Freyburg

The Canadian DMCA has just been tabled by the House of Commons, and from what I can tell (gleaned from Michael Geist’s excellent blog post) it’s a complete and total ruinous mess for the future of electronic media in Canada. Let’s, just for a second, get past the spectre of evil pirates stealing content from hard-working, impoverished studios and record companies. This bill makes it illegal for anyone to transfer music they bought off a CD and onto their own iPod. It also makes it illegal to unlock an iPhone or other locked digital devices, to the tune of a $20,000 fine. So the fact that I’ve been carting around said iPhone for the last six months is apparently more important than the fact that our representatives in Parliament consort with gangster molls or that the Alberta tar sands are an ecological disaster area. No, people downloading the latest Coldplay album is what our law enforcement services should concern themselves with.

The real irony here is that the studios are the authors of their own destruction. If these laws are actually enforceable, all that will happen is that people won’t bother to watch copyrighted material anymore. The means of production are cheaper than ever, and more and more people are watching amateur video, citizen journalism and other user generated content. The drive for self-preservation will actually accelerate the decline and fall of big media, by its own hand.

And the potential damage from this bill doesn’t just affect individuals. Companies in the business of moving and storing content, like Domain7, have already expressed concerns (check their news section for their take on the bill).

What can you do to voice your concerns about this bill? Email your member of Parliament (I just did, for the very first time), join online groups like the Fair Copyright for Canada group on Facebook, and join the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Canadian Music Creators Coalition, and other groups advocating for digital rights.

I’ve been toying with the idea of doing a daily video post/podcast with a short, opinionated blurb from me about some matter of import. Here’s the first test run of said idea, where I yander on about the iPhone. Constructive criticism welcomed.

Purveyor of “meh” videos and net.dilletante Robert Scoble spoke at MediaBistro Circus today, and as Anil Dash reported on Twitter, his half-mad, half-insane information consumption patterns scared the normals but good. After the presentation, rumour has it, Scoble disclosed he’s working on yet another video project (my thoughts on his previous tryouts apparently had no influence on him), this time with the help of Revision3. Here’s the video of Scoble’s presentation, in glorious Conference-O-Vision.

I was surprised by this news, though I’m not sure why. Ars Technica has been a great resource for technology info for years, and it was only a matter of time before someone snapped them up. That someone is Conde Nast, who will be folding Ars into the Wired Digital network, also known ad Condenet.

But it’s important to note that Ars is no fly-by-night payday. The site has been operating since 1998, first as a labor of love and later as a viable business. It succeeds because the site gives first-rate analysis and news on topics a niche audience want to read about, like games, all things Apple, science and computer hardware. And it took ten years to get to this point, something that some startups forget in their rush to get bought out.

The Vancouver Sun is running a story about how local videobloggers are using the medium to drive up sales and otherwise reap profit. While I have no doubt that some new voices are being heard and in fact reaping the rewards of putting themselves out there. All very well, and Reachd is providing a valuable service by teaching people how to use video on the web, no matter how they end up using it. But the Sun seems to think that videoblogging consists of real estate agents putting their videos onto sites designed to sell house. Again, there’s nothing wrong with that as a form of expression or commerce, but blogging it ‘aint. At the very least, they could have gone to Miss 604, who has a couple of popular audio podcasts and covers Vancouver obsessively. So do Uncle Weed, Megan Cole, and myself, to name but a few. But once again the mainstream media has gleaned what it can from the surface without really delving into the excellent work being done by Vancouver bloggers and podcasters, which is a real shame.

(Full disclosure: Reachd is running a contest in conjunction with Techvibes for their next seminar, and I occasionally blog for Techvibes.)

I’ve been working as an editor on a video podcast featuring Vancouver Adobe evangalist Duane Nickull called Duane’s World. The show is all about coding, tech, music and Duane’s unique take on the world, and is hosted on Adobe TV, a central hub for shows about all things Adobe. Check it out!

Crazy talk, you say? Maybe not. Doctorow compares the reproductive system of dandelions, which consists of “show up everywhere = success”, to free propagation of content on the net. Though many people hew to the old model of trying to get people to pay for content, Doctorow asserts that for most people creating copies of their stuff is a massive money-sink, and that the best way for their work to survive is to let it spread…like dandelions. Neat.

Joi Ito, who was recently named as the head of Creative Commons and with whom I once had the pleasure of drinking a few beers with, recently explained from Cannes how the world of Creative Commons and the traditional media are at odds, and how “big media” misses the point that user generated content is all about authenticity and connections between people. Watch his impromptu talk below:

Just to dampen the previous “OMGPARADIGMSHIFTBLURGH” of the previous post, here’s a “whoa, nelly, not so fast, Internet honchos” from the recent Web 2.0 conference.

Ah, with web celebrity must come web contempt. A fine bunch of reprobates, these are, though I’ve never understood the Rachel Ray hate.