Darknet

Kevin Martin’s Open Network Manifesto

An open, unfettered Internet has gotten a boost from an unlikely source: Republican FCC chair Kevin Martin.

NY Times: Kevin Martin’s Open Network Manifesto.

Excerpt:

Set-top boxes used with cable TV, [Martin] said, should be seen the same way as cellphones. Consumers need to be able to use any set-top box to access any sort of content.

This is important, he said, because of the rise of video programming on the Internet.

“Consumers can’t take content from the Internet and easily watch it on their televisions,” he said. He blamed cable companies from preventing set-top box makers, like TiVo, from being able to offer devices that can combine Internet video with cable offerings like on-demand movies.

“The cable operators won’t license a device that integrates Internet video content with their content,” he said. “I’m saying that’s wrong, and I am trying to get the other commissioners to address it.” ...

Facebook shuts down Scrabulous

NY Times: Facebook Shuts Down Scrabulous.

Hard to understand why Hasbro didn't come to an agreement to take advantage of Scrabulous's immense populatiry.

First song downloads, now organic chemistry

NY Times: First It Was Song Downloads. Now It’s Organic Chemistry.

AFTER scanning his textbooks and making them available to anyone to download free, a contributor at the file-sharing site PirateBay.org composed a colorful message for “all publishers” of college textbooks, warning them that “myself and all other students are tired of getting” ripped off. ...

All forms of print publishing must contend with the digital transition, but college textbook publishing has a particularly nasty problem on its hands. College students may be the angriest group of captive customers to be found anywhere.

Consider the cost of a legitimate copy of one of the textbooks listed at the Pirate Bay, John E. McMurry’s “Organic Chemistry.” A new copy has a list price of $209.95; discounted, it’s about $150; used copies run $110 and up. To many students, those prices are outrageous, set by profit-engorged corporations (and assisted by callous professors, who choose which texts are required). Helping themselves to gratis pirated copies may seem natural, especially when hard drives are loaded with lots of other products picked up free. ...

Bad news for Facebook's Scrabulous

Associated Press: Bad News For Facebook's Scrabulous.

Mash-up model

Rob Walker at the Sunday New York Times Magazine: Mash-Up Model. Music you could never buy on iTunes tests the pay-what-you-want business model. Excerpt:

Girl Talk (real name Gregg Gillis) has also won critical praise but is not likely to land a big-time contract, commercial radio play, a spot in an iPod ad or even distribution on iTunes. This is because “Feed the Animals” is composed almost entirely of more than 200 samples of other artists’ music, ranging from Lil Wayne to Kenny Loggins — none of which Gillis has obtained permission to use.

This is what makes Girl Talk’s experimentation with the value of music so compelling. It’s one thing for various name-brand artists to dabble with giveaways. It’s something else for a creator who has operated artistically, financially and even legally outside the structures of the traditional recording business for his entire career to do so. Will “Feed the Animals” make Girl Talk a rock star? And what would that even mean?

The release is the 26-year-old Gillis’s fourth, and a CD version will be distributed in September by a small label called Illegal Arts. (You get the CD if you pay $10 or more for the download.) ...

At the uneasy intersection of bloggers and the law

From the NY Times last week: At the Uneasy Intersection of Bloggers and the Law.

A visualization of 'Darknet'

Visualization tool: ManyEyes from JD Lasica on Vimeo.

At the Future of Civic Media conference at the MIT Media Lab in June, one of the best presentations came from the co-creator of Many Eyes. Here's a 7-minute video interview I did with Fernanda B. Viegas, research staff member of IBM's Visual Communication Lab in Cambridge, following her talk.

Fernanda describes some of uses of this visualization tool. For example, during the Congressional testimony of then Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, a visualization Word Map graphically showed how often he used the phrases "I don't know" and "I don't recall."

Watch or download video in high-quality (H.264) on Ourmedia (480 pixels)
Watch video in Flash on Vimeo

Here's a dataset I just uploaded to ManyEyes: the text of "Darknet." You can see it as a tag cloud, as a word tree, or in other ways.

 

An imminent victory for ‘Net Neutrality’ advocates

NY Times: An Imminent Victory for ‘Net Neutrality’ Advocates.

When Comcast admitted last fall that it was blocking — or slowing down, as the company preferred to call it — certain file transfers by customers, a lot of people complained that the company was unfairly discriminating against heavy Internet users.

Now it seems that the Federal Communications Commission is poised to agree.

The Associated Press reported late Thursday that the F.C.C.’s chairman, Kevin J. Martin, has concluded that Comcast improperly blocked some file transfers. Mr. Martin told the A.P. he would recommend that the commission punish Comcast, and order it to stop the blocking, tell the commission how and how often it blocked file transfers and disclose to consumers its future plans for managing its network.

Such an action would be the first time that regulators have slapped an Internet provider for violating F.C.C. open-access rules. Those rules are designed to prevent providers from favoring some services over others — for example, by accelerating the transfer of video from their own movie service or slowing down transfers from competitors.

That will surely please “net neutrality” advocates like Free Press, which brought the original complaint. The group issued a statement Thursday night saying: “The F.C.C. now appears ready to take action on behalf of consumers. This is an historic test for whether the law will protect the open Internet. If the commission decisively rules against Comcast, it will be a remarkable victory for organized people over organized money.” ...

Got a portable TV? Trash it in February

San Jose Mercury News: Got a portable TV? Trash it in February.

Where did 'Ally' go?

Newsweek's July 7-14 issue: Where did 'Ally' go? (can't find the link online)

The Fox TV series is available on DVD in Brain, Hong Kong, Belgium and beyond, but not in the United States. The reason: The rights to many songs featured in the show ("What Becomes of the Broken Hearted," etc.) are too expensive to DVD release here. The same problem applies to the '60s infused "The Wonder Years."