Media Commons Lunchtime

The following was a lunchtime meeting where a few of us who are on the MediaCommons editorial board tried to flesh out some ideas as to what we wanted to do. Because I don't blog when I speak, you will see that I simply note what I say in parentheses.


Avi - Basically this is an incredibly ambitious and open project. Let's get some back ground. Media Commons is emergent from Kathleen's work where she wanted a digital scholarly press. There has to do with what it would mean to value digital media and this produces a meeting at USC and it is intended to think of what it would mean to make this press. And the scholarly press is an aspect of something that we would like to design. So, we need to rethink what the press would be. The digital environment may make community and scholar engagement. More of a press as process. This has to reinvigorate discourse and making it more of something about. Also a social network that may take place in this place.

Avi's questions -- what does media common's mean to you? What did you imagine? How does it gel with what you are seeing so far? What sorts of projects should we be engaging in? How do we deal with a digital press and how would we get something that may pass peer review? What are the criteria involved? How do we socially engineer a community? How do we see ourselves involved?

Tara -- Coming out of the meeting last spring and the desire to focus on media is a good idea. The idea is that a shorter thing where the thing that is happening here and a space needs to be build in. We need to think through with a multiple media environment and tis is more a credit toward tenure of a written piece.

Richard -- A couple of different thoughts... let us work toward the new consensus. Let us think about this since I am placing a tenure file up on things that only deal with electronically. This is hard since I need to do all kinds of justification for things why Podcasting is a scholarly endaevor or could be.

I want to build people together and this means that we need to demonstrate a real world purpose and things that we manufacture. Now, we need to think about how these things can contribute to debate.

I would like to max out things that are circulating popular. Let's make this a MySpace presence. In Media Res could be RSSed and in iTunes. Let us circulate and repurpose this. What is it that can get our best minds turning in the work.

How do we get people throwing their ideas out. What does web 5.0 for us? I think it signifies nothing. I do not want to fall prey to the network were it can produce a laboratory from it. We need to look at what does and doesn't work?

Chuck -- The networking idea is good is the idea of promotional work that happens in between blogs and getting a sense of community awareness.

Tara -- you want to connect and do a lot of edge work.

Radhika -- I was also wondering if you would reach out to Steve Jones. Let us think about the issue of the ideas of several things and we need to be in a number of social nets. We need to be there in strategic places and each of us will bring different communities. Academia tends to be an ivory tower but there is an issue of the community. The reason I see this is that I am at Bowling Green and I have an opportunity for a dissemenation grant and we could

Richard -- what becomes interesting if we flip the script. Think about the rush to online teaching and the idea of the idea of revenue models. It does mess with prestige and that aspect. The peer review process is always about prestige and this narrow gate was well defined and this is a thing that happens.

(I mention this issue of the making it valued as a clearinghouse of information, local communities, etc.)

Radhikia -- This is a service and this could become the place on issues of makingit valuable in communities

(I need to see this place where other institutions find value)

Tara -- Haystack would partner on this. Haystack is a consortium for reclaiming the digital humanities from those who were simply data mining. haystack is doing a conference in April at Duke. Last summer when the supercomputing workshop did work at San Diego, Haystack did this.

Richard -- How about something that opens up the process with the scholarly

Radhika -- Are we putting up another process or just the old process? We need to bring something new in here for value.

Avi --- what about the rights of the author? We cannot place people the box for failure.

(I suggest the guild model)

How do we get people to the site?

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Cinema and Gaming, SCMS 03092007

Adam Lowenstein -- "Cinema, Gaming, Interactivity: Between Existenz and Un Chien Andalou" -- Looking at the connections between old media and new media. The question really is one of interactivity to a certain aspect. Interactivity can be called false, can be demonized, etc. Kinder calls into claim what is going on here by looking at the interactive in the films of Bunuel.

Then quotes Galloway in Galloway as something that is more than interactive. Lowenstein wants to think about how cinema helps those think about the gaming experience, in partiuclar through the surrealist issues of gaming as associative rather than simply interactive.

Lowenstein wants to anchor Existenz through Un Chien Andalou. The issue that he is drawing on is that of the games such as those of the exquisite corpse. This game did not have an audience beyond the players, whereas with Bunuel and Dali do have one and the issue of reception.

So then we get the famous opening sequence of the film. We get the knife sharpening sequence and the slit moon/slit eye sequence. This is a game of images and not all players play in the same way. This is associative imagery. And the Graphic elements about the imagery that is key here.

Such games of association also happen in the film of Existenz. There is a scene where the game urge takes place. The Game Urge occurs and the game character is somehow "born to do these things" -- do not fight it and this is key... he forms a gun from the bones of the food he has just eaten.

At the heart of the scene is a number of a question of agency that rests at the issues of cinema and gaming. There is a sense of the game's logic that controls the player and desire. This is a common issue here with a formal sequence of the cut scene where the player loses all agency to become a spectator. Galloway notes that this is a regression from Gaming's possibilities and this is a regression.

Existenz asks us to grapple with how gaming cinema can be and vice versa. It asks us to rethink what is "cinematic" and "gaming".

Audrey Anable -- "Come Out to Play: The Warriors Video Game, Moral Panic, and the Remaking of a Decaying American City" -- The game emerges from the subway in the city and people in the game are wreaking havoc on the city. It is set in NYC in the lat 70s and early 80s as a place of urban decay. The Walter Hill film drew on an idea of the city as one that had a been taken over by a lack of moral order.

Rockstar games adapted the film into a game drawing on its most famous game, Grand Theft Auto.

What can we learn about the relationship between pop films and pop games. The film begins with a convention of the games there is an assasination and misplaced (yet strategic) blame.

The Warrior's film is not indexical at all and is more comical. The issue of the city is a heigtened and imaginary one. The narrative suggests that there is an idea of the city as a place of play in spaces of urban decay.

The Warrior's seems more like a mish-mash of martial arts films, gangster genres, even the musical. The Warriors seems like such a video game in many of its elements, it's thin plot, flat characters and action, makes it perfect for video game adaptation.

The opening sequence of the game is almost a shot-by-shot adaptation of the film's opening sequence. But we learn later on that the this film is 3 months earlier than the film diegetic world has initaited. The game explains how members of the warrior became a member and the world is far more complex in terms of space than the actual filmic city. The player works in a way to deal with the map. The map is key in order to deal with the epically scaled world (see games like Grand Theft Auto). What is important to note about game play and the urban city is that the city space needs to be mastered through play. Thus spatial exploration is key since the spatiality is part and parcel of the game.

This paper is part of a larger project on the issue of spatial discourse regarding urbanity in video gaming. Let us think about these games in terms of the other issues surrounding city space policies of the time in which video games emerged.

Erin Hill -- "Achievment Time: Chronotopic Interpenetration or Real and Game Time-Space in World of Warcraft" -- This is a Bakhtinian issue and the chronotope has been adopted for a much more active issue at work here. The mutual effort of the gamer and game where the time of the game and the gamer get's blurred. Bakhtin gives the issue of the chronotope and time can thicken, take on flesh, become visible. It is a real odd time-space configuration that has the chronotope.

World of Warcraft as an MMORPG You have two continents and these continents has to be done in real time and the fact is that you must travel to get there. There is no sleeping, just adventure.

Time in this sense is measured in missions. And the characters are supposed to change and grow, metamorphoses. You have a this sense not from internal digestion, rather from possessions ans skills you get. Also, if you plan hard enough and work hard enough you will almost get success... chance and fate have no place in here. What you get in WOW is an adventure of accumulation. The myth in America is that if you work hard enough can achieve anything and is presented as a fact both here and in this game. When you play WOW you can not really place a hold on the game, you have an open-ended game that can, when coupled by the real/internal time fusion in the game, forge itself quickly into a lifestyle.

In modern life we get a highly segmented and disciplined issue of time. But in WOW and in the place of the computer we often see how these worlds and time types really do fuse. Think about the scheduling of game time and the sheer number of hours. Gamers may make friendships that may be character to character that then become player to player. These confuse the virtual.

The interpentration happens in terms of economics and even in contracts. There are a number of politics that occur such as "gay" separatist guilds.

One of the things that is appealing is given the logic of acquisition, while it happens in "real time" does quicken and is accelerated. And this is pleasurable at a number of levels.

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Allow Me to Share... TV Barn

This is a blog with podcasts that I have been wanting to share for quite a while. TV Barn is Aaron Barnhart's site and is one of the most enjoyable blogs for TV criticism I frequent. The MP3s are 15-20 minute weekly segments that come from a KMOX show with Paul Harris. Well worth your time if you like, nay, love TV.

Technorati Tags: AaronBarnhart, TVbarn, TVblog, PaulHarris, KMOX

Wrap Up for Thurdsday!

Ahh, lessee. The best thing that happened today was Will Straw bought me a drink! That, my friends, is an awesome thing.

There are some good people here but no one else has bought me a drink. You rock Will, you rock!

Technorati Tags: WillStraw, SCMS

Copyright and Fair Use, SCMS 03082007

Richard Patterson -- The pragmatics of the public sphere in British Public Cinema

Five Areas

• The creative economy and Public Policy


• Space Regulation and Market Management Policy


• The Creative Archive


• The BBC Creative Futures


• Contracts and Pragmatics

This started at the University of Glasgow and the whole point of the project was to think about sustainability

The creative economy and Public Policy -- this is at the top of the agenda right now and is seen as a sustainable one where copyright enable agencies place the UK in a competitive advantage. The issue here is in the IP review and the creative economy review was done throughout.

The BBC is interested in public value texts as it has to justify pound's spent

The Creative economy agenda has really spread througout a good portion of the world, including Australia. However, the question is what is creativity? Philip Schlesinger

Space Regulation and Market Management Policy -- doesn't find it very useful as it is a spatial metaphore and this is not very useful for me. I find it very much more useful is information spaces and creativity. What are the new spaces involved in the production of technology. In the UK the issue at work is Citizen rights,

I am invested in the creative capital of the nation at the BBC -- so that those who commission the work, the BBC, should have some ownership. BUt recent decisions have made these rights reside not in the public rights.

The BBC has a unique place in the UK economy as it has changed from a demoralized one to a much more happy one right now. It aspires to be the most creative of them all. It still has a public value test in some ways to fulfill its charge. The public value test takes the citizen value .

The organizational structure that is key is that the creative archive is to make this aarcive of BBC work to download and repurpose issue. This is a public sector partnership and shows how the BBC is trying to make these things available to the people.

The number of downloads has been huge and the questions is now how do you pay for it as a public vendorship. Books in the public libraries get royalties from borrowed books. From the outset many commercial concerns opposed this at first.


Jennifer Lynde Barker -- Animating Racial Representation --While I was working on digital media I ran into some issues about the problems fair use and educational fair use is a foreign concept to commercial media and today I want to look at the educational versus the lucrative. Also, it can be used to stifle understanding of past issues of media.

The project that I was working on was to give us a CD rom that would be for colleges and high schools for education of African Americans in early cinema. Fair use should have covered us but the NEH and various publishers refused to consider fair use a viable category to make claims. And proving who held copyright was difficult to determine who actually held for many materials such as Cabin in the Sky. And in many cases studios would erect many standards and barriers to use to make them use good. For example, including a scene where an actor would have to clear it can be especially problematic.

Often it is clear that institutions would keep certain scenes out and see what you could include would often be kept at a minimum. This was especially true as cartoons were often banned and this is due in part that cartoons are often marketed to children. Banning objectionable cartoons allow these corporations to maintain a squeaky clean image. Corporations can then whitewash projects. Disney claims that they have banned several films so that they won't offend, but it is clear that they are trying to keep their image up. For example, the objectionable mickey mouse cartoons have been released in submenus and are in the vault and Leonard Maltin talks to introduce it and you can't skip through that (you can for other Silly Symphonies features). It's a way maintaining image.

The Warner Brother's banned eleven are a number of cartoons that cannot be shown in broadcast television but they are available in bootleg form.

Besides pirated videos things like YouTube keep these things open. Open by strengthening fair use then you can create film history in the classroom, instead of the board room.


Mark Benedetti -- Encoding Piracy -- In the beginning there was piracy and this was true in Lumiere and Melies. The piracy of films in early cinema was a way of distributing film. All of this happens in a world of legal supremacy today. Piracy is not curtailed through copyright law.

New strategies -- watermarking prints began in the 1980s and this flourished as a way to trace where the copying came from. With the onset of digital you had a problem and there was a new way to do this -- anyways, it is there. The codes are there and they exist as a set of 4 reddish brown dots. The industry is quite silent about this.

The code has some lively public discourse. DeLuxe labs who came up with the new code will not talk about it. The MPAA will not discuss it as they do not want to tip off potential pirates. This is CapCode is essentially not discussed.

So, now I will take up a Deleuzian take on it looking a difference and repetition and simulacrum.

Who does this -- low pay people working in labs, disgruntled Academy members. The academy claims it is these people who are forcing people to do this. They are wrong since it is the object that does this. The simulacra is at work here. There is no degraded copy from an original, just multiple versions of a simulacra that are the results of sources of difference.

The simulacrum in these cases simply shows up the original as another simulacrum. It refutes an idealist epistemology.

The "original" is marked in CapCode and the unmarked original is disgraced by not taking on the legitimate markings.

I am not here to make an easy argument about the progressive politics of piracy. In China pirated forms of cinema open up that closed cultural market. It isn't necessarily liberating. It is something else since piracy is a form of capitalism, one that operates outside specific legal conditions.

Piracy is theft and this act relies on the law. The simulacrum marks this morality rather than an original and a copy. Piracy exists as a threat to morality rather than capitalism.


Lindsay Fullerton -- Captives of Copyright: Documentaries in the Digital Age -- Begins with the example of "Happy Birthday", owned by Time Warner and is owned until 2030. For example the filmmakers of Hoop Dreams paid $15,000 for one verse of the song

In the digital age doc filmmakers are dealing with the Wealth of Materials in the age and the oppositional Restrivtion of Materials

Why are docs so much more affected. AV films are their bread and butter. Sometimes images are irreplaceable

There are moe and more people making docs than before. One of the reasons is that digital video is easy to make and many more venues where it can happen.

We also see more and more docs -- in commerce we have seen a rise of 85% from 2002 to 2006. Also digital channels are key

There are more and more channels in which this can be seen.

The Center of Social Media conducted a survey in 2004 of 45 pro doc makers. What they found was escalting costs, complicated clearance process and self-censorship as the key problems.

A slide on Fair Use and what it ostensibly covers.

One of the key issues at work is that of Fair Use is beginning to be adopted by insurance companies.

Public domain issues. lifteime of the author plus 70 years or 95 years if held by a corporation.

Let us at Tarnation (2004) -- edited by iMovie and originally it cost $218 and after clearance of copyright it cost $400,000. In Eyes on the Prize from the 1980s it was off the screen for over a decade because of lapsed copyrights and only cleared the works for 5-10 years.

To mediate this relationship the Center for Social Media created a "statement of best practices in fair use" -- one success is This film is Not Yet Rated and Downhill Battle which released the Grey Album. Creative Commons is another way that you can use this and place certain things with a CC license.

In 2005 Downhill Battle planted bitTorrent seeds of Eyes on the Prize. It was downloaded, gained publicity and have gained the money necessary to clear the copyrights again.

Technorati Tags: RichardPatterson, BBC, CreativeEconomy, JenniferLyndeBarker, Animation, RacialRepresentation, FairUse, SillySymphonies, MerryMelodies, Disney, MarkBenedetti, Piracy, CapCode, DeLuxeLabs, Deleuze, Simulacrum, LindsayFullerton, CenterforSocialMedia, DocumentaryFilms, Tarnation, DownhillBattle, EyesonthePrize, bittorrent , SCMS

Global TV Formats, SCMS 03082007

Michael Kackman -- Unfortunately one of your respondents couldn't be here as Sharon Sharp had a family emergency.

MK - My paper has become engaged in biography, in particular that of Duncan Renaldo and The Cisco Kid. As multinational television nets grew, so many scholars developed the one-way street of media imperialism in the Global and Local grow. We are interested now in issue in post-fordist media cultures now, and this is shown in a number of scholars.

And something has changed materially and demanded new epistemologies. They convincingly show us that the one-way street metaphor doesn't necessarily work here. Perhaps older one-way street issues are at work as grand narratives. Some of the work by Schiller et al here is not only important but I want to look at micro areas where people tried different attempts at globalization in the early boom in the history of television.

Among the first of these shows that syndicators sold to TV writ large were B-westerns, among these are The Cisco Kid. Ziv TV wanted to use this to expand not only in the US but in Latin American cultures as well. By using Duncan Renaldo's questionable "nationality" and national identity we see a key. His origin was never quite well understood and he was adopted. Where was he from? Mexico or New Jersey.

I guess he was a gypsy, but we do know that he spoke English and Spanish fluently growing up. After a few years working as an actor, MGM acquired him to make him a Valentinoesque character. But his work ran into an number of complications. And I want to talk about the publicity surrounding one of these early films and all of the problems that it had.

Renaldo ran into some issues with immigration problems and was sentenced under a different set of names. He was then pardoned by the Roosevelt admin by lobbying Eleanor by Poncho Barns.

His racial ambiguity was, by all means, well known and well publicized.

Renaldo appeared in many B-Westerns that dealt with banditry on the Mexico/US border. Even when he was playing in many Zorro films he was trying to negotiate a number financiers to win box office receipts in global audiences that are connected to people's local experiences and lives.

These studios rejected many of his approaches. Paramount believed that they had more than enough "westerns" althought Renaldo always noted that he did not believe his pitches were Westerns.

Renaldo then was caste as the Cisco kid and this was something that would be key for the rest of his life. The central relationship between Cisco and Pancho was a key issue.

Renaldo offered a crucial point of mediation...

To be globalized Renaldo could be constructed as white for global distribution in some areas such south Africa he could also be constructed as Mexican in some way.

Renaldo is really trying to change new systems of representations yet could never get outside of his costume.

Chiara Ferrari -- To put this work in my context with my general work, I work on television translations and dubbing. When I think about why conteporary series I think about the conception of Italian tv and deregulation of Italian TV. The general thesis among Italian TV scholars is that this is something in the 1970s and 1980s. This is something that Berlusconi figures in on.

The presumption is that early TV is that it is National in content and you have an issue of high culture that is spread and must merge "mass education" with high production values. This would be the mission an goals of early Italian TV in the 1950s.

This thesis s made stronger as it is a way to unify the country in the 20 different regions and the idea was to make a nation . Quotes Giovanni Bechelloni "A Nation exists if it exists, amoung a group of individuals a sense of oneness a feeling of belonging to common nationality identified by at leas three factors: language, territory and memory" Early Italin TI is national because it offers these things

But starting in the 1950s, I believe, that there were American formats were imported from the US to create a sense of Italian Nationality. For me, it is the game show that does that work.

These were huge national hits and the TV execs modified the forms for something of an Italian taste... and songs and music are added, humor and celebrities were added for national flavor.

The hosts of some of thes shows of Lascia o Raddophi and Il Musichiere. Mike Bongiorno from New York hosted Lascia; Mario Riva spoke with a heavy Roman accent. The choice of the two main hosts says a lot here. Mike Bongiorno is still the icon of the quiz shows. Mario Liva passed away by falling from stage.

Let's see how these game shows gave these three elements -- they all speak Italian and not regional dialects. Also, dialects are ridiculed and proper Italian is respected as a sign of progress and modernity. Italian TV can see this in their homes and hear "proper Italian" spoken.

All Italians are in contemporary viewing patterns. Even in many movie theaters many people would watch Lascia o Raddophi on television (and bars) as many did not have a television set in their homes.

A Later show Campanile Sera in the late 1950s was often spoken about as a very Italian show. In this sense you had "cities" in competition with each other and the cities are in competition with each other. And the late 1950s and early 1960s we had the Italian economic miracle. The message that many wanted to show was that everyone throughout these cities could see the miracle and take place in it.

Also, the questions that were asked in these shows were about a common history and culture. Here Italians discover a historical memory that they share.

What are the practical consequences that resulted?

It was hugely popular and the game show "fever" put pressure on the Italian Government so that they could participate in these types of questions.

The Mandatory school attendance age was raised in 1962 to 14 years old, and the curriculum of the Junior High School system was revised by official governmental legislations.

Joe Straubhaar -- One thing I noted about these papers is that it is interesting that there are a couple of commonalities. And this has to do with the issue of Flow and how that doesn't necessarily work with the Telenovela. But let's look

In Television there is a way in which TV has a constant flow of ideas [ed. note, as this is a popular medium], there is a flux of ideas that is constant. And there is no way to think of these in terms of hybridity. The issue of Hybridity is key when we look at it. Think of the Cowboy, which really comes from the figure of the caballero.

There are other figures that are hybrids as well... Carmen Miranda. A figure from Brazil, who is originally from Portugal, who then takes afro-Brazillian songs and dance and exports them.

What people try to do is that they export their stuff. When we look at how global television and film we see that people produce and then export. They are trying to sell what they got and this is a key issue.

Let's think about what Chiara is doing and think about how she looks at local TV and see how it is adapted. There are lots of mainstream issues that are spun nationally, yet there is something else, a third force. Producers, exporters and then local producers. It takes the adaptation issue at work.

There is a movement of national and international ideas as well. Think of Berlusconi who looks at a systemic model that is US oriented and adapted throughout the US. Even at this level we underestimate hybridity as their are many ways of doing Capitalist Modernity. Let us not subtract the local influence that allows these systems and the shows that they produce form the formula with an across-the-board understanding of this as media imperialism.

Technorati Tags: SCMS, MichaelKackman, DuncanRenaldo, TheCiscoKid, GlobalTVFormats, ChiaraFerrari, ItalianTV, Bechelloni , LasciaoRaddophi, Il Musichiere, MikeBongiorno, MarioRiva, CampanileSera, JoeStraubhaar,

SCMS 2007

So, I am going to try to do some blogging here at the society of Cinema and Media Studies conference in Chicago. There doesn't seem to be an open, free net at the Hilton, so I will make these posts as I can from my friend's houses.... so it will look like I am blogging all at once. I assure you I am not. More than anything I will just use this as a chance to liveblog, which is something I love to do at conferences, when it is allowed of course.

One thing before I sign off on this post: The weather is great today. It's 53 degrees Fahrenheit and the skies are bright blue. It's a sin to be inside, I tell you. But more importantly, I am always blown away by the way that my music selections change so fundamentally when I am on a train in a city. Basically I play nothing but three things: hip hop, electronica and rhythm & blues based rock. For me that has meant mix tapes, mash ups, Air records (in particularly the great, overloooked "Talkie Walkie") and repeated doses of Eddie Money. What is strange is that I have no interest in country or countryish music at all. That would definitely change over time if I lived here again, but who knows?

Technorati Tags: scms, ipod, , ipodlistening, air, talkiewalkie, eddiemoney,

If you can't Beat Em, Join Em: MTV Web Goes Web 2.0 GaGa!

Last week's Onion headline of Viacom Demands YouTube Pull 400,000 Ex-TV Viewers From Its Site was pretty hilarious, but spot on. In short, TV is losing viewers to the internet faster than they thought would happen. So, MTV has decided to actually do something about it

MTV Networks, owner of the MTV and Comedy Central channels, is pushing a risky new Web strategy to win back young viewers from the likes of YouTube and MySpace.

The network, which already has 150 Web sites in 162 countries, plans to build literally thousands more, hoping to draw viewers by letting them watch, contribute and even re-edit its television shows.

"People tend to find content on the Internet through thousands of front doors as opposed to one," said Mika Salmi, the new digital president of MTV Networks, a unit of Viacom Inc..

Some three months ago, Salmi began laying the groundwork in a strategy plan called "Atlas."

MTVN's sites currently operate largely within their own "silos," so they first had to adopt the same technology tools and then find better ways to cross-promote the myriad brands tied to its shows, Salmi said.

"The goal is hopefully to tie it all together over the next year, and to be far more open," said Salmi, who joined MTV Networks last summer after Viacom purchased Atom Entertainment, known for online short films and games. "Consumers love these shows. Let's get them involved."

In the coming months, Salmi said the company plans to open up more of its archives, allowing Internet users to take videos and post them on their own sites and also re-edit some clips.

ComedyCentral.com already allows viewers to post, or embed, some of its videos on their own sites.

"Consumers want control," Pali Capital analyst Richard Greenfield said. "Fighting that trend is not a winning strategy...They're moving in the right direction now."

Opening up the archives and getting more user-generated content. That's the new business strategy. As for user compensation...hmmm....



Technorati Tags: MTV, usergeneratedcontent, usergeneratedmedia, web2.0, mediaarchives, musicindustry, television

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Hyprocrisy, thy Name is....?

I love the music industry when artists are getting paid, which is why I am a big advocate of subscription-based legal downloading as a paradigm. Services like e-music are beyond excellent. I get cool music and a low price, artists get paid, everyone is happy... hopefully. When artists don't get paid, well then you gotta wonder. Which is why I always tell my students that if they really want to support the artists, buy records directly from them or their website and a t-shirt: the profit margins are kept high and you aren't necessarily funding some suit's coke habit. A musican's coke habit? Well, you never know, but at least that artist rocked your world for a while.



Which is why I just loved this post at Idolator about how the RIAA explains to college students why they should stop illegally downloading music

Last week, the RIAA conducted a conference call with various college-newspaper writers, with whom they discussed their strategies for cracking down on campus downloaders. Emcees Without Voices obtained a transcript of the chat, and now everybody can watch as RIAA president Cary Sherman and executive VP (and general counsel) Steven Marks try to school the younguns on why students should put down the apple bong and call up their lawyer.



Sherman's opening remarks set the tone for the chat, the thrust of which boils down to: Ohmigod, guys! Your favorite artists are, like, soooooo mad at you! To wit: "Many of you probably have a favorite local band on your campus. If music theft is allowed to continue at such unacceptably high levels, the chances of those bands getting signed to a record label deal will continue to diminish." When you consider that this is coming from an industry that has long bullied emerging artists into crippling, unfairly balanced contracts, and that has reduced A departments to the size of a jazz trio, and that has put financial muscle behind doomed-to-fail megastars whose paychecks swallow up the entire roster's budget, then...well, then, we actually forgot the point. Oh yeah: Dicks!

Mean spirited? Yes. Accurate? In too many cases... yes.



And remember: keep buying those CDs and stickers next time you are at the show.

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Technorati Tags: RIAA, emusic, illegaldownloads, musicindustry

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digitaldistribution

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"Double Dipping" Royalties? Or This is Where it Gets Complicated...

The Mi2N - Music Industry News Network reports that The Digital Media Association (DiMA)

submitted a 'friend of the court' brief opposing a claim by the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) that digital music downloads are 'public performances' and should, therefore, be subject to a public performance license and royalty.

This is a bit tricky and one that requires some explanation. ASCAP is what is known as a Performance Rights Organization and like all PROs collects fees for songs played in public venues, over the airwaves, etc. Radio stations, bars, cafes, etc. all pay licensing fees to PROs for the right of musicians and DJs to play any song in their catalogue. It makes sense that they want to get payed for digital radio, however here's the issue at hand, and it's tricky so let's follow this. DiMA claims that

DiMA members pay television, motion picture and sound recording producers hundreds of millions of dollars annually for the right to digitally distribute their copyrighted content, including the incorporated musical works. These synchronization, reproduction and distribution licenses, including "mechanical" licenses associated with sound recordings, are appropriately paid when musical works are used in audiovisual productions and sound recordings and are distributed to consumers - in physical or digital form. DiMA members also pay music publishers and songwriters (through ASCAP, BMI and SESAC) millions of additional dollars for the right to publicly perform musical compositions using streaming radio and video services.

Ok, that makes sense, right. You get paid when you reproduce a recording in mechanicals, you get paid when you synch a song to an image in a time-based manner, you get paid when you play it. However, for many digital blurs some of these lines, particularly between playback and recording. For example, if you offer a podcast of a radio show you are reproducing that song. In fact, this is also the case, to some extent, with some streaming that can be easily captured. Such is the blurriness that ASCAP and BMI want performance royalties even if you transmit a media file and it is never listened to. As DiMA notes

ASCAP and BMI claim that a download or even its “transmission” to a consumer – even if the media file is never opened and made audible or visually perceptible to the recipient – is a “public performance” that justifies an additional license and royalty. “This sophistry is based in fear – that ASCAP and BMI will have no service to offer publishers and songwriters if direct-to-consumer distribution substantially eliminates subscription or advertiser-based performance media,” stated Potter. “This fear seems unwarranted, but regardless, the law clearly states that a transmission justifies performance royalties only if the transmission is of a ‘performance.’”

Here's ASCAP's media release from March 1st

The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) yesterday filed a cross-motion in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, asking the Court to confirm that all Internet transmissions of musical works to the public, including digital streams and downloads, are public performances - as the United States Copyright Law requires and Congress has stated.

Therefore, all digital streams and downloads should be subject to licensing by the creators and copyright owners of those works, through organizations like ASCAP which represent them.

"The emergence of the digital world is dramatically reshaping the way music is purchased and enjoyed," said John LoFrumento, Chief Executive Officer, ASCAP. "We strongly believe that our members are entitled to be compensated for all Internet transmissions of their music to the public - including the public performance that is an essential part of a music download."

Ok, so a download is a performance? Hmm, I think this is a willful confusion, at best. A download, as far as I am concerned, is the same as my purchase of a CD; streaming is the digital equivalent of broadcast transmission. I am brought back to a number of issues that used to exist when home taping was the fear-of-the-day. Back then we were running around with CRO2-90s, Cassette Decks and FM receivers. This combination, the music industry argued, would allow a rock radio station to play an entire album, we would tape them, and no one would get paid because of the excellent quality of such recordings.

Hahahahahahahaha. Oh, memories.

I can't say ASCAP and BMI will lose this battle, but I do think that the issue of determinable intent is key here and a download is not a performance. It just isn't. Or maybe it is. Make the case people. Make the case.

Technorati Tags: ASCAP, BMI, digitalstreaming, digitalmediaassociation, performancerightsorganizations, mechanicalrights, synchronizationrights, performancerights, mp3,

The Best of The Worst of Star Search

I have to run to class but I had to share this video that Patrick Burkhart posted at Media Commons. Laugh your ass off

Q: What is the Best Way Retard a New Distribution Paradigm? A: Make it a Losing Proposition!

Ok, I love radio. In the last 25 years, though, my favorite medium has effectively been denuded through consolidation. The effect is that radio is as profitable as it has ever been, but it is completely boring. In many medium sized markets you may have 20 or so stations, three or four of which have any semblance of local programming. This, by the way, includes NPR. My local NPR AM juggernaut broadcasts 24 hours a day and I can count on one hand the number of substantial local programs that find any airtime.

What this means is that if you like local varieties you need to get on the net and stream. There's lots of college, public and commercial radio that streams as well as kick ass podcasts. But because of a struggle over how much digital radio and other digital deliverers should pay for play, we may have a real problem on our hands. The Copyright Royalty Board has held a number of proceedings on webcasting rates and terms , as Idolator notes

The board decided to go with the rate suggestions put forth by SoundExchange*, the division of the RIAA focused on collecting digital royalties, and not broadcasters; perhaps unsurprisingly, they're prohibitively expensive for even the largest broadcasters, and in some cases the required royalty payments may equal or exceed 100% of an Internet radio station's revenue.

Kurt Hansen explains

Because a typical Internet radio station plays about 16 songs an hour, that's a royalty obligation in 2006 of about 1.28 cents per listener-hour.

In 2006, a well-run Internet radio station might have been able to sell two radio spots an hour at a $3 net CPM (cost-per-thousand), which would add up to .6 cents per listener-hour.

Even adding in ancillary revenues from occasional video gateway ads, banner ads on the website, and so forth, total revenues per listener-hour would only be in the 1.0 to 1.2 cents per listener-hour range.

That math suggests that the royalty rate decision — for the performance alone, not even including composers' royalties! — is in the in the ballpark of 100% or more of total revenues.

Ok, so for every dollar I take in, you get a dollar. Hmmm? Profit anyone?

Ok, so if this is the case then this is completely unreasonable, which isn't to say it will somehow be dealt with in the future. Here's the reason why. This fight isn't about your small webcaster. Rather it is about how much XM or Sirius will pay to play. And the law being what it is, the consequences could be devastating to the little guy. If you want to see who was involved in this fight you can click here, here and here. I have only skimmed the surface here, but this is interesting to say the least. Basically what you have is "new means of distribution" meets "established organization with lots of clout", something we have seen seen before, When, you ask? Why, thanks for the question. Allow me to explain.. ahem...

Back in the old days of the US there was this old timey medium called broadcasting they wanted to use popular music on their airwaves. The big problem was that the most popular music was controlled by ASCAP, who had the rights to the best songs and wanted these broadcasters to pay through the nose to play them. ASCAP had the clout and the broadcasters did. Furthermore, ASCAP was notoriously picky about who got to join closed the door on many aspirant songwriters who they viewed as unskilled, unwashed and undesirable. The broadcasters looked at this option and decided to build a new organization that "opened the door" for these artists and the result was, you guessed it, BMI:

BMI was founded by radio executives to provide competition in the field of performing rights, to assure royalty payments to writers and publishers of music not represented by the existing performing right organization and to provide an alternative source of licensing for all music users.

BMI’s history coincides with one of the most vibrant, evolving and challenging periods in music history. As popular music has moved from big-band to rock & roll and hip-hop, and formats have evolved from 78 and 33 1/3-rpm vinyl records to compact discs, MP3s and beyond, BMI has worked on behalf of its members to maintain a leadership position not only in the United States, but worldwide.

Underlying everything BMI does is its philosophy: an open-door policy that welcomes songwriters, composers and music publishers of all disciplines, and helps them develop both the creative and business skills crucial to a career in music.

Ok, so this took about 17 years to happen, so don't expect new digital distribution organizations to get their act together anytime soon. And, yes, I do have suggestions on how to get their act together and with whom they should work with (and invest). Right now I would say that the terms Long Tail, EFF and Creative Commons could all be substantial keys. Let's just say that developing organizations that cultivate a new labor force and new contractual understandings will be key. Much in the same way that BMI was the key to getting hillbilly music on the air and those artists gaining some wealth as a result, I would hope that some people are out there beating similar bushes so that we still have an option to Clear Channel sanctioned radio and the artists who exists in those formats.


Technorati Tags: Web2.0, digitaldistribution, soundexchange, BMI, longtail, EFF, CreativeCommons, Idolator, CopyrightRoyaltyBoard, digitalradio, webcasting, podcasting

Flickr and Asset Management: A Neat Idea

Those of us who have worked with still images for presentation in classrooms have all had to negotiate the dreaded slide library. Well, I thought this great idea from Teaching 2.0 was a nice idea: Use Flickr as a place to manage your visual assets

One of the problems we’ve had at the school for a long time is how to manage all the digital photos that we generate (and we generate a lot). Up to now, the teacher that took the pictures would keep them in their own iPhoto library and it was a matter of knowing who had which pictures and arranging to get copies if another teacher needed them.

We’re changing that, with Flickr’s help. What we’ve done is create a private group on Flickr. Private groups are invitation-only, and the photos in the pool are only visible to group members. This is important because, for child protection reasons, we don’t necessarily want all the photos we’ve taken in school to be public on the web.

So, next time you got the kiddos out on a field trip to the Grand Canyon think about taking some of their pics and throwing them into a Flickr set and you got slides for that next Geo 101 class, or something like that.

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Teaching 2.0, Part 2.0

Clearly there is a bit of interest on how to use these new 2.0 tools for academics. I received a number of thoughts in the comments section of the initial post. The following have all been excerpted from the comments section and can be seen there. More than anything else I just wanted to get these on the main page.

Jason Mittell notes

You need to teach about the tool, not just with the tool.

For many faculty, adding the newest technology is a way to make a class seem fresh, new, hip, etc. - you feel like you're meeting students where they live, engaging them on their digital terrain. But I agree that most (certainly not all) students are fairly unreflective media consumers/producers - they may know how to use some software, but they haven't thought about what it means to use it.

Michael Newman points out,

Now maybe this is semantics, but you seem to have in mind only a couple of things that one might call Web 2.0. Asking students to contribute to blogs and wikis is probably asking them to do something they haven't done before (though now some of my students have blogged before for other classes). If the class were to have a social networking site, though (maybe using Ning?), then they would in theory be in their comfort zone. My students Facebook all the time. However, they might see social networking (or IM'ing the prof) as their thing and resent being asked to do it in a class context. Kids are often very much put off by the thought that "old" people like their teachers or parents might be violating what they see as their online space. This suggests that the issue of who has the accent isn't as simple as it might seem. I have an accent when it comes to social networking sites. They seem very foreign to me. I have no idea what to do with MySpace. It just confuses me. But they have the accent when it comes to blogs, wikis, tagging, RSS, even Flickr and YouTube. Indeed, most academics have little or no experience with these things--even young ones like us. An interest in the latest whizbang internet things is still really a niche pursuit. We should no more expect students to know about this stuff than we would expect them to have seen the same movies and TV shows as us. It's not their culture (yet).

Bryan Alexander has a good point which accents the research aspect of this stuff

it's useful to think of the Web 2.0 landscape as a research area for students. Beyond production in that area and self-expression, there's a lot to be considered under the rubrics of "search" or "information fluency." Consider, for example, using Technorati or Google Blogsearch to sample opinions about an event or current object. Try searching Flickr to find photographic evidence of some topic. Yes yes yes, of course, this is where we contribute (or should contribute!) content... but it's a different angle, seeing these as areas for search.

These are all interesting ideas and I will try to address them all not just in the comments page, as I have already, but in an upcoming post. 2.0 for me is less a paradigm shift than an assertion of the Web's promise as an information aggregator and distributor. That's nothing new as far as observations go. Yet as educators and researchers the implications of this will take a while to digest as standards are determined and the tools are better tailored by programmers and users alike. In other words, the future is anything but smooth sailing. Interesting times, interesting times.

Over the Counter Culture

Tim Fite, Hip Hop artist extraordinaire, is giving away his latest album, Over the Counter Culture. In a wonderful interview in the Chicago Tribune by Greg Kot Fite explains how the album is a protest against what he sees is the worst aspects of the culture he loves so much

Everybody has their first musical love, and rap music -- and especially the politics of it -- were what turned me on and what got me excited, that there could be a form of music that was socially conscious and untainted seemingly by big business. But along the way it stopped being a voice and became a product. Now it takes the worst stereotypes that society has to offer and amps them up to ridiculous caricatures of what a population can be and then uses those characteristics to market a product that is a mockery of itself.

Because the record is so decidedly critical of consumerism, Fite has taken the next step and has decided not to go through his label, which would need to sell it as a viable commodity.

Sound complex? It is. As Fite told Billboard

A lot of people don't even know their voice is being suppressed because they're too busy buying stuff. They're putting money back into a system that exploits them, and they're told happiness comes from a material gain. That's my primary target of rage on this record. It's a complicated idea, and I have to recognize that my voice isn't necessarily the most valid. I have benefited from all the things that I rail against.

By the way, it has a good beat and, yes, you can dance to it. I give it a 98.

Teaching 2.0, Initial Thoughts

In the last three years I have slowly introduced Web 2.0 technologies into the classroom with various levels of success. Because classrooms have so many other demands, I have to say that this portion has never really gained the kind of attention that it needs. Also, a lot of this has involved some significant stumbles. But that is to be expected. If you are teaching Wikis, Blogging and the like, you are teaching on terms that the students think they fully understand and so many teachers are convinced that they do not. Neither are completely true, but I do think they need to noted.

For example, Will Richardson claims that many teachers need to recognize that they have a "digital accent"

Marc Prensky says that students are Digital Natives while most educators are veritable Digital Immigrants who were not born in to technology and will always keep their accents. We print out our e-mail, prefer plain paper to digital paper, and still use phone books to look up numbers. This divide makes bringing technology to our students more difficult, and our accents many times get in the way of our use of technology. But accents are easier to lose than you might think, especially when all sorts of constructivist technologies are lowering the bar to entry.

To some extent I would buy that, but I do not think that students really understand Web 2.0 at all. My experience is that beyond e-mail and instant message, your average student is as "passive" a media consumer when it comes to the Web as they are with TV. The great majority of my students have never published a website until we make them do so. When it comes to Web 2.0, the environment of Blogs and Wikis mean something to students but Podcasts and RSS mean very little to a great majority. I teach mass media and when I ask students about podcasting very few of them partake in either end, consuming let alone producing. And if I was to ask a student to mkae their own Wiki they wouldn't know how to do it, despite the fact that PBWiki makes it very easy to do so.
Bryan Alexander notes in EDUCAUSE REVIEW | March/April 2006, Volume 41, Number 2 that

the concepts, projects, and practices of Web 2.0 as a whole, insofar as we have surveyed them, are fluid and emergent. They are also so accessible as to be launched and interconnected at a pace rapid even by Web standards. At the same time, many services are hosted externally to academia. They are the creations of enthusiasts or business enterprises and do not necessarily embrace the culture of higher education.

This is true of the entire culture: both educators and students. As a scholar who tries to teach Web 2.0 this is an area where so much is up in the air right now. Don't believe me? Download Firefox 2.0 and page through the "Add Ons" portion of the Firefox home and you will see a number 2.0 like extensions, each of which allow users to tag, comment and interact with and on the web. And these extensions, like Diigo will mean the creation of a World Wide Palimpsest. I am all for that and I think students and scholars should be too... however, so many of them have no clue how to utilize any of these resources. Right now we, student and scholar alike, are in a position to play collective catch up. True those students grew up with Web 1.0, but all of us new to 2.0, and we need to understand that.
So, how to teach it? Here are a few suggestions...

1) First and foremost, develop exercises that are low risk and allow for "maximum play" -- When you teach Blogging and Wikiing I firmly believe that the deepest, most profound lessons come from repeated, short term engagement that see the exercise as something that has low-level consequences. Much like a videogame, the proficiencies can only be developed over time, with repeated engagement and with a sense that this means very little in terms of grade. I often add a wiki or a blog to a course but do not "grade" it so much as I check to see that is done. This works well with small classrooms (I wouldn't even bother to do this with a 200 person classroom) where you can build groups and teams who you can hold accountable with a checkmark. The issue of the grade is counterintuitive to many, but has precedence in writing and oral competency: You give small assignments that have minimal impacts on the grade, but they all add up. What I have found is that by making web work as additional to a larger paper then you can a) avoid grading web work that feels punitive (and, I would argue, severely unjust) for most people unless they are in a Web Design class and b) you find that it actually benefits the organization and composition of the traditional paper.

2) Make students work in groups if possible -- The whole point of 2.0 is collective intelligence and students get a better sense of what this means if they can see how others can and do contribute. This includes the shy kid who never speaks up. When they work in these groups it teaches the students that the power of Web 2.0 is where you get intelligence from non-traditional sources and unexpected places.

3)Do one 2.0 thing at a time in a class unless that class is explicitly about the Web-- Teaching Web 2.0 should really be seen as an additive, not a main course. If you are a historian and you would like to have your class use Zotero simply to acquire bibliographic information, then you are not asking much other than you require them to use free and easy-to-use browsers and attachments. You may ask them to do little more than write Zotero and tell them what you like and what you would like to see their device do (or be better at doing). In my eyes, this allows students to understand how research is dependent on collective tools and standards. You can take time to discuss this in class, with other students as well as peers. This is a moment where you can begin to discuss many "inside baseball" issues that are pertinent to your work and the work of your colleagues.

So, I will continue my thoughts on this later, including some thoughts as to why I believe that this connects to a number of media issues that have, historically, operated with little academic or professional attention given to them.

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Quick Thoughts on Wikipedia Debates

Friend and Colleague Jason Mittell got schrift in today's NYT article about Middlebury's History department ban of Wikipedia as a source for their papers. He blogs about it here and notes

If you're in the Middlebury area and want to hear more, come to the event on Monday Febrary 26 at 4:30 in Library 201: "What is the Wikipedia in Higher Education?", featuring myself and History professor Amy Morsman.

Since I am nowhere near Vermont these days allow me my two cents: Wikipedia is a great resource to begin any research on contemporary popular culture. There, I said it. When I tell students that if they want to study something like Podcasting I always say, "begin here, don't end here." Same for video games, hip-hop, etc. And there is a simple reason for this. Like an encyclopedia it is meant to be a "jumping off" point. Unlike traditional encyclopedia of all types, you get in-depth entries on Katamari Damacy, Dj Drama and Bratz. Because popular culture is so ephemeral and traditional, expert-oriented publishing moves so slowly by comparison, the Wikipedia because a repository for all kinds of fads and new cultural movements. Take, for example, the Marc Maron Show, a show that ran off and on for about two and a half years as a syndicated radio program on Air America Radio. Here's some of the detail that that now-cancelled program has in its Wikipedia entry,

Regular Features
Marc Maron's Short Order News - Maron's take on the day's news; airs at the top and bottom of the show
Dick (as in Cheney) of the Day - the most reprehensible person of the day as chosen by Maron; airs at the bottom of the show
Liberal Confessional - Maron and callers confess their less-than-progressive moments
Wheel of Anger - Rants by Earl
Weekly Remembrances with Mort Mortensen - Earl disrespects the recently dead
Movie reviews with Svetlana, the Russian prostitute - contributor Iris Bahr

. Not bad and I defy anyone to find an entry about this show in any number of encyclopedia of American popular culture.

Which brings me back to the initial banning by the History department. I can understand it to a certain extent. You may be teaching about events that have been mulled over for several hundred years and your profession has developed a set of methods and databases that are quite refined. Wikipedia looks like a poor place to start in comparison and you are sick of "collective amateur efforts" being utilized over the many collective efforts of trained professionals. But those of us who study mass media and popular culture don't have that luxury. There just isn't the tradition surrounding our field, yet. So the Wikipedia looks like an opportunity to build something new, which is what we are up to! It hardly beats a day in the archives, reading old trades or even a solid book. But man, am I glad someone has made and is working on an extensive entry on Art Bell, a broadcaster who I hope to never forget.

Happy Valentine's Day

This one is for my Fiance'

Zizek and The Unconversation

There is a lot to say about Zizek and, well, I am not necessarily qualified to talk about him. But here's an example of how he realizes, early on, that there is no possibility for a "conversational dialogue" and just rides it out. Check out how he accepts, early on, how his interlocutor cannot say his name and is cool with it...


This is pretty hilarious stuff if you ask me and so many questions arise when you have this kind of "unconversation" between the talking head and the philosopher, that I would love to see more of these encounters. I mean, can we really assume that Zizek knows who Dennis Leary is as a comic figure? Can we assume that the talking head has learned anything? Who the hell was the producer that booked this segment? Does the talking head know that he is a Fred Willard character? Does Zizek care that his interlocutor does not care about or react to terms like "ideological projects"? But here is the rub... there is more "human interaction" here(i.e. the host shouting out "Yes", the laughter, the way that Zizek just rolls with it, etc.) than you typically get in 10 hours of MacNeil Lehrer. Zizek even gets a "class propaganda" joke in here and the host laughs out loud. Stunningly odd. Now if only we could get Spivak on The View.

A Super Weekend

It's Super Bowl Sunday and, yes, I am watching the game as I write this. Because the pre-game coverage is out of control, I waited until the very last minute to tune in, which was great since I was able to watch the kickoff return for a touchdown. Anyways, that's not why I am writing. I have had a great last four days. Some big time events took place in my personal life, which I will keep personal (all very good, thank you very much). And I returned from a two-day visit with the good folks at University of Pittsburgh's Department of Communication, where I gave a talk for their Agora series. Much thanks to them. It was challenging, collegial and inspiring. I left with a small list of lit to read and, well, that is always a good thing.

Also super positive, I have accepted a position as a charter member of the editorial board for Media Commons, a project that is lead by Kathleen Fitzpatrick and Avi Santo and is affiliated with the Institute for the Future of the Book. This is really exciting and I am honored to be part of this group.

But really, you don't come here to read about what I have been doing or who likes me... you come here to see what I am listening and watching. Here you go...

• Night Ripper - by Girl Talk .... probably my favorite record of the last 8 months
• The Sound of Young America-- A radio show and podcast which is promoting "things that are awesome". One can only hope that this is the future of NPR.
• The Paul Goebel Show-- Hosted by the self proclaimed King of TV, Paul Goebel, aka "The TV Geek", the show is a lo-fi gem where the conversation swings between rambling, profane and illuminating. Its always good, always funny and Goebel is always impressive. His knowledge of TV trivia plus his birds-eye view as an actor gives one an insight into the mind of a solid LA comedic actor who is somewhat successful but hardly a star. Just terrific!

Ok, there's more, for sure, but I gotta get back to the game, the compelling commercials and all of those promos for the CBS lineup. So far the robotic arm commercial is the only one I have truly loved.

Why I will TiVO the Grammies this year

I hate award shows. Unless I am winning money, they simply suck. But this year, it turns out, the Police will be reuniting for a performance. This means that a) Sting will put down his lute for a minute and b) there will be some onstage fighting. Ok, maybe there won't be, but we can hope.

The Police are one of my favorite bands from childhood and I still have good feelings for quite a bit of their catalogue. There are some iffy album cuts ("Miss Gradenko" anyone?) but the hits were tremendous. "Every little thing she does is magic" is still one of my top ten singles and Andy Summers is still one of my favorite rock guitarists. So, yes, I am looking forward to actually watching something with Sting on TV.

The other reason I am going to TiVO the grammies is I expect there to be a number of "don't steal" commercials coming down the line. Last week Fulton County Sheriff's Department S.W.A.T. team along with metro law enforcement raided Dj Drama and DJ Cannon's homes and confiscated a bunch of mixtape CDs that they have been producing for years. This HUGE news in the hip hop community since their is an entire underground of distribution built on the mixtape where DJs produce em, artists contribute and labels use them to generate buzz. All clues point to the RIAA as the one's behind the complaints that got the cops involved. The RIAA runs the grammy game and, well, this is a huge shot across the bow. If you think DRM sucks (and I do), we aint seen nothin yet. Next up, another attempt to make users criminals. Here's a great to video about the situation.

This is nothing new. I always note that in the 80s when the record industry used to print record bags that said, "home taping is killing music", the record store I used to shop at sold a sticker that said "home fucking is killing prostitution". I just wished the RIAA would wise up and understand that DRM and these "bust-the-underground" tactics is just part of an inept business strategy that only makes people like me want to buy less, not more music. It's a big-time turn off and doesn't make any sense. As far as I am concerned busting these DJs for reworking these hits (typically mixtape cds only give you a few minutes of any artists), is really killing the only form of distribution that so many artists get. You can't hear the Clipse on the radio, but you can get them on a cheap and convenient CD that may make you want to buy the next Clipse release. It's a terrible system that is having a poor time dealing with the realities of "user generated" technologies and practices. The sad thing is that it is the one that has the most to gain.

More on that later though, right now I just want to think about Stewart Copeland throwing his sticks at Sting's eyeballs halfway through "De Doo Doo Dah". Ahh, fantasies...

Friday Morning Post Flow Blues

Ok, ok, it's clear that m thoughts and work are starting to swell, and that is a good thing! And the thought of writing a new book is something I am actually looking forward to, although the last one took so much hard work and time. That said, all of that hard work was competely worth it. I have my own thoughts on what it means to work, pace and the like... let's just say it is something that it is contingent on the project at hand and is similar to my thoughts on cooking (yeah, I wrote COOKING!).

So, The Flow Conference was quite inspirational for me. I don't think every conference should be like this, but I can honestly say that I wouldn't mind if it was every other conference. All of this had to do with the format, which I think my friend Derek gets just right when he notes,

The idea was to open up the usual conference panel formula (i.e., four 20-minute papers, followed by about 15 minutes of discussion) to allow for much more interaction. For the most part, this worked well, with most sessions that I attended having active, engaging discussions for most of their allotted time. However, some panels had too many “official” participants (one that I went to had eight), which sucked up a bit more time and attention. It took almost an hour to get through the panelists’ statements a couple of times on panels this size. So, in future, I’d cap the number of participants per panel at six, and more strongly suggest the 2-3 minute time limit on their statements; again, let’s get to the discussion.

Yeah, well, I klind of agree, even if my presentation clocked in at around 5 or 6 minutes. If you have 6 people going 5 minutes it will clock in at 30 with an hour and a half of discussion. Ideally. I was at one session where a person took around 15 minutes to present. Heck, tack on 5 minutes and you got a standard paper presentation at larger conference, which is what you do not want for this kind of conference, which was supposed to "flow" and, for the most part did. I now my own panel just rocked and rolled in a really rhythmic and smart manner, all of which was due to the right mix of particpants and the format. A real rarity.

But now it is Friday, almost a wweek since the conference and while I am resting my mind a bit, I am getting amped up to write and begin a new book proposal, grading and, well... see Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. Nice!

If it's Thursday, Then Its... Tip Time

Ok, I am going to try to make Thursday my day for Tips... Intellectual Tips that Is. And that's not advice, but rather acknowledgements of the advice or programs that people have shared with me. This week, my nod goes to...

• Brett Boessen gets big ups for turning me onto Open Source Radio, in particular the program titled The Evolution of Football, which is an amazing show centered on Michael Lewis' new book, Blind Side.

Diversity and Cultural Production Communities - Flow Conference

Participants:
Moderator: Jean Lauer - Welcome to the very last panel and I want to invite everyone to the Dog & Duck Pub. How has television changed in the post network age and have various forms of diversity been addressed and ignored.

Vicki Mayer (Tulane University) - I will begin. Let me say straight out to be in panels talking about production and I do want to say that everyone who is sitting here has a different relation to all of this. Production in cultural studies becomes a veru relevant issue. The asy answer in the past was we don't have diverse people in production roles so we do not have diverse representations. But if we broaden our focus we may see diversity... on reality shows for example. Of course this is in a non-union non-guild manner. But this is problematic. In casting these shows, 99% of reality casting is done by women and gay men. It is emotional labor to get crazy people to do the labor to get people on Tv and say crazy stuff. So if you are a straight man it is hard to get into this, which is a challenge in an odd way. To what degree are these subjectivities determined by production roles.

Sharon Ross (Columbia College) - I am coming at thyis from a small media arts role and I do it froma a writing and production track. We have a very high percentage of minority and first gen college students. What is the way that we can pose a series of change. One thing that comes up over and over is what do we mean when we say diversity and our writers and producers don;t understand this issue. What is the relationship between diversity and choice? How can the classroom change this. You often get race in her where niches fold into choice. We get a terrible problematic of nicheing. Then you get the Wire which is brilliant but no one watches it. And these things are interested in it but often they are stymied by the roles that they see in production culture. How do we incorporate these tools at the production level -- critical theory in production -- so we can get ethics and cultural responsibility.

Belinda Acosta (Austin Chronicle) - I don'[t know why I am here and I am not an academic. However I get questions like this in many ways about diversity, because I have the brownest face in the room. And I get paid to watch TV. Ultimately for a number of reasons I am interested to have diverse people in the industry. I ahve a big thing with young people to look at TV and see the invisible structures that help us interpretp material such as class. No one wants to talk about class. And class exists. Class defines what we think is good, real, authentic and of quality. My personal viewing is interesting. I don't love "Ugly betty" -- maybe the only person in the US who doesn't love it. Those ABC and FOX are trying to find the "Brown Dollar" but I am sick of being treated as homogenous. We are not all bilingual, nor are we all "Mexican".

John Caldwell (University of California, Los Angeles) - In the last few years I have been doing cultural studies fieldwork and this started off with fruistration about high-level executive interviews. The higher you go up the food chain the least credible you get. I would gvet producers who speak in pre-crafted soundbites. This is in some ways about self-branding. But I have a better affinity with gaffers and grips and sometimes their truth is from the fact that they are more desperate than execs. There is a massive and accelerating supply of Labor in LA and this makes a problem for all kinds of diversity issues. Also, everyone wants to make you work for nothing in LA. I can't tell you how many people would work for nothing who were PAs. The stories are unbvelievable. The other part of this is that academics are part of this overproduction. We produce too many people to get kicked around at Viacom. I realize how one rises up in the indy and it starts with interning and moving on up. The class nature of universities in the US is a huge issue. What we could do is never place working class students on teh writer's staff of the Simpsons, but at other places lik UC Long Beach they are getting into things like "Hard Copy" and other "low" media.

Miranda Banks (USC) I want to say that one thing about issues of gender are key. Think about costume designers and this is interesting... it is below "the line:" and out of the 660 of these people 600 are women, about 50 are gay men. These are the lowest paid of the "Top" "Below the line" industries. On the other hand about 3% women in terms of cinematagraphers and they are at the "Top" of the pay level. And this is seen in salary differences. In the piece that i wrote was to stretch this term diversity. The amount that poeople are paid is going down, indeed, But more importantly you are doing the work of a number of different jobs. Think of costume designers and supervisors. No one wants to pay designers, but they want supervisors to do that in order to drive down costs and go against thye union rules. IATSE is losing camera operators because of HD digital. And someone holds that camera, just not a camera operator. And then, again, in Raelity Shows, what is "writing". People are writing but they are called producers. And in some cases these are editors.


Spencer Nutting (independent media producer) - I was able to get on this panel and as a gay male in the media who produces it as a gay male. There is a funny thing about this on 60 Minutes recently abou affectations whether or not they were gay. This is an interesting thing. Think about the Office and "Gay Witch Hunt". With that in mind and get a little more serious. But most people don't know that I am gay until I say it. And television is all about stereotypes. We are always going to tell us something "gay" will be on TV with a "Viewer Discretion Advised" telegraphs that something "gay" will be on TV (references famous "All in the Family" about gays on TV). The brunt of the joke about the Office is that the manager doesn't know how to deal with the issue of how to act appropriately with Gay people...

Moderator -- Let's open this up

Miranda -- One of the things about Producers is that they know how to "define" what they are doing, theior conceptual pitch. But people "below the line" are baffled by why people would want anyone to ask us about it since they then give us the most exciting conversation about these shows. This desire to to talk to the producer may actually be better suited to looking and thge "bleoiw the line:" aspect.

Elana Levine -- In my experience no one knows what to talk about when addressing scholars. This includes producers. The best way would be doing observational type of work.

LS Kim -- Could we pick up and talk about Sahron's query define diversity. If we are going to bother top deal with diversity, well, what does it mean?

Vicki -- For me this term.. I almost never ask people about it in this language since it seems to work on a liberal model and we are schooled in PC language. But when you ask what are the characteristics about "doing your job" then you begin to realize that everyone who did this work was female or a gay male. My next step is to study people and watching them do their job.

Sharon -- I have a similar experience with the word diversity and working with people in the industry and the word is incredibly overused. For my students it is a term that we try to unravel because the term seems useless. We essentially toss aside that word and talk about "Authenticity" and "authentic" representations. But I am seeking new tools and new vocab.

Belinda -- I am a Latina and I want our stories being told and that old line. I am looking for meaty and interesting stories. One of the shows I love to hate is "Grey's Anatomy" and I was thrilled about Snadra Oh's character and about how her story was complicated and she is driven but works hard and we do not see her this way... but that was in the pilot and Sandra Oh, though, is now just angry and driven in her work. I like to see how hgard it is to be a human being is represented.

John -- I am not certain I can name what diversity but I know I can name it when it doesn't exist. In a tradition where class is key, the workers are the key. In LA by many people who look at a highly paid cmaeraworker may be a problem and old people are sometimes seen as evil by young workers. I am interested in broader economic schemes here is a great way. But Postfordist anxieties and overproduction is a problem for "people" and great for "industry". Of course, I am giving you and example in Los Angeles and LA loves itself as being multiculti but class is a problem if you do not know how to "eat properly" or play "Golf" with the right people. You can get your ambitions beaten out of you so easily there

Miranda -- I think John is right and I think about how no guy wants to hire their Mom in tyhe writers room. This is one way to thionk of class and labor issues, but in gender. I think that there are those kinds of issues and their are diversity of cultures and what kinds of communities that you are suppoised to be involved in. The culture that one's surround themselves in in each level of production are very different. You need to piece apart production and how each subsection has its own politics.

LS -- Yeah, that;s why I thought that this would be useful.

Spencer -- I think diversity is a "tool that has been implemented by the gay mafia" ...so you can ask Jerry Falwell and they will tell you that this is about tolerating those gays and the like. In Antidiscrimination policies based on race, gender and age... and then disabled and sexual orientation and the rainbow concept of diversity... and where does it all end? Well, diversity begins and ends with us and it is everywhere. Instead of the melting pot we are a salad... and this is a way of looking for us

Audience -- I am British and talkking about class in America makes me nervous. Look at Universities... in Britain it is about middle classing the profession. There are distinct ways of conducting ourselves and these alienate working class people. I think it is horrible that the working class are becoming the subjects rather than production... see Wife Swap.

John -- I like what you were saying on so many levels. Let us think about using a different word than "The Industry" and think about how there are many specifics and locals. There are many local and in-depth studies. I come from a rural whiote trash background and I do not feel that I fit in. Think about NYU and the working class students who take humungous loans at a place like that to make their calling card films.

Miranda -- I know many people who work as gaffers and electricians and they lead a solid job...

Audience -- In Britain that work would not be seen as a middle class job...

Miranda -- Yes, but this is about income. Writyers coming from Liberal Arts education and the issues of class are recomplicated and the issues have to do with background that is cultural.

Audience -- How do you teach diversity -- I teach that it doesn not exist and something that does not exist. And let us think about this at an international level. Is it possible to see homosexuality in CAmeroon as a mafia... well, it is criminalized there.

Spencer -- How many of you are familiar in The Wire. The show is incredible that there are Gay and Lesbian characters in both the police and the crime levels. One of the police commanders is a self-loathing gay man. What the show appears to be and what the show is and the city of Baltimore sets it up with the issue of class and how the criminal class is set up at a very young age. How do you break the cycle of crime. One of the interesting thinsg you do when you "come out" is breaking the cycle. What I am trying to say is that when I came out it came down to where do I want to go with my life?

Amanda Lotz -- Could we reflect on this on how it fits in the tradition of cultural studies and political economy?

Vicki -- It's a long history in sociology and cultural studies where we break apart cultural models. Many of the things that set up subcultuires that percolate up... you don't start with Badigkian and work your way down but you reframe them in many different ways. There is so much room out there to start. Where does it start and where does it start and does it start with the maker of the TV sets.

Audience -- We have heard about many of the barriers to production. I would like to think about this in terms of downward mobility and then go down from college to working on a cheap reality tv show. There is a strong parallel.

Spencer -- Think about Public Access TV. I am a producer here in Austin and have a license with them and it is the means of producing and ending up with production. We have to think about it in terms of wise use and the knowledge that takes me there. Resources are the key for me.

Vicki -- I want to address John's comment. There are so many people out there and people want to this

Audience -- I want to talk about this in such a way that maybe if a Minority who get into a position of power.

I make a pleas for studying popular music media

Audience -- Let us think about TV voting as a mode of interdisciplinarity

John -- Ok, work matters. I think in the terms of textual analysis that is done is short sighted work. One of the things that is celebrated in the system is something that works for profit. And then there is a textual economy... you move something un and where this is. And any time there is instability you have an opportunity.

Spncer -- There are more opportunities now than there were in the recent past. Many people can now create and distribute and there is a way of making a calling card and this is good.

Vicki -- Let us look at call centers though and in Maquilladoras where work is being more and more... dehumanized.

John -- Let us think about the critical activity and the wokr that is done -- this is something that is something that helps us think about it TV in this way.

Audience -- critical studies people and production department... there seems to be a way in which none of this is supported. Critical studies are not encouraged to do any production.

John -- And the MFA doesn't want to give us places for critical studies in many ways in allowing these courses that come about.

Jyotsna kapur -- Let us look at this in a post-fordist economies, which you have. We think about this in terms of a lot of working class and first gen studies and students come from a consumerist idea of getting a job that is, at the same time, have an interest in getting insights about political economic theory and the like.