.

So what can we do? We should change our focus to the other side of the equation and curtail not the texting but the driving. This may sound a bit facetious, but I’m serious. When we worry about driving and texting, we assume that the most important thing the person is doing is piloting the car. But what if the most important thing they’re doing is texting? How do we free them up so they can text without needing to worry about driving?

At some point, we will have to face the facts and realize that we’ve been making a huge mistake for the past 70 years by building for cars first and humans second.

See also: Young Americans Less Interested in Driving

The Post incorrectly attributed a quote to Toni Braxton in an article published on March 25. Braxton did not say: “I have a big-ass house, three cars and I fly first class all around the world. Some say I have the perfect life.”

The burning question: Did the Post make up this quote entirely? Or, to whom is the quote correctly attributed?

Last week, the New York Times asked a question that I found to be absurd:

I’m looking for reader input on whether and when New York Times news reporters should challenge “facts” that are asserted by newsmakers they write about.

Yes, and always. It is the job of journalists to research the claims that their interviewees make, and report on the facts.

The problem is that, in an effort to appear unbiased, many news sources simply report what both sides say without doing any fact-checking.

A local politician claims the world is flat, but one scientist disagrees. Who’s right? We report; you decide. Tonight at 11.

The New York Times adds:

Throughout the 2012 presidential campaign debates, The Times has employed a separate fact-check sidebar to assess the validity of the candidates’ statements. Do you like this feature, or would you rather it be incorporated into regular reporting?

The problem with the “fact-check sidebar” is that it implies fact-checking is not real reporting, but analysis or opinion that must be kept out of the article to remain unbiased. Fact-checking someone and reporting that they are wrong is not bias. It is good journalism.

NPR’s On the Media covered this very topic in 2010, and here’s the quote that summarizes it all:

Ultimately, it’s the reporting that matters, reporting that is undistorted by attempts to appear objective, reporting that calls a lie a lie right after the lie, not in a box labeled “analysis,” reporting that doesn’t distort truth by treating unequal arguments equally.

Here’s Vanity Fair with the comic relief:

Just as New York Times public editor Arthur S. Brisbane is concerned whether his newspaper is printing lies or the truth, we here at V.F. are looking for reader input on whether and when Vanity Fair should spell “words” correctly in the stories we publish.

One example: the word “maintenance” seems like it should only have one “a” in it. It should be “maintenence,” right? But it’s not. So is it our job as reporters and editors to spell it correctly?

Say it with me: for-ev-er.

…or how the Internet works in general.

Jeff Jarvis:

I’m reminded of a focus group I held in Cleveland in 1995, in which the participants thought all the content on this internet came from a company called Netscape.

This Christmas in Instagrams

peopleidrawonchatroulette:

Although unfinished, it was still cool. I landed on a radio show!

Mike Polk, creator of the legendary/hilarious Cleveland Tourism Video (and Part 2), comments on Ohio’s proposed congressional redistricting and blatant gerrymandering.

Although previously announced in August, it’s now official that the Cincinnati Enquirer will close its Cincinnati printing plant, laying off 200 employees, and move printing operations to the Columbus Dispatch’s plant.

Gannett, of course, glossed over these details and chose to tout the new “easy-to-use format” coming soon to the Enquirer. Although the new format will allow for more use of color, it will shrink to just 10 1/2 by 14 2/3 inches.

To me, an “easy-to-use format” would consist of an improved website, RSS feeds, and perhaps a good iPhone/iPad app. Of course, these would only be relevant if I were interested in the Enquirer’s content.

The Enquirer frequently publishes anti-city attack pieces, often bordering on absurdity, in an attempt to cater to its largely suburban readership. The closure of their printing plant is another strike to a city they don’t care about and have no desire to serve.

The winning quote goes to Jake Mecklenborg:

I can’t wait for the first time I-71 is shut down by snow and no old people get their papers.

“It’s interesting to me that the same consumer that will go to 7-11 and buy a bottle of Fiji Water for five dollars will go crazy and complain about a cup of coffee,” says Geoff Watts, Intelligentsia’s vice president and green (unroasted, that is) coffee buyer. “This is a meticulously grown agricultural product from halfway around the world that was hand-harvested, hand-picked, and roasted and brewed…”