Darknet

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. ...

JD Lasica présente son livre 'Darknet'

Daniel Kaplan from FING wrote up a summary of my recent talk in Paris about the differences between Media 1.0 and Media 2.0. It's in French.

'Darknet' in French, Italian

Darknet will be coming out in French and Italian in the next couple of weeks. (It was great to meet my French and Italian publishers in Cannes and Milan when I hit Europe earlier this month.) I've added links to the publisher sites/blogs in the right nav. I especially liked the book jacket of the French version, and I wish I could read Italian so I could follow Unwired Media's Area 51 blog.

'Prince of Darknet' arrested on explosives charges

The Associated Press interviewed me today about Bruce Forest, perhaps the most colorful character in my book Darknet. Forest was arrested Friday and arrainged today on charges that he set off explosives. He is being held on $2 million bond.

Here's the chapter of the book in which Forest stars.

Amazon's disappointing 'Report this'

Amazon.com has a feature called 'Report this': a link that lets the public alert Amazon's staff of book reviews that are clearly frivolous and have no bearing on the book being reviewed.

Such is the case with a couple of the recent reviews of Darknet, such as this misguided slam from "vhspreowner":

It is not okay to steal things and that what this book seems to say that it's okay to download things without permission. IT IS STEALING, THAT'S ALL, IT IS STEALING, AND ALL THE GEEKS WHO DO IT SHOULD BE TREATED AS CRIMINALS.

That "review" was flagged weeks ago, but is still there (along with a one-star rating). It's offset by the more intelligent critiques, both pro and con. But it's still sad to see Amazon falling down on the job of removing such tripe. Any reader of Darknet would know that I don't countenance stealing in any way.

'Darknet' in five languages

"Darknet" will be coming out in Spanish, French, Italian and Russian. Looks like the Spanish version is the first one up on Amazon: Darknet: La Guerra Contra La Generacion Digital Y El Futuro De Los Medios Audiovisuales.

My French publisher wants me to attend Cannes in May. Needless to say, I've never been. It would be great if it works out.

Buy your 'Darknet' review here!

Well, a couple of security experts are selling a 430-word book review of "Darknet" for $5.95 through a digital download on Amazon.

Let's see. If I charged at that rate, the book would have retailed for $1,380.

John Valenti, 'Darknet' fan

One of the most unexpected emails I received during the past month came from John Valenti. Yes, that Valenti -- MPAA chief Jack Valenti's son. John called "Darknet" the most influential, eye opening book he's read in the past year, alongside John Battelle's "The Search." When he recommended it last week to the president of Fox Digital in Los Angeles, he was met with, "Oh, that book again!"

I met with John, along with Dave Toole and Morty Wiggins of Outhink, at the Carnelian Room in San Francisco yesterday, and autographed a copy of my book for John to give to his father. We hope to work with John to round up private financing for a public-spirited personal media business we're working on.

My first torrent

For me, 2005 will go down as the Year of Living Frantically. Between traveling to dozens of cities for my book "Darknet," speaking at conferences, and launching and supporting Ourmedia.org, I've had almost zero free time during the past year. (Oh, yeah, I have a family, too.)

So I'd been delaying creating torrent files because I figured it would take hours learning how to do it.

Not so. My friend Gary Lerhaupt launched Prodigem a year or two back, and he's taken the pain out of BitTorrent p2p file sharing. I urge you to check it out -- it's an excellent service, and free. (There's a small charge if you want to try to make money from your works -- another good idea.)

For my first torrent, it was natural to share all the excerpts from "Darknet" that I've placed online over the past several months. So here's the Prodigem web page containing my torrent, and here's the link to the torrent itself.

Included in this package:

Introduction
Concept: Darknets
Ch. 1: The teenage filmmakers
Ch. 2: The tech and CE industries get cozy with Hollywood
Ch. 3: The Prince of Darknet
Ch. 4: Fair use in the digital age
More Ch. 4: When the studios won't give permission
Ch. 6: Your locked-down digital future
Ch. 7: The tech exec who broke federal law (and why the law is broken)
Ch. 8: Hollywood's visionary outcast
Ch. 11: Pho, Cole Porter and Tarzan economics
Ch. 14: Embracing our digital destiny

'Darknet' named one of year's top 10 business books

The Miami Herald has a year-ender: 10 business books stand out from the pack. Of the books reviewed in Business Monday this year, 10 left a lasting impression and merit a second look.

Revolution in the Valley. The Insanely Great Story of How the Mac Was Made. Andy Hertzfeld. O'Reilly. 320 pages. $24.95. (Feb. 6) blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking. Malcolm Gladwell. Little, Brown and Co. 288 Pages. $25.95. (Feb. 21)

A Whole New Mind: Moving from the Information Age to the Conceptual Age. Daniel H. Pink. Riverhead Books. 272 pages. $24.95. (May 9)

Meet You in Hell: Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick, and the Bitter Partnership That Transformed America. Les Standiford. Crown. 336 pages. $24.95. (May 23)

Think Big, Act Small: How America's Best Performing Companies Keep the Start-up Spirit Alive. Jason Jennings. Portfolio. 220 pages. $24. (July 4)

Darknet: Hollywood's War Against the Digital Generation. J.D. Lasica. Wiley. 308 pages. $25.95. (July 11)

Why entrenched economic interests continually resist innovation and disruptive technology while hastening their self-inflicted extinction.

Tom Peters Essentials (four volumes: Design, Leadership, Talent and Trends). Tom Peters. Dorling Kindersley Limited. 160 pages (each). $15 (each). (July 18)

The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture. John Battelle. Portfolio. 311 pages. $25.95. (Sept. 26)

Battelle's absorbing narrative reveals the birth of the real New Economy, and why we'll continue to Google for the foreseeable future.

The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists. Neil Strauss. Regan Books. 464 pages. $29.95. (Nov. 14)

The Untied States of America. Polarization, Fracturing and Our Future. Juan Enriquez. Crown. 368 pages. $24.95. (Dec. 12)

My greatest disappointment during the past year is that Silicon Valley's two daily newspapers -- The San Jose Mercury News and the San Francisco Chronicle -- completely blew off Darknet and the hugely important issues, centered right here, that the book addresses. Next most disappointing: the Washington Post, USA Today and the dozens of other newspapers and magazines with tech sections that ignored the book and its message.

Still, it's gratifying that The Miami Herald included Darknet on its Top 10 list.

Good company

A reading list from Audioblog co-founder Eric Rice:

Books I've mentioned/am using as textbooks for these cool things we do:

1. Free Culture, Lawrence Lessig
2. Darknet, JD Lasica
3. Cluetrain Manifesto, Doc Searls, Chris Locke, Rick Levine, David Weinberger

'Darknet' table of contents

Contents

Foreword by Howard Rheingold ix

Introduction 1

1  The Personal Media Revolution 7

2  Now Playing:  Hollywood  vs. the Digital Freedom Fighters 23

3  Inside the Movie Underground 47

4  When Personal and Mass Media Collide 67

5  Code Warriors 87

6  Cool Toys  Hollywood  Wants to Ban 101

7  A Nation of Digital Felons 127

8  Personal Broadcasting 151

9  Edge TV 163

10  The Sound of Digital Music 185

11  Channeling Cole Porter 203

12  Architects of Darknet  221

13  Mod Squads: Can Gamers Show Us the Way? 243

14  Remixing the Digital Future 257

 

Acknowledgments 269

Endnotes 273

Online Resources 295

     Index 297

'Darknet' interview at Filmmakingcentral

David Basulto conducted a 15-minute phone interview with me yesterday about "Darknet," and his podcast is up already (he used Audioblog) at Filmmakingcentral. Here's the mp3.

What the Darknet is really about

Sid Yadev offers a review of "Darknet." Excerpt:

Darknet is the change of power between the major major companies to ordinary people. Darknet is freedom. It’s a warning, as well as a voice. Or as JD Lasica, Darknet’s author describes the literal meaning, "Darknet is a metaphor for the hidden-away matter of the web-the burgeoning pool of weblogs, independent sites, and grass roots media well outisde the limelight of big media."

To me, reading Darknet was a great experience. The reason I say this is because Darknet is very unique. I would say this kind of a detailed, balanced book about a great great debate is only written once in a very long while. It’s filled with a lot of excitement, stories, arguments, culture, information-that-you-can’t-read-anywhere-in-the-web, and of course, the name of pioneers and startups who we all, as we read their name, have the urge to Google.

I have learnt a lot by reading Darknet, and would recommend it to anyone, anyone at all who has used the Internet and have at least heard (if not used) of things like Tivo. It has real stories of real people that people just get. ... My final rating: 9/10.

The Darknet as the great equalizer

The San Francisco Chronicle today has a story about Darknet titled, Underworld's 'Darknet' foments copyright revolution against Hollywood. (Chronicle photo by Deanne Fitzmaurice)

Just to be clear, Darknet advocates a personal media revolution and reform of the U.S. laws governing copyright. Excerpt from the piece:

Saying the 20th century's passive media consumer has been replaced by today's active media user, Lasica argues that the Darknet is a creative, democratic realm that will only grow in popularity to the extent that Hollywood doesn't get it.

"In a few years, technology will allow us to carry hundreds of movies or TV shows on a single keychain," he writes. "But will the media companies and their tech allies really get us there? I'm not sure." ...

"The excesses of copyright have gotten to the point where some of our traditional rights have gotten stripped away," he said. "As we're turning into more of a visual culture and we evolve from a print and text culture to a multimedia culture, are we going to have the same rights to quote from and borrow from and cite visual works as we had in the past?" ...

Lessig on 'Darknet' and the commons

I'm glad I stuck around last night for the TechSummit 2005 dinner organized by the Computer & Communications Industry Association at its annual gathering in Dana Point, Calif.

Lawrence Lessig was the evening's keynote speaker, and he gave another one of his memorable PowerPoint presentations, highlighting the challenges we face in a permission culture with imbalanced copyright laws.

I've seen Larry do his thing two or three times before -- he changes his presentation every few months -- so I was surprised when "Darknet" popped up on screen two or three times. ("This is a little bit embarrassing. I didn't know JD would be in the audience," he said. Someone leaned over to me and said, "Do you feel like a star now?")

He gave four reasons why asking the entertainment companies for permission to use snippets of their works for personal, noncommercial use doesn't work. Mine came in at No. 3: when I asked Warner Bros. for permission to use two 10-second snippets from the 1988 movie "Daffy Duck's Quackbusters" in a home movie project I was making with my 5-year-old son and was told no, and when I asked Universal Studios permission to use 39 seconds from the cartoon feature "Ice Age" and was told "you would be obligated to pay the appropriated license fees which would be $900 for each 15 seconds."

Among other points Lessig raised:

- "If Google Print is infringing, why is Google legal?" Google is based on the same premise of copying and caching hundreds of millions of Web pages without asking for the copyright owners' permission.

- On the imposition of heavyhanded U.S. IP laws on developing nations: "We are destroying wealth in these nations as a form of economic blackmail for access to our marketplace."

He laid out three strategies for combating the closing in of the public commons:

1. We make clear we are against piracy.

2. We press for legislative reform -- not to repeal copyright but to return its length and scope to a reasonable length. Specifically, he endorsed the idea, proposed by some scholars, of taking the copy out of copyright. Instead, we ought to regulate distribution or commercial reproduction.

3. Congress should regulate derivative works to allow for creative expression by amateurs, as in the mash-ups that he and I showed off during the day.

But he acknowledged, "These are reforms that are impossible during the current political climate. We suffer from a sort of IP McCarthyism." Thus, the need for private reform that demonstrates how copyright ought to work.

Creative Commons is at the forefront of those private efforts, of course. And at one point I stood up and asked the reps from the tech companies in the room to support the nonprofit organization, now that it is transitioning from foundation support to being supported by the private sector.

Hollywood won't support Creative Commons. The tech industry must -- on the public's behalf.

Embracing our digital destiny

The AlwaysOn Network just published the final excerpt from "Darknet" the book that I'll be posting online: Embracing our digital destiny. Here's a 10-point blueprint for transitioning from the analog to digital worlds, which I expand on in the piece and in the book:

1. We are users, producers and creators as well as consumers.

2. Artists must be compensated for their works.

3. The public’s digital rights should be affirmed.

4. The DMCA requires a dramatic overhaul.

5. Celebrate participatory culture. Don’t outlaw it.

6. The Darknet is the public’s great equalizing force.

7. The Internet is not an entertainment medium.

8. To make file sharing and the Darknet irrelevant, innovate.

9. Trust the marketplace.

10. Efforts to enrich the public domain should be encouraged.

Kos love

Darknet gets some Daily Kos love. Glad you're blown away, Markos, thanks for spreading the word about the assault on our digital rights.

The teenage filmmakers

Here's what's new on the AlwaysOn Network, including the fourth serialized installment of my book, "Darknet." This one's on the teenage filmmakers.

Today on 'Attack of the Show'

I had a great time today appearing on Attack of the Show on cable network G4. I recently added it to my TiVo season passes (channel 363 on DirecTV) -- it really does remind me of the old "Tech TV" but with an emphasis on digital culture rather than just computing. If I didn't know better, I'd think I was watching Gnomedex TV.

I talked for 4 1/2 minutes with host Kevin Pereira about "Darknet" and Ourmedia, though it sped by far too fast. Still, always good to get out the word about the issues at stake to a new audience.

Got a good behind-the-scenes look at the operation -- lots of fun and passion on the set. Afterward, I sat down for five minutes with co-host Sarah Lane and talked about the show, interactive media, and the Sarah Lane Webcam Timelapse video -- the all-time No. 2 video on Ourmedia. I'll be posting our video discussion to Ourmedia within the next week or so.

An interactive afternoon at Stacey's

Had a great time this afternoon at an appearance for "Darknet" at Stacey's bookstore in San Francisco. (John Battelle will be doing the same kind of lunchtime showing there on Sept. 15 for his new book "The Search.")

My friends Kevin Smokler ("Bookmark Now") and Steve Rhodes showed up, along with 25 other folks who asked some great questions about digital rights management, the next generation of DVD encryption, Hollywood business models, fair use, the DMCA, and lots of other issues related to digital rights and the intersection of technology and entertainment.

Stacey's is a class act -- one of my favorite bookstores -- and I'll be attending more of these author events.

The cultural dimension of the digital rights wars

Bruce Abramson, author of Digital Phoenix (a book on my reading list), reviews Darknet, along with Siva Vaidhyanathan's The Anarchist in the Library and Doug Henwood's After the New Economy on his The Informationist blog.

Excerpt:

Lasica, like Lessig, illustrates this theme through anecdotes. Unlike Lessig, who try as he might cannot escape his legal background, Lasica writes with a journalist’s ease. More importantly, though, Lasica writes from the perspective of a cultural consumer, rather than that of a putative deregulator. That vantage point allows him to inject a sense of shock that Lessig never quite conveys. In other words, whereas Lessig tells his readers “things are wrong,” Lasica states incredulously, “you must be kidding.” Each of Lasica’s characters—a music producer turned entertainment industry consultant, a high-tech black preacher, superfans of TV’s Firefly and Hollywood’s Raiders of the Lost Ark, and others—make (and in some cases, pioneer) valuable creative contributions to society. Rather than receiving the sorts of accolades that such contributions warrant, however, they find themselves either facing legal action or relegated to a world of underground culture, the “darknet.” Lasica’s cultural (rather than legal) perspective also positions him to begin with a dilemma and follow it into whichever legal corner it happens to occupy, whether copyright, patent, telecommunications, or some other realm. His coverage of the cultural dimension is therefore considerably more complete than anything that I offered in Digital Phoenix, and superior even to Lessig’s discussions in Free Culture.

Picking the media's digital lock

I've been saying for some time that "Darknet" is about our changing media culture. As such, it's not really a tech book or (God forbid) a law text (though it deals in part with copyright law). No surprise, then, that the book chains have placed it all over the place, sometimes in the technology and computing section, sometimes in current events (where it belongs), sometimes elsewhere.

So it's nice to see a shortish review of "Darknet" in today's New York Times, in the Technology section, but with an emphasis on media: Picking the Media's Digital Lock. Excerpt:

Mr. Lasica, a journalist, brings a storyteller's flair to the subject, but what really makes Darknet unique is that it was born online and lives there still at www.darknet.com. The book, just one part of the overall project, was written in collaboration with its audience via a wiki - a Web application that allows any user to add or edit content. At the site, Mr. Lasica and his readers continue to share news and expand on the ideas presented in the book. His site also offers many excerpts.

I'll continue to post interviews, excerpts and new material in the weeks ahead.

Appearing at Stacey's next Wednesday

I'll be making my last bookstore appearance for "Darknet" at Stacey's Bookstore in San Francisco one week from today to sign books and discuss the issues raised in the book with a small lunchtime crowd.

When: Wednesday, Aug. 24, 12:30-1:30 p.m.

Where: Stacey's, 581 Market St. at 2nd St., SF

Hope to see you there!

A public forum on 'Darknet' issues

Some nice back-and-forth taking place at the WELL this week on the issues raised in "Darknet." It's open to the public.

More reviews of 'Darknet'

Latest reviews of "Darknet":

From Shelly Palmer at Emmy Awards Advanced Media Committee: Culture of Freedom.

Darknets (a concept brought to the fore by J.D. Lasica's wonderful book: "Darknet: Hollywood's War Against the Digital Generation") are, for lack of a better way to describe them, private P2P networks. In theory, you have to know someone already in the network to gain entry.

So now we have a new issue: Private P2P networks that have to be discovered, infiltrated, and then attacked from the inside to be shut down. Hmmm ... much tougher to do. So much tougher, one is reminded of the college kid who keeps an ounce of pot in his dresser drawer. Chances of getting caught? Very low. Consequences of getting caught? Totally misunderstood. And, also totally relative with regard to income and ability to pay for expert counsel.

From Britain's Alan Moore at Communities Dominate Brands:

J.D. Lasica has written a well researched and important contribution to the the debate about what our digital society will look like in Darknet: Hollywood's war against the digital generation

His treatise is that there needs to be a very different model by which all content is distributed, shared and how this is more an opportunity rather than a threat for the old guard of big media. If only they could see it. ...

History has shown, once you have stormed the Bastille, you don't go back to your day jobs.

And the empowered consumer is not going to give the bastille back - and why should they? As we all know, all media in the US was built out of a desire to drive mass consumption via mass media. This is no longer the case, as we and Lasica have amply demonstrated.

Traditional companies are fighting this situation like days die, gasping for every last ray of light. And Lasica describes this many times over, cataloguing how hard the music and film industries have strong-armed the legal system, the FCC, and Government into an effort to snub out, file sharing, peer-to-peer networks, inventive and collaborative technologies and attempting to coerce the consumer electronics industry to lock down its products, to protect its own interests. ...

When one combines Darknet with Robery McChesneys book "The problem with the Media,: it looks like a US civil war is being fought between the old analogue media world and the people that want more control over their media choices. I imagine this will only intensify over the coming years. ...

But what I really like about Darknet is Lasica's efforts to proscribe a world that could work for everybody. ...

When you think it through, folksonomies like flickr.com or wickipedia , the underground file sharing masses like waste , blogs, iPTV, Skype, the people that run radio for their local communities, freenet spell the end for mass media as we know it.

From Andy Abramson: book review of Darknet.

Darknet T-shirts

I just designed and ordered a handful of Darknet t-shirts.

It says "Darknet" on the front and "Sharing is good" on the back.

Of course, I mean sharing your own stuff.

If you'd like to buy one, they're $16.45 over at Zazzle.com. (I haven't found any online t-shirt retailers that will let me order white type on a black T-shirt.)

Technorati tags: Darknet, sharing, digital rights, EFF, T-shirts, copyfight, freedom, RIAA

The WELL takes up 'Darknet'

Beginning today, and for the next two weeks, the venerable pioneering online community the WELL will be bandying about the ideas set out in my book "Darknet" about digital rights, fair use, Hollywood and emerging forms of grassroots media.

They do this with authors' books about twice a month.

It's taking place here -- and you don't have to be a member of the WELL to participate. Fire away!

Eleanor: That 'Darknet' chick

Eleanor Kruszewski, who interviewed me at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco about "Darknet," says that the 30-minute video on Ourmedia has made her a pinup star in the geek boy circles at defcon and oscon (O'Reilly Open Source Convention last week in Portland).

Hitting LA for 'Attack of the Show'

G4, the game network (and descendant of TechTV), just invited me to appear on Attack of the Show, a daily live dose of pop culture, technology and gaming that airs out of Los Angeles. I'll be flying down to talk about "Darknet" and Ourmedia.org on Friday, Aug. 26, at 4 pm PT. It airs on Channel 354 on satellite's DirecTV. More later.

Irish Examiner reviews 'Darknet'

Blogger-academic Bernard Goldbach (Irish Eyes) has a column about my book Darknet in the Irish Examiner.
It's not online, but a jpeg of the review is.

Stacey's in 3 weeks!

I'll be making an appearance at Stacey's Bookstore in San Francisco, three weeks from today to sign books and discuss the issues raised in Darknet with a small lunchtime crowd.

So, please mark your calendars!

When: Wednesday, Aug. 24, 12:30-1:30 p.m.
Where: Stacey's, 581 Market St. at 2nd St., SF

Two futures: One active, one passive

Darknet is finally getting some attention in the traditional media (about time, after all the word-of-mouth and blogosphere buzz it's been getting).

Today, Daniel Conover reviews the book in the Charleston, South Carolina, Post and Courier. It's the lead book review, titled, Two futures: One active, one passive. (Here's the link to the paper's website, which requires registration.) Excerpt:

Though little noticed by those who don't use the Internet, the emerging movement toward peer-to-peer, networked media is crashing headlong into a body of laws and a wall of economic relationships with foundations that predate the electric light bulb. Predictably, the shape of our technological and cultural future will be molded by the outcome.

To date, much of what has been written on the subject has tended toward the extremes. From the techno-geek anarchism of the "Information wants to be free" movement to the scary-slick "File-sharing is theft" rhetoric of Hollywood's Jack Valenti, the choices often seem falsely stark.

Grassroots media pioneer J.D. Lasica has perched prominently at the silicon intersection of culture and technology for much of the past decade, building a solid reputation among both journalists and the technorati. His first book is a welcome addition to the digital media debate, offering an honest critique of the current situation and a well-reasoned prescription for what should be done.

Though he recognizes and defends the value of copyright protection, Lasica has only slight patience for the entertainment cartel's self-serving rhetoric. "Darknet" is the story of an outlaw underground of innovators who are creating a digital future that, if brought into the light, could offer society a truly democratic media. Rather than embracing that future, Hollywood has used the law to bludgeon it. Billions of dollars are at stake, but so is something even more important: control.

Darn good review. Glad to see the word getting out.

Daniel also comments on the book on the new group blog xark.typepad.com.

Why librarians should know about darknets

Infoshop News: A gentle introduction to Darknets. Excerpt:

According to wikipedia a Darknet "is a private file sharing network where users only connect to people they trust. Typically such networks are small, often with fewer than 10 users each." According to J.D. Lasica darknets are "the vast, gathering, lawless economy of shared music, movies, television shows, games, software, and porn--a one-touch jukebox that would rival the products and services of the entertainment companies."

Why is this important to libraries? Because darknets represent the struggle between locked-down content that cannot be acquired or preserved or shared and content that can be added to library collections and that readers can share and use and re-use. Darknets exist now, but they give us a glimpse into one possible future for digital content where battles over "intellectual property" and laws like the Digital Millennium Copyright Act change the way readers interact with information and change what libraries can legally do.

Hollywood, computing and digital culture

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