Darknet

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.

 

Book Patrol reviews 'Darknet'

Book Patrol reviews Darknet.

... J.D. Lasica explores this avenue and others and seems to take the stance that intent of use is of primary concern, as opposed to the legal rod applied in even, heavy-handed strokes to every situation. It's astonishing how technically entwined we are, how mixed the mediums, and how much we borrow from film, music, literature, art, and transpose it every single day as a part of our culture. The distinction between public use, commercial, personal use, mix, distribution, modification is explored and explained at length in this book. As the author points out, "It may surprise you, but you would be infringing on a copyright if you posted half a dozen of your favorite Frost poems or Gershwin lyrics on your Web site. You cannot write a sequel to a Hemingway short story without permission from his heirs." ...

Prince of Darknet breaks his silence

Weston (Conn.) Forum: Bruce Forest, whom I profiled in Darknet, breaks his silence after his imprisonment.

Forest pleads guilty

In Darknet, I wrote about Bruce Forest, whom I dubbed the Prince of Darknet (see chapter excerpt) for his playing both sides of the fence in the war between Hollywood and Internet pirates.

Yesterday he pleaded guilty in federal court to using explosives to destroy a portable toilet in Weston, Conn.

Amazon won't publish one reader's review

Anna Rosa D' Ambrosio of Italy read the Italian version of Darknet and was moved to write a positive review to counter the recent flurry of negative "reviews" by people who obviously haven't read the book on Amazon.com.

But Amazon won't publish her review. Why? Because she hasn't purchased anything on Amazon.

Good to keep that in mind -- Amazon is first and foremost a commerce site, not a place for honest and wide-ranging discussion of a book's merits or demerits.

'Darknet: La guerre d'Hollywood contre la génération digitale'

At Next Modernity, Denis Failly has a Q&A with me about the issues raised in Darknet: La guerre d'Hollywood contre la génération digitale, which recently came out in France. The Q&A is in English.

IP in a divided digital world

When I was in New York earlier this month I stopped by the nonprofit Acord insurance association's offices and sat down for an interview with CEO Gregory Maciag and fielded a phone call from London from British author Paul May. Here's the video of our conversation.

Valenti praises 'Darknet'

Jack Valenti, who headed up the Motion Picture Association of America for nearly 39 years, praises the book "Darknet: Hollywood's War Against the Digital Generation," suggesting that entertainment executives could learn a thing or two about it. Valenti is profiled in the book. (Ourmedia page | watch video)

Note: Audio glitch in earlier version of this video has been fixed. Thanks, John.

i personal media entrano a far parte del quotidiano

The Italian translation of Darknet hits bookshelves next week. Meantime, Vernardo Parrella conducted an interview with me at Vloggercon and just posted it on the Area 51 blog. It's in Italian (not bad, since I don't speak it!).

Bernardo also has this: Ora in onda: la rivoluzione dei personal media.

People in the copyright wars

At Mac TidBITS, founder/editor Adam C. Engst has one of the most thoughtful reviews of Darknet I've come across: Darknet: People in the Copyright Wars. Excerpt:

As much as I've participated in innumerable online discussions in which theoretical situations showing the inanity of the current copyright regime are batted back and forth, I've never actually collected real-world stories in which copyright, the DMCA, and the tactics of the Content Cartel impinge upon the media-related activities of normal people, activities that meet the common sense standard of fair use.

Luckily for me, well-known blogger J.D. Lasica spent two years amassing those stories, and he's woven them into a book, "Darknet: Hollywood's War Against the Digital Generation." Lasica does a fine job of explaining the DMCA and other efforts to clamp down on any use of media the Content Cartel doesn't want to see, and I'd recommend that anyone who is unsure of the harm being done in those ways read the book for that reason. But what made it a compelling read for me were his stories of the real people who have run afoul of the copyright regime in various different ways. ...