Tag Archive for 'YouTube'

Studying? More like cramming…

Published on November 27, 2006 in Article and Blog. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , .

Spotted on MSNBC

Here’s something from a couple months ago. It’s novel to occasionally look back at all of the information that never makes it to us, the media consuming public.

The FCC ordered all copies of a study on the localization of media ownership destroyed. This independent study examined the difference news coverage between locally owned and non-locally owned (i.e. transnational corporate) ownership of Television stations. Since there are no copies of the report right now, it’s hard to say what’s actually in it.

Thanks to some civic minded folks, here’s the clip of Senator Barbara Boxer ripping FCC Chairman Kevin Martin a new one, along with a description of the report. Apparently, Sen. Boxer was sent a copy of the report anonymously (Video courtesy of C-Span via YouTube).

Apparently, the study concludes that local ownership of TV stations increases the amount of local news coverage by about thirty three hours of news in a year about your area. Now, lots of local news may seem hokey and trite, but 33 hours more is plenty of room for real stories of value about our communities.

It would seem that the trend for the FCC is to only release information that is favorable to corporate consolidation of the broadcast medium, and all conflicting reports seem to be squelched. You can view two of these reports here and here, through the Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting website. A few politicians demanded and investigation into this incident, but somehow nothing further has surfaced. It did take more than a few minutes of crawling through the interweb to find out that there was an inquiry made at all. That story never made it out as a press release. In fact, there doesn’t seem to be nay follow up on this story at all since then.
The Benton Foundation has a great list of link about the issue of media consolidation and local representation on the airwaves here. Of course, it’s not all bad news. The FCC started a new Review of Media Ownership Rules in June, so maybe this time they’ll give us back the airwaves. They’re even holding public hearings.

In the meantime, you can take stand to help free the airwaves by checking out the Prometheus Radio Project. With the corporate move to digital, they should consider turning the radio dial over to the people again. Unless they take FM and AM receivers out of cars…

If Content is King, Who Gets the Treasury?

Published on November 20, 2006 in Blog. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

Spotted on: Digital Music News

Universal Music filed a lawsuit against MySpace at the end of the day on Friday.? The lawsuit claims that Myspace is allowing their users to violate copyrights, in order to make a profit off of it. The suit also claims that MySpace encouraged copyright infingement. The suit even goes as far as suggesting that MySpace owes their success to using this same material.

Myspace asserts that they are in full compliance with the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, which protects web sites from the copyright violations of their users, as long as they act fast when a rights-holder complains. Not to mention the fact that Myspace is a social networking site. The same thing accusations were thrown at YouTube shortly before they signed a deal with some of these major rights holders.

All links and cross-references aside, MySpace, YouTube, and even Universal are owned by huge corporations. The thing I find most interesting about the lawsuit is the part that says “UMG owns copyrights in thousands of sound recordings, including many of the most popular and well-known sound recordings in the world.”

So the soap opera continues, and somehow, the more I read, the less it all makes sense, or even seems to matter. How can a few dozen companies appear to own all of this fantastic music, movies and TV shows, and pass back and forth billions of dollars? Perhaps the real question to be asked is how just a few companies can own and make all the money off of this huge catalog of popular art.

Art, and especially music, are powerful because of the emotions they evoke, and have different values to different people. As the value of music continues to tank, these major music companies seem to striking more and more deals where major media corporations and websites are paying huge lumps of sum to each other. Money flows from Google to YouTube to Sony BMG to Viacom and around and around. Where exactly are the rest of us in all of this? Where is all this money going? If Universal won $400 million dollars from MySpace, how much would they pay to the artists?

To put it more simply, huge amounts of these catalogs were created by people who have left this world, or who are getting pennies out of billions of dollars that changes hands. The day of the post-major label is finally dawning. The age of the distributor.? Long Live D.I.Y.

How shooting digitally changes acting (and directing)

Published on August 3, 2006 in Blog. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

I can get behind this:

“The old model of acting is that the rehearsal is great and then things change when you say ‘rolling’ –usually for the worse. Now there’s no film in the camera. You can shoot everything. So there’s no rehearsal. Or perhaps it’s all rehearsal. Either way, it’s far more natural.”

There is something powerful about this. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it when I was watching the War of the Worlds (Spielberg Version), but the above quote triggered it for me. It was his first forray into digital film making, and there was a certain authenticity in the faces of the actors.
And this seems to be the trend. As more and more directors adopt digital film making techniques, and become comfortable with these tools, the human condition will finally be reflected on the silver screen in a way that here-to-fore has rarely been seen.
That’s something I can really digg.
another long tail insight

originally published on dr.xnlb.com

digital pyrotechnic infernoptix display

Published on July 29, 2006 in Blog. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .


originally published on dr.xnlb.com

The 1% Rule vs. The 1:1 Ratio

Published on July 28, 2006 in Article and Blog. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , .

An emerging trend in the online world is that the gap between content creator and the content consumer is closing. Personal Computers come pre-installed with many content creation tools, and many more aimed at the Amateur to the Pro-Am content cretor abound. One only has to look at iLife, Apple’s Am/Pro-Am content creation suite (now complete with a webpage editor that sports RSS feeds).
Some have put forth a suggestion, that only 1% of the online world is creating content. This seems awfully low to me. I have always thought of it as The 1:1 Ratio, for every content creator in a community there is a consumer, that in turn is also a creator. Their numbers, stating that out of 100 people, 1 would create the content, 10 would interact with it (commenting on it, offering suggestions to improve it, etc.) while the other 89 users would simple view it.
Maybe I just travel in more creative circles, because anecdotally The 1:1 Ratio holds true for me. Their numbers come from YouTube’s upload vs download ratio, and obviously skew the results because of the size of the sample. I’m not doubting their findings, but it’s interesting to hear the same theory in different contexts.
Read the article, and decide for yourself. It’d be cool if you left a comment too, and let me know which rule holds more true for you, The 1% Rule, or The 1:1 Ratio.
digg story
originally published on dr.xnlb.com

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