Also, as I have been following international financial discussions, I've come to see that what passes for finance doesn't involve any real wealth creation. It's a lot of numbers back and forth. Makes you wonder if in the end we could just eliminate money altogether. Not just physical money, but the entire concept. If much of it is just generated in a computer and doesn't really represent much other than the acceptance of power/control/wealth, maybe in the end a lot of it is meaningless.
Between 3D printing, robotics, better technology, and nanotechnology, in a couple years everything is going to change in a serious way. When anyone can manufacture anything at home it destroys the current system because scarcities disappear. Shipping, telecom, pharma, manufacturing, construction, etc all gone.
My Internet experience goes back to the BBS days and then the beginning of the WWW. So I have watched the commercialization of the Internet evolve.
Although there are some revolutionary forces, what I see are Internet entrepreneurs who are still locked into old systems and aren't prepared to be disrupted themselves. When companies are launched with VC money and then go public, they are constrained by the traditional forces of Wall Street. Decisions are made based on profitability and quarterly results. Our financial systems tend to reward activities that don't necessarily produce the kinds of changes that society can really use.
I see a Silicon Alley bubble that seems to me to be as myopic as what I see from Wall Street and from Hollywood. So I encourage people to think outside their own boxes, whatever those may be.
I've been interested in what people have been writing about concerning a post-capitalist society. The shareable movement seems the most concrete right now in terms of changing the way we view consumption. I'm also intrigued with projects that are designed to address the needs of the poorest in the world rather than those who have lots of disposable income.
The very nature of work will likely change as machines can do more and more things. Theoretically, this should give us more free time, but what we currently see are some groups working excessive hours and others unemployed. Youth unemployment in Europe will be an on-going issue. And US young adults who are living with parents in order to pay off college loans is also changing consumption dynamics. Overall, the issue of income inequality.
I've been following Michel Bauwens, who founded the P2P Foundation. Here's his latest. He goes beyond focusing on music and copyright. He looks at a much bigger picture.
The thing I fear from GMO's, is the fact that they are just one more way for massive, bureaucratic, monstrosities called corporations to seek rent money from things even the poor depend on, namely food.
Yes, I feel the same way. I don't want Big Ag to own the world's food supply.
What complicates things in terms of health is that what might be conventional wisdom at one point may be disproved later on. For example, it was considered "modern" for women to bottle feed. Now we know that breastfeeding is better, and yet for years we had to battle formula companies not to pressure women, particularly poor women, to favor formula over breast milk.
Back in the 1950s, tonsillitis was sometimes treated with radiation. Now we know that it can result decades later in thyroid cancer.
Once I became pregnant, I became much more aware of what I was exposed to and what my kids were exposed to. Are concerns about GMOs too extreme? I don't know. But I want the option not to have GMO foods. And I worry that we'll have a rebound effect giving us superbugs and superweeds and the system will end up being more out of whack than it was before.
That's difficult, considering the amount of fearmongering and misinformation spread by the opponents of GMO food.
So, even though GMOs are saving mankind, they need to be kept secret because of PR?
I actually didn't pay too much attention to them until recently. I've always tried to avoid pesticides and herbicides, so in general I prefer organic foods. While GMOs might reduce the needs of herbicides and pesticides on crops, if they result in harder-to-kill weeds and bugs, we're back to where we were.
What got me worried about GMOs is that they can spread to non-GMO crops and then the farmers get sued for having them. That sounds like a power play to me.
People do have the right to avoid GMOs and countries do have the right to prevent them from being grown within their borders. If labeling helps consumers identify what they want to buy, it sounds like a good thing to me.
One problem is these Monsanto "miracles" are already losing effectiveness. We've got pests and weeds that have mutated to dodge what Monsanto produces. So Monsanto not only wants to control crops around the world, it must keep trying to produce new products to stay in the game.
People want the option not to have these plants. And poor farmers particularly don't want to be dependent on a large corporation providing them with expensive products. So they are fighting a system where unwanted crops contaminate their own crops and then they are sued for having them.
Also, another big issue has been labeling. You want to grow GMOs? Fine, but don't balk if countries ask you to label the foods that have them. In fact, if GMOs are so great, presumably you'd be proud to sell labeled GMO foodstuffs.
What I have been saying is that the Rumblefish incident is just one of many involving multiple companies. I'm concerned with how ContentID works. In this case, it wasn't able to properly identify content, and then the problem was compounded by the fact that a company claimed copyright on video content it should not have claimed copyright.
It's a multiple part problem and pointing to Rumblefish will not fix it. You guys think that since I won't limit my focus to Rumblefish, I must be the enemy. In fact, I am saying that the entire system is flawed. It's much better than having YouTube not exist. And it's a good system to spread advertising venue to content creators. But sometimes videos are misidentified. I'd say it's probably a relatively small percentage of videos that are misidentified, but it does happen.
What's interesting whenever people attack me on TechDirt is that I am actually more radical than most of you. I'm all in favor of democratization of creativity and am wary of any big companies involved in the process. It's been interesting watching the tide start to turn against Apple, Facebook, Google, etc., and to watch them all battle against each other.
Here. This is what I wrote about 1 1/2 years ago. I've updated it a bit as people ask me questions in the comments section. I have maintained that YouTube is doing its best to put music licensing forward without actually rewriting the laws (which will be a long and drawn out process). So I think what Google is doing is good.
That quote was taken from the Reddit article. I just used the "Blog This" tool (created by Google) to pull the quote out with the link. Sorry that confused you.
Google set up Content ID to keep YouTube in business. Of course it is self-serving for Google, but I like the fact that YouTube is still in business.
You guys can declare war on IP laws, copyright holders, Content ID, and/or Google for all I care. Please attack your "real" enemies. Not me.
Here's the issue facing musicians. They are encouraged to cover songs and upload them to YouTube. Over and over again they are told how doing this will launch their careers. However, technically to do that they need synch licenses. Those are hard to come by because there is no set clearing house and no set price for them. Google on the one hand wants musicians to upload these videos, but on the other hand, doesn't explain how they can obtain the proper licenses.
So someone like me ends up saying, "There's no guarantee that the video will remain if you don't have a license you probably can't get anyway, but almost no musicians run into trouble, so do it." I'm just trying to push Google to clarify what is allowable. However, they don't really want to say because they don't want to go on record about encouraging people to upload videos without proper licenses.
What I am hoping is that the new deals with publishers will turn Google into the Harry Fox of synch licensing so that there is an understandable system to explain to musicians.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Content ID the problem?
If Rumblefish wouldn't have confirmed it, then there would have been no problem.
In this instance there wouldn't have been a problem. But there have been other cases where companies have falsely claimed copyright on a video they really have no rightful claim.
I'm not trying to defend Rumblefish. I have no interest in the company.
What does interest me is how Content ID works since I know so many musician friends who upload themselves singing songs they didn't write. Content ID is the system that will decide if those videos stay or go. I am not anti-Content ID by any means. It's a great interim solution to music licensing involving online video.
I just spend a lot of time looking for some answers to pass on to musicians. The Rumblefish incident illustrates a glitch in the system. One can either accept that these things will happen, or one can try to find solutions to reduce or eliminate these problems.
Your employee reaffirmed a claim because you allowed it, because in every previous case of this Google tells the little guy to suck it, they must be lying.
You do realize I don't work for Rumblefish, have never sent them any music, and have absolutely nothing to do with either Google or Rumblefish.
I've been paying attention to Content ID since Google first announced it because I know a lot of musicians who record themselves singing other people's songs and upload them. It's never been fully explained by Google or anyone else which of those songs will be allowed to remain up and which ones won't be. Most musicians know about obtaining a mechanical license from Harry Fox, but there is no easy way to obtain a synch license and therefore most don't. Google doesn't want to discourage this because it isn't in itself self-interest to do so, but on the other hand, it hasn't really provided info on how to obtain the proper licenses in advance. Content ID sort of handles the problem by identifying songs and then letting the video creator knowing after the fact whether the video gets to stay or not. It's a work around given current laws and their interpretation. I'd rather this than no YouTube while the various companies spend years trying to sort out copyright laws. This work around allows YouTube to function in an environment which is still being defined legally.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Content ID the problem?
We are not asking how to fix step 2. We are asking how you plan to fix step 5.
Obviously I'm not going to fix anything. I don't work for Google.
Google could add some penalties to punish companies inappropriately requesting that videos be taken down. But given that this problem has happened in the past and Google hasn't set up any system to correct it, it's probably not a high priority for Google right now.
Once a video is wrongly tagged, it is no longer sent to that company. So for each screw up, hopefully it would only happen once.
Are there ways to remove human error altogether? Perhaps. The "ideal" Content ID system would work so flawlessly that no human intervention would ever be necessary. That's not going to happen, of course, but if the technology were continued to be improved each time there is a failure, that would help.
As I have said here many times, you are all welcome to try to eliminate copyright altogether, but you'll have a long haul ahead of you. YouTube has at least found a reasonable solution until that point. It's not perfect, but at least it keeps YouTube functioning in the meantime.
Yes, that'd be interesting, but it still wouldn't alleviate the problem of the content rights owner "accidentally" affirming infringement after supposedly manually reviewing the video.
No it wouldn't. So this would end up being a case-by-case correction. Each time a video is wrongfully tagged and removed, whatever resulted in the tagging in the first place is corrected. I'm not saying it is the best solution to the entire situation, but at least it would eliminate having the same mistake occur multiple times.
If there isn't a self-educating system, I suppose every video with a certain type of bird sound is going to get flagged and each one is going to be sent to Rumblefish for review.
The bigger issue: Why is YouTube (Google) bending over backwards to the pro-copyright thought police? I'd tell 'em to get lost. What are they gonna do, take down YouTube? Pffft, yeah, right.
Content ID has been a great way to push music licensing forward, so I think it was an inspired move on Google's part. YouTube could not have rolled back copyright laws any time soon (if ever). Rather than fighting it, Google found a work around which showed copyrights holders how they could make money, which was better for them than tying up the system in endless lawsuits.
I suppose there gets to be a point where Google is so big and powerful that it can tell governments to shove it, but that bigness generates its own set of backlashes. And I'm seeing signs of it all ready for Apple, Google, Facebook, and others. They are no longer the warm, fuzzy underdog startups.
On the post: 'We, The Web Kids': Manifesto For An Anti-ACTA Generation
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: A possible companion piece?
On the post: 'We, The Web Kids': Manifesto For An Anti-ACTA Generation
Re: Re: Re: Re: A possible companion piece?
Yes, that's the world I'm focused on.
On the post: 'We, The Web Kids': Manifesto For An Anti-ACTA Generation
Re: Thank you
Although there are some revolutionary forces, what I see are Internet entrepreneurs who are still locked into old systems and aren't prepared to be disrupted themselves. When companies are launched with VC money and then go public, they are constrained by the traditional forces of Wall Street. Decisions are made based on profitability and quarterly results. Our financial systems tend to reward activities that don't necessarily produce the kinds of changes that society can really use.
I see a Silicon Alley bubble that seems to me to be as myopic as what I see from Wall Street and from Hollywood. So I encourage people to think outside their own boxes, whatever those may be.
On the post: 'We, The Web Kids': Manifesto For An Anti-ACTA Generation
Re: Re: A possible companion piece?
The very nature of work will likely change as machines can do more and more things. Theoretically, this should give us more free time, but what we currently see are some groups working excessive hours and others unemployed. Youth unemployment in Europe will be an on-going issue. And US young adults who are living with parents in order to pay off college loans is also changing consumption dynamics. Overall, the issue of income inequality.
On the post: 'We, The Web Kids': Manifesto For An Anti-ACTA Generation
A possible companion piece?
The $100bn Facebook question: Will capitalism survive 'value abundance'?
On the post: Organic Farmers' Preemptive Lawsuit Against Monsanto Patents Tossed Out For Being A Bit Too Preemptive
Article from a couple of weeks ago
On the post: Organic Farmers' Preemptive Lawsuit Against Monsanto Patents Tossed Out For Being A Bit Too Preemptive
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Yes, I feel the same way. I don't want Big Ag to own the world's food supply.
On the post: Organic Farmers' Preemptive Lawsuit Against Monsanto Patents Tossed Out For Being A Bit Too Preemptive
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Attacks paid for by big business are 'driving science into a dark era' | Science | The Observer
What complicates things in terms of health is that what might be conventional wisdom at one point may be disproved later on. For example, it was considered "modern" for women to bottle feed. Now we know that breastfeeding is better, and yet for years we had to battle formula companies not to pressure women, particularly poor women, to favor formula over breast milk.
Back in the 1950s, tonsillitis was sometimes treated with radiation. Now we know that it can result decades later in thyroid cancer.
Once I became pregnant, I became much more aware of what I was exposed to and what my kids were exposed to. Are concerns about GMOs too extreme? I don't know. But I want the option not to have GMO foods. And I worry that we'll have a rebound effect giving us superbugs and superweeds and the system will end up being more out of whack than it was before.
On the post: Organic Farmers' Preemptive Lawsuit Against Monsanto Patents Tossed Out For Being A Bit Too Preemptive
Re: Re: Re:
So, even though GMOs are saving mankind, they need to be kept secret because of PR?
I actually didn't pay too much attention to them until recently. I've always tried to avoid pesticides and herbicides, so in general I prefer organic foods. While GMOs might reduce the needs of herbicides and pesticides on crops, if they result in harder-to-kill weeds and bugs, we're back to where we were.
What got me worried about GMOs is that they can spread to non-GMO crops and then the farmers get sued for having them. That sounds like a power play to me.
People do have the right to avoid GMOs and countries do have the right to prevent them from being grown within their borders. If labeling helps consumers identify what they want to buy, it sounds like a good thing to me.
On the post: Organic Farmers' Preemptive Lawsuit Against Monsanto Patents Tossed Out For Being A Bit Too Preemptive
Re:
People want the option not to have these plants. And poor farmers particularly don't want to be dependent on a large corporation providing them with expensive products. So they are fighting a system where unwanted crops contaminate their own crops and then they are sued for having them.
Also, another big issue has been labeling. You want to grow GMOs? Fine, but don't balk if countries ask you to label the foods that have them. In fact, if GMOs are so great, presumably you'd be proud to sell labeled GMO foodstuffs.
On the post: Guy Gets Bogus YouTube Copyright Claim... On Birds Singing In The Background
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Content ID the problem?
It's a multiple part problem and pointing to Rumblefish will not fix it. You guys think that since I won't limit my focus to Rumblefish, I must be the enemy. In fact, I am saying that the entire system is flawed. It's much better than having YouTube not exist. And it's a good system to spread advertising venue to content creators. But sometimes videos are misidentified. I'd say it's probably a relatively small percentage of videos that are misidentified, but it does happen.
What's interesting whenever people attack me on TechDirt is that I am actually more radical than most of you. I'm all in favor of democratization of creativity and am wary of any big companies involved in the process. It's been interesting watching the tide start to turn against Apple, Facebook, Google, etc., and to watch them all battle against each other.
On the post: Guy Gets Bogus YouTube Copyright Claim... On Birds Singing In The Background
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Music, Copyright, and YouTube
On the post: Guy Gets Bogus YouTube Copyright Claim... On Birds Singing In The Background
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Google set up Content ID to keep YouTube in business. Of course it is self-serving for Google, but I like the fact that YouTube is still in business.
You guys can declare war on IP laws, copyright holders, Content ID, and/or Google for all I care. Please attack your "real" enemies. Not me.
Here's the issue facing musicians. They are encouraged to cover songs and upload them to YouTube. Over and over again they are told how doing this will launch their careers. However, technically to do that they need synch licenses. Those are hard to come by because there is no set clearing house and no set price for them. Google on the one hand wants musicians to upload these videos, but on the other hand, doesn't explain how they can obtain the proper licenses.
So someone like me ends up saying, "There's no guarantee that the video will remain if you don't have a license you probably can't get anyway, but almost no musicians run into trouble, so do it." I'm just trying to push Google to clarify what is allowable. However, they don't really want to say because they don't want to go on record about encouraging people to upload videos without proper licenses.
What I am hoping is that the new deals with publishers will turn Google into the Harry Fox of synch licensing so that there is an understandable system to explain to musicians.
On the post: Guy Gets Bogus YouTube Copyright Claim... On Birds Singing In The Background
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Content ID the problem?
In this instance there wouldn't have been a problem. But there have been other cases where companies have falsely claimed copyright on a video they really have no rightful claim.
I'm not trying to defend Rumblefish. I have no interest in the company.
What does interest me is how Content ID works since I know so many musician friends who upload themselves singing songs they didn't write. Content ID is the system that will decide if those videos stay or go. I am not anti-Content ID by any means. It's a great interim solution to music licensing involving online video.
I just spend a lot of time looking for some answers to pass on to musicians. The Rumblefish incident illustrates a glitch in the system. One can either accept that these things will happen, or one can try to find solutions to reduce or eliminate these problems.
On the post: Guy Gets Bogus YouTube Copyright Claim... On Birds Singing In The Background
Re: Re: Re:
You do realize I don't work for Rumblefish, have never sent them any music, and have absolutely nothing to do with either Google or Rumblefish.
I've been paying attention to Content ID since Google first announced it because I know a lot of musicians who record themselves singing other people's songs and upload them. It's never been fully explained by Google or anyone else which of those songs will be allowed to remain up and which ones won't be. Most musicians know about obtaining a mechanical license from Harry Fox, but there is no easy way to obtain a synch license and therefore most don't. Google doesn't want to discourage this because it isn't in itself self-interest to do so, but on the other hand, it hasn't really provided info on how to obtain the proper licenses in advance. Content ID sort of handles the problem by identifying songs and then letting the video creator knowing after the fact whether the video gets to stay or not. It's a work around given current laws and their interpretation. I'd rather this than no YouTube while the various companies spend years trying to sort out copyright laws. This work around allows YouTube to function in an environment which is still being defined legally.
On the post: Guy Gets Bogus YouTube Copyright Claim... On Birds Singing In The Background
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Content ID the problem?
Rumblefish could completely disappear (which seems to be what you'd like) but that by itself won't eliminate potential problems.
On the post: Guy Gets Bogus YouTube Copyright Claim... On Birds Singing In The Background
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Content ID the problem?
Obviously I'm not going to fix anything. I don't work for Google.
Google could add some penalties to punish companies inappropriately requesting that videos be taken down. But given that this problem has happened in the past and Google hasn't set up any system to correct it, it's probably not a high priority for Google right now.
On the post: Guy Gets Bogus YouTube Copyright Claim... On Birds Singing In The Background
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Content ID the problem?
Once a video is wrongly tagged, it is no longer sent to that company. So for each screw up, hopefully it would only happen once.
Are there ways to remove human error altogether? Perhaps. The "ideal" Content ID system would work so flawlessly that no human intervention would ever be necessary. That's not going to happen, of course, but if the technology were continued to be improved each time there is a failure, that would help.
As I have said here many times, you are all welcome to try to eliminate copyright altogether, but you'll have a long haul ahead of you. YouTube has at least found a reasonable solution until that point. It's not perfect, but at least it keeps YouTube functioning in the meantime.
On the post: Guy Gets Bogus YouTube Copyright Claim... On Birds Singing In The Background
Re: Re: Re: Re: Content ID the problem?
No it wouldn't. So this would end up being a case-by-case correction. Each time a video is wrongfully tagged and removed, whatever resulted in the tagging in the first place is corrected. I'm not saying it is the best solution to the entire situation, but at least it would eliminate having the same mistake occur multiple times.
If there isn't a self-educating system, I suppose every video with a certain type of bird sound is going to get flagged and each one is going to be sent to Rumblefish for review.
On the post: Guy Gets Bogus YouTube Copyright Claim... On Birds Singing In The Background
Re:
Content ID has been a great way to push music licensing forward, so I think it was an inspired move on Google's part. YouTube could not have rolled back copyright laws any time soon (if ever). Rather than fighting it, Google found a work around which showed copyrights holders how they could make money, which was better for them than tying up the system in endless lawsuits.
I suppose there gets to be a point where Google is so big and powerful that it can tell governments to shove it, but that bigness generates its own set of backlashes. And I'm seeing signs of it all ready for Apple, Google, Facebook, and others. They are no longer the warm, fuzzy underdog startups.
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