who's failing whom?

Last week, crusading tech journalist Jesse Brown published a column with Toronto Life magazine in which he boasted about being a "thief." Brown accesses creative content (television shows and movies) by doing an end run around the copyright holders of that content, despite the fact that much of what he wants to see is perfectly available to him in Canada -- 30 Rock, one of the examples he uses in his article is even available free at the CityTV website.

What cheap, piratical satisfaction Brown gets from stealing copyrighted material is a mystery to me, but his column helped to refocus the debate about whether or not copyright infringement is theft. I think most reasonable people would say it is theft (and sleep well at night knowing Margaret Atwood agrees with us); free culture folks say it, technically, isn't theft... except one of free culture's most vocal defenders, Jesse Brown, proudly calls it theft and vows to keep doing it.

Crusading free culture academic, Michael Geist, joined the twitter conversation around Brown's article only to accuse Brown's detractors of being corporate astroturfers. I made a direct appeal to the good doctor to spell out how he feels about Brown's illegal downloading behaviours. Geist declined to answer despite numerous prompts. Does the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law agree with his friend Jesse Brown that what he boasts of doing is theft, and does he approve of it? We may never know.

But today we did learn that - theft or not - Dr. Geist does not believe Brown's behaviour is particularly Brown's fault. According to Geist, piracy is not a legal failure; it's a market failure. We shouldn't blame Brown for stealing 30 Rock. We should blame 30 Rock for not creating a market that would make itself more available to Brown (let's just ignore that whole free-at-the-CityTV-website detail).

If we follow Geist's argument, any time the market does provide the content in a simple and affordable and convenient way, there will be no large-scale pirating of that material. The folks at the New York Times better hope so, because the tech world has already cracked their paywall (even before the official launch) and is gleefully letting everyone else know how to get Times content without paying for it.

Sure, the Times is the newspaper of record for much of the English speaking world, it has some of the best writers on staff and in print, it's maybe the most recognizable and valuable media brand on the planet, and it's been providing hassle-free online content as long as most folks have been reading news online. Sure, their paywall design is relatively unobstructive, inviting, sharing, and affordable. Sure, their product is, without question, worth the price of a couple pints of beer per month. All that being true and undisputed, I think we can still expect the New York Times to be blamed by Geist and his free culture followers for failing to provide a reasonable market to media consumers and therefore causing its own piracy headaches.

(logo courtesy The New York Times)

when a crowd turns ugly

(image courtesy... me)

When the Toronto Blue Jays won their second straight World Series title in 1993, I was working a cultural industry tradeshow at a downtown Toronto hotel. The show ended just as the final game of the series was winding down, and I managed to see Joe Carter's famous home-run blast in a hotel bar crowded with suddenly exuberant Torontonians. As I left the hotel, I noticed a rowdy stream of people heading for Yonge and Dundas, one of the city's spontaneous gathering places for crowds.

Naturally, I joined the stream. Thousands of people packed the intersection and all of Yonge Street for blocks north and south. A huge celebration was taking place. It was exciting and fun… until it suddenly wasn’t. As I worked my way toward a large video wall outside the HMV record store (they were repeating game highlights) I came to the realization that I was no longer just in a crowd, I was trapped in a crowd. We were packed shoulder to shoulder, and I felt real pressure from the mass of bodies around me. There was no room to move, and when the crowd lurched this way or that, I had no choice but to lurch along. I’m a big guy, but my combined weight and strength could do little to control my direction.

I felt panic rising in me, and that’s when I saw the two young women. They were maybe 16 years old, and they had been completely exhausted by their own fight to get out of the mob. They were crying and on the verge of hysteria because they simply could not move, and probably felt as I did that they could be crushed if they ever lost their footing. Using a combination of yelling, arm-waving and pure physical intimidation, I forced my way through the tightly packed mob and acted as a football blocker for the two women. I stepped on feet, forced people left and right and finally got the three of us to a relatively clear section of sidewalk on Edward Street near the World’s Biggest Bookstore.

The line between joy and ugliness was mighty thin for me in that experience, and ever since then I’ve been leery of crowd dynamics. I’m not saying anyone in that celebrating crowd would necessarily have wanted to do anything stupid or violent or even criminal but, if they had, what could possibly have stopped them? Crowds can work with an inertia that is beyond control, and there’s little predicting what they’ll do. These days I do my celebrating in small groups, and when I do find myself in a crowd, I watch it carefully. I have the same mild demophobia when it comes to the Internet, which has weird crowd dynamics all its own, and which are often amplified by the ‘net’s anonymity and immediacy.

The New York Times’ John Tierney has written a science column, The Madness of Crowds and an Internet Delusion, about the 'net and its sometimes mobbish qualities. In it, he highlights some fascinating trends in social interaction and even ethics. It is a timely and clear-headed critique of the very trendy notion of open culture.

Here are some highlights, and the full article can be read at the link above:

[Digital theorist Jaron Lanier] blames the Web’s tradition of “drive-by anonymity” for fostering vicious pack behavior on blogs, forums and social networks. He acknowledges the examples of generous collaboration, like Wikipedia, but argues that the mantras of “open culture” and “information wants to be free” have produced a destructive new social contract…

“An intelligent person feels guilty for downloading music without paying the musician, but they use this free-open-culture ideology to cover it,” Mr. Lanier told me. In the book he disputes the assertion that there’s no harm in copying a digital music file because you haven’t damaged the original file.

“The same thing could be said if you hacked into a bank and just added money to your online account,” he writes. “The problem in each case is not that you stole from a specific person but that you undermined the artificial scarcities that allow the economy to function.”

respect the work, respect the worker

The scrawl on the wall says what about the workers,
And the voice of the people says more salt please

-- Billy Bragg

A couple nights ago, I finished watching the fifth and final season of The Wire, HBO's addictive series that turns the many layers of inner-city Baltimore into a slick, Shakespearean drama about the crumbling of human civilization. Those familiar with the show will know the fifth season focuses on the media and its increasing impotence and complicity in the giant sinkhole of corruption destroying America's cities. The Wire’s fictional newspaper fiddles its stories while Baltimore burns.

David Simon, one of the show’s creators, has been vocal with his disgust for the current state of print journalism. In an interview with The Guardian, Simon scoffs at media owners who “showed ‘contempt for their product’ and are now reaping the whirlwind.” Professional journalism costs money, he argues, and the current business model of free internet content in a climate of falling advertising sales is creating a breeding ground for public corruption free from the traditional examination by media pros. "The internet does froth and commentary very well,” he says, “but you don't meet many internet reporters down at the courthouse."

Agree? Disagree? There’s no shortage of opinions on the topic of giving it away for free online. Will the demand for professional journalism, writing or publishing ever be completely displaced by the immediacy and “democracy” of blogging, citizen journalism, endless comment loops and all the other forms of digital delivery driving down the asking price for professionally produced content? Is there anything more valuable in the great babble of the democratic crowd than a voice of authority built on hard trench work?

The evolutionary struggles of newspapers, print publishers and writers to “deal with digital” can be painful to behold, but a hopeful emerging theme is the true value of professional creative work. Big news in the book trade, of course, is the rise of e-books and their sudden power to re-value old work. Big name authors Steven R. Covey (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People) and William Styron (Sophie’s Choice) - or at least his heirs - have recently made waves in the industry by transferring e-book rights from their longtime print publishers to new, upstart e-book distribution companies offering larger percentages to the authors.

While this is arguably an advantageous time for writers and their heirs (who doesn’t appreciate larger percentages?), it’s important to understand the difference between the development and publication of an original work, and an e-book that often is a simple PDF of established work. Jonathan Galassi, president of the revered New York publishing house Farrar, Straus & Giroux knows a thing or two about the work that goes into original publication. In a recent commentary in the New York Times, he urges the vast population of free-loving internet consumers to understand and respect the true work that goes into original publication.

In this increasingly virtual age of open access and universal availability, it’s important for readers to keep in mind what it is that a publisher does for an author. A publisher — and I write as one — does far more than print and sell a book. It selects, nurtures, positions and promotes the writer’s work. An e-book distributor is not a publisher, but rather a purveyor of work that has already been created.

According to Galassi, professional book publishing (and writing) is hard, valuable work. According to David Simon, professional journalism is hard, valuable work. And of course, all professional creation is hard, valuable work – a fact the internet’s vaunted immediacy and availability can unfortunately overlook.

One of my many Twitter-friends is a professional photographer I deeply respect. Her work is raw, fearless, often hilarious, and more often painfully honest. Much of it involves self-portraiture, and all of it is available to be seen, for free, on her website. Importantly though, she also sells her work in limited edition prints and published collections she creates through a self-publishing site. I’m guessing she does quite well at this business – she’s “internet famous.” Though you can see her work online, it is not made available for re-use through a Creative Commons license. Since this artist intends to make money through her art, she reserves all rights with a traditional copyright declaration.

A couple weeks back this artist was passing a local print shop in her neighbourhood and saw one of her photographs in the window. It was being used by the print shop to advertise their services. It would be disturbing enough, I imagine, seeing your work being used without permission, but since her work is also her face, you can imagine her surprise. She went in, asked about the image and was told by the shop owner that he’d snatched the photo from the internet because he liked it and thought it would work well for his advertising purposes. When she pointed out that the work was hers, that it took time, professional skill, expertise and artistry to make it, and that generally she is paid for her professional work, the conversation turned much less friendly. Imagine, arguing with a stranger over the use of your own face. It was an unhappy enough experience, in fact, that this artist has asked me not to name her.

Why are we happy to allow the internet to respect the work but not the worker – all the workers?

I can’t think of a single instance in my career when the process of being edited and professionally published hasn’t improved what I’ve written. I like posting to a blog, but I try not to fool myself that what I write here is writing in the same sense that my novel (professionally edited – three times), my poetry (same), or my journalism (endlessly, painfully edited) is “writing.” I may use this free space to comment on and about the professional world I work in, but I make a distinction between the two spaces.

Oliver Burkeman and his team of Guardian editors worked hard to produce the David Simon interview. David Simon, his fellow writers, cast and crew worked hard to create The Wire. Jonathan Galassi worked hard to write his commentary on e-books, and works hard every day to publish some of the finest books in the English language. My photographer colleague works hard to produce her art, and her income. This hard work has value and that value must be respected.

Whatever the emerging digital business model for professional creation, shouldn’t it respect the value of all the work that goes into creation?

googling Sony

(image courtesy ailatan on Flickr)

In a slight detour from their idealistic attempt to bring the world's print-based public domain to the digital public square, Google has struck an undisclosed financial deal with electronics giant Sony to provide premium access to Google's scanned super-library of world literature for Sony's Reader device.

Sony is hoping that the partnership and its newly expanded library help slow some of the Kindle’s momentum. Amazon currently has 250,000 books in its Kindle library, but it stresses that they are the books people are most interested in reading, like new releases and best sellers.

Read all about it, for free!, at the New York Times website.

so there's free!... and then there's free?

As mentioned in the previous posting, this is Freedom to Read Week in Canada -- a time to celebrate and insist upon the right to free expression.

But just to be clear, "free" does not necessarily mean "unpaid."

From the New York Times today:

The Kindle Swindle?

... thanks to Bookninja for the link.

tales of the back catalogue (sort of)

(image courtesy the New York Times and Marvel Comics)

Today the New York Times has a story on one of my favorite comic characters, Captain America. What can I say, I like mighty shields.

The article contains this interesting passage:

On the frontier of a new industry, writers and artists creat[ed] scores of characters, but publishers profit[ed] from them.

These days creators have learned from the past by self-publishing or otherwise securing the rights to their progeny. But some of the founding fathers of American superheroes are still seeking justice. Just last month a federal judge ruled that the heirs of Jerry Siegel, a creator of Superman, were entitled to claim a share of the United States copyright of the character. Time Warner, which owns DC Comics, would retain the international rights.

“That’s great,” the bespectacled Mr. Simon said. “Jerry Siegel started it,” he added, referring to the effort by Mr. Siegel’s wife and daughter in 1997 to secure the copyright to Superman. (Under a 1976 law, heirs can recover the rights to their relatives’ creations under certain circumstances. Mr. Siegel died in 1996 without major compensation for his character.) That family’s stand inspired Mr. Simon’s own claim to Captain America in 1999.

Captain Copyright may have been forced into an underground hideout by mobs of pot-crazed anarchists (or something like that), but he still manages to save the odd widow and orphan.

And congratulations to Wikipedia on that fair and balanced article about Captain Copyright. Good to see new media isn't falling into the same patterns as old media.