“Steve Jobs is dead” read the headline on many a news blog last evening. For more than three hours my Twitter stream was filled with quotes, condolences, epiphanies of the frailty of life, and tributes to one the greatest inventors, innovators, and marketers ever to live in this earth. A connected globe of humans mourned this man’s passing in the same instant, connected to each other, united with each other, by way of their media extensions. Millions of people who, even six years ago, would mostly be considered strangers in the others’ minds were instantly family.

The transient nature of these connections is interesting–and probably a deeper topic for another post–and it led to a specific group of people (call them trolls or otherwise) who just could not understand the outpouring of tribute for a man they had never met. “Why,” they asked, “would we mourn someone who made mistakes? Who behaved, sometimes, like a terrible person? Whose life was focused on business?” ¶ Read More…

While I don’t believe that Amazon’s Cloud Drive is all that innovative or special or game-changing, the way they are handling the Big Four music labels very well could be. According to this story at Ars Technica, Amazon did no license negotiation with the Industry, opting instead to put up a logical defense that could be the beginnings of a major sea change in consumer media consumption.

“[W]e do not need a license to store music in Cloud Drive,” Griffin added in an e-mail to Ars. “The functionality of saving MP3s to Cloud Drive is the same as if a customer were to save their music to an external hard drive or even iTunes.”

Amazon is practically begging the RIAA and label legal counsels to break down their doors with lawsuits. However, I believe this act is what could be a major turning point for both major media creators and distributors, as well as for consumers.

If the Big Four were smart, they would work with Amazon, leave it alone for a few months, and more than likely see their sales rise. This is the next logical step in convenience purchasing for consumers. No longer do you have to download, toss into iTunes and sync the song with your player – now you can buy it and have it instantly available to stream, anywhere (well almost – there’s this whole issue of Cloud Player being desktop or Android-only). If that doesn’t stimulate impulse buys, then I don’t know what will.

But, as we’ve seen over the past nearly-a-decade, the Big Four are not smart. As @fienen noted earlier:

The music industry is like the only place that expects you to buy their product, but then they do everything to prevent use.

So this is Amazon’s big chance. If they get taken to court–and seriously, how could they not have been expecting to?–and get a good judge, this could be a pivotal moment in how we access media. I’m not getting my hopes up that it will be, but it will be interesting to see how things play out.

I spent the last few days sitting in various meeting rooms, talking to a great community of people whom I normally only interact with over Twitter or otherwise, and having a good bit of fun. I love the HighEdWeb conference. I missed it so much in 2009 when I was unable to attend. This year was just as much fun, if not more, as I’m no longer the new kid.

But. My entire outlook on the web in Higher Education has changed. And I realized that it hasn’t changed to be in line with the rest of the community.
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Brand new project for Aesthetics of Interactive Design. A Database of the Self. I call it Database Me. And I’d love to hear your comments.

I have just finished my final project for Media Literacy entitled, “Are You Media Literate?”

Are You Media Literate?

Check out the project →

Where do the lines stand? We now live in an age where borrowing, copying and reusing creative works is the rule. From music remix culture to the more current trend in lifting authored written works for use in new publications, the boundaries of fair use and appropriation are blurred through the lens of this new participatory culture.

As the debate stands, there are quite a few sides to join. In this essay we will examine the scope of the copyleft movement and identify the beneficial aspects of adopting a Creative Commons-style approach to appropriation. In doing so, we will gain support from original copyright provisions in the United States Constitution as well as current real-life examples of the benefits. In appropriation of others’ works, it is important to respect the copyright holder’s rights. At the same time, in order for creative culture to progress, creators must be open to allowing their works to be referenced, used, and incorporated into new art forms.

Modern copyright law is a far cry from its roots, and provisions on fair use are not so fair. The United States Constitution declares,

“The Congress shall have Power…To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries; (Article I, Section 8, emphasis mine)”

Today, copyright provisions last too long and in turn stifle the “Progress of Science and useful Arts.” In 1998 the time limit became the life of the author (or creator) plus 70 years with the passing of the Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act. As Marc Garcelon (2009) points out, this is far longer than the “original 14-year limit that copyright established in 1790 (p. 1308).” In doing so, Congress further blurred the distinction between ideas and expression that Thomas Jefferson originally intended in writing the constitution (p. 1308). ¶ Read More…

Recently I wrote about Google Buzz and some of its shortfalls, detailing what it does and doesn’t do well, along with some speculative scenarios that could see Buzz becoming a dangerous infraction on privacy. I think this did well to give a very basic overview of what Buzz does and, hopefully, help us be on the look out as responsible media users for things that seem just a little bit fishy in the Google world.

What that little project didn’t do is look at the inner workings of Google the parent company or how Buzz was birthed. Now, I’m not an insider and Google itself isn’t the most vocal about its trade secrets. However, with a little bit of research and the help of people who keep track of acquisitions, I think we can start to get a pretty good picture of what makes up Buzz.
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