Years of Searching for a Community of Peers – A Few Previously Unpublished Thoughts

Revisiting a few of my unpublished articles, notes, and remarks from the last six years, I felt a compulsion to record them once and for all for whatever the act might be worth. I’d also dusted off my bookmarks folder of all my favorite socio-cultural blogs only to find that every one of them had since been retired and stripped from the Web. That realization reinforces my resolve to document these thoughts and questions which still remain on my mind years after penning them and my search for a community to share these ideas.

Here they are…

Copyleftism, Open Culture, and the Future of Mass Media: A Brief (Immediate) History of Media Culture

03-12-2016 (prev. unpublished)

In the last decade, we’ve seen the growth of niche markets and the rise of user-generated content as Youtube and Netflix quickly replaced television in millions of households.

Similarly, annual revenues of subscription-based music streaming services are on the rise while physical media purchases continue their rapid decline, (excepting the niche used and new vinyl markets with yet another year of monumental growth.)

Subscription-based media access is quickly replacing broadcast packages, where for a fixed monthly fee consumers can access any media under the provider’s network of licenses (Spotify and Netflix are this year’s most active examples.)

And media streaming hardware is gaining popularity, as Roku, Apple TV, Chromecast and Amazon Fire TV are each vying for the public dollar.

In the 3rd quarter of 2014, mobile use hit critical mass, rivaling television use in hours-per-day.  The smartphone and the tablet were proudly dubbed, “America’s First Screen.”  This is a direct reflection of the way users get their news and information and consume their media in the digital age.

The democratization of music-making and filmmaking technologies has made user-generated content a critical element of our global culture.  At present, 300 hours of new user content is uploaded to YouTube every minute.  And, paired with social media, user content can have instant exposure to millions of potential viewers with little to no distribution expense.

More important still is the continued-growth of the Open Culture movement.  Wikipedia has become a global primary source of information and has spawned innumerable spin-off wikis of their own.  Creative Commons makes content shareable and relevant as users are free to copy, transform, and combine ideas instead of creators scrambling to secure their works under digital lock-and-key.

The GNU Project, Copyleftism, and Open Culture are growing and having a greater impact on the world with each passing day.  Many major universities have opened their digital doors, offering online course material completely free to the public, and an ever-increasing number of texts, films, and music albums are finding free and legal accessibility on the web.

What does the future hold for these cultures?  By what system will creators be compensated for their work in the digital age?  Will media conglomerates succeed in locking down content, further-extending the reach of traditional copyright?  Will the public passively accept forms of DRM as simply part of the digital territory?  What lasting-impact will increased media accessibility have on the global audience?

And what’s next?

The following short piece was composed as a conversation with myself fleshing out the undeniable conflict surrounding the future publication of my book on mass surveillance, digital privacy, free culture, filesharing, and its impact on previously-reining media distribution models.

This write up, concluding with an intimate conversation with a scholarly peer, helped me arrive at a very difficult conclusion about my work.

Free

09-03-2016 (prev. unpublished)

I find myself faced with a terrible and heartbreaking conundrum. I’ve written passionately about the subjects of filesharing and of digital privacy for some time now. And to speak of one without acknowledging the other does a great disservice and misrepresents the very real circumstance that we face as a global culture. So both must be addressed.

Sadly, these subjects are strangely taboo in the economy of published works, as the acts are ostracized and demonized from the global conversation. It is inconsequential whether or not filesharing is a moral act, though there have been numerous examples in recent history demonstrating circumstances where they serve a far greater morality than the illegality of the act, itself.

It is understandable that anti-authoritarian reference texts by their very nature had to remain somewhat under-the-radar throughout history and in times of revolution. But in an age where subversive guides to filesharing and the protection of anonymity are a single Google query away, why does the world have to pretend that it is a secret anymore?

One might suppose that, if the establishment were to publicly acknowledge the actual frequency and simplicity of free media access, that the entire commercial market would crumble in a matter of days. Put simply, nothing can compete with “free.”

But in the age of mass surveillance, there has nonetheless been a tremendous clandestine tidal shift in the public conversation about any information unpopular with the powers that be. Society stubbornly ignores information which is readily and publicly accessible from any of thousands of sources which eliminate the relevance of commercial markets and services.

And this is the very conundrum I alluded to at the outset. In all likelihood, a book published outlining the simplicity and ease of filesharing and highlighting some of the greatest achievements in large, decentralized media library metamapping would be instantly struck down as a corrupt and evil text, and its author(s) would be punished to the fullest extent of the law for inciting anti-authoritarian thought and promoting illegal activities. The RIAA, international media conglomerates, and copyright troll organizations like Righthaven and Rightscorp Inc spend millions of dollars to make a public example of their accused infringers and a guide to its subversion would surely be rapidly extinguished.

There is also the dichotomy of the effect of sharing this sort of information to the public, itself. Those who wish to participate in filesharing already have the common sense to search for and educate themselves as to the best acquisition methods and means of protecting their anonymity without the need for a printed guide. (The internet already EXISTS.) So in fact, exposing this widely-practiced and incredibly simple activity to the public discourse may actually result in a net harm to the filesharing community.

The final factor of this puzzle is the nature of the format. The printed word, as beautiful, elegant, and surely powerful a thing as it is, is static and fixed upon the pages. Whereas discussions of emerging and ever-changing web technology are far better-suited to the dynamic and fluid environment of the net. Post-scarcity replicability, revisioning as networks and technologies rise and fall, zero cost distribution… each of these critically important factors make the internet – the very home of filesharing communities – the ideal means of disseminating related information. But as I’ve said – a simple Google search will yield all one needs to know. Numerous guides already exist – just none of them are acknowledged by the establishment.

The act of widely-publicizing the simplicity and commonality of filesharing might be enough to disrupt the status quo and inspire a global revolution of media consumption… I just don’t know if I’m ready to die (or disappear) for that cause.

Until 1987, (particularly before the passing of the DMCA), the publication of a work of this nature would have been plausible as I’d be protected under The Fairness Doctrine. My work would be justified as in the interest of public welfare and not as a malicious guide written to directly harm the media industries. However, the Doctrine was eliminated by the FCC in 1987. And the DMCA, (written by the RIAA and fellow industry giants), effectively eliminated any trace of that former protection, silencing this conversation and others like it from the public discourse. If the text were published today I would instantly become the target of countless litigations and would be sued in perpetuity. Most likely, my credit would be eliminated and my wages garnished by as much as 60%, destroying my livelihood in the US. My only course of action would be to flee the States and to seek asylum under a foreign government (or lack thereof), and to live out the remainder of my life in exile.

This isn’t just a statistical likelihood. Based on the legal actions of the media industries in their war on piracy, these lawsuits are a guaranteed and inevitable eventuality – precisely the reason that books of this nature do not exist in print, but are instead bound to quiet circulation in less-conspicuous digital environments.

And after constructing a spreadsheet and a library of over 130 books on related subject matter, I penned this note.

Untitled Note

08-27-2019 (prev. unpublished)

I’ve compiled 100+ books on the subjects of Free Culture, Open Culture, Copyleft, Creative Commons, The Post-Scarcity Digital Economy, Linux, and Pirate Culture from The Cathedral & The Bazaar to Galloway’s The Four. 

But the majority of these texts were published before 2010. I’ve pored over metadata on several sites and the only recent publication I’ve found is The Essential Guide To Intellectual Property by Aram Sinnreich; (I LOVED his book, The Piracy Crusade).

Surely the subject isn’t dead? Doesn’t the streaming service revolution, the struggle for artist compensation, and the ever-increasing consolidation of content distributors warrant further discussion of the matter?

Am I missing out on a wealth of analytical and philosophical texts about the digital economy?

As we enter the closing months of 2022, I’ll continue my search for a community where these ideas are actively discussed and debated. Perhaps one day I’ll find peers with whom to engage and further this discussion.

I welcome my readers’ ideas.

Are the Floodgates of Public’s Access to Information and of Global Communication Irreversibly Open?

Siva Vaidhyanathan’s writings on piracy culture, particularly The Anarchist in the Library, references numerous examples of the church and crown’s efforts to maintain a stranglehold on the flow of information to protect their power.  In a chapter discussing the history of control, there are clear parallels between the Catholic Church and those of the United States with the implementation of The Patriot Act.

In the 14th century, John Wycliffe was the first to produce a handwritten English manuscript of the 80 books of the Bible.  44 years after Wycliffe had died, the Pope declared him a heretic, banned his writings, and ordered a posthumous execution.  His bones were dug-up, crushed, burned, and scattered in a river.  Similarly in the 16th century, William Tyndale was the first to translate and print the New Testament into English.  As a result he was imprisoned for 500 days, strangled and burned at the stake.

William Tyndale, before being strangled and burned at the stake, cries out, “Lord, open the King of England’s eyes”. woodcut from Foxe’s Book of Martyrs (1563).

By the dawn of the 21st century, the freedom of information that came with the printing press experienced its most-recent incarnation with the world wide web and social media.  The Patriot Act was the government’s struggle for control over the anarchic freedom that was the internet and came in the form of mass-surveillance.

Edward Snowden became the latest in the line of dissidents who worked to empower the public by exposing the corruption of the government, just as Tyndale and Wycliffe before him.  And a curious web search for the terms “Spanish Inquisition” + “Patriot Act” instantly returns a piece by Walter Cronkite comparing and contrasting the two systems from 2003.

Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger states in his article, Who Says We Know that “Professionals are no longer needed for the bare purpose of the mass distribution of information and the shaping of opinion.”  This same dissemination of distribution is what resulted in the music industry’s panic and frenzied struggle for control with crippling technologies like DRM and its continued anti-piracy campaign.  There is simply no longer a need for the monopolistic record labels that once commanded the industry.  Artists are empowered to distribute their content directly and can communicate with their fanbase without a commercial intermediary.  This artist-empowerment is expertly discussed by Amanda Palmer in her book, The Art of Asking (and in her TED Talk of the same name.)

Amanda Palmer’s The Art of Asking

In each of these milestones in the history of information freedom, the acts have been irreversible.  Gutenberg’s printing press empowered the public good through democratization of information – making it inexpensive and readily-accessible.  The web has been much the same, only exponentially more potent.

Still, small but persistent communities continue to prepare for a dystopian world war over information.  They archive the Wikipedia daily and hypothesize alternate methods of mass-communication should the Web as we know it come under fire.  Is their fear valid?

An eBook export of the Wikipedia

It is difficult to envision a scenario in which first-world governments could close the floodgates of the world-wide web without immediate and drastic reprisal from the public at large who have come to view the internet as a right and a public utility.  Furthermore, global commerce, banking, and the mechanics of industry could not likely stand to make such a sacrifice in the name of control.  Shutting down the web would thrust the global economy into an instantaneous dark age and entire systems of utility, government and finance would collapse.

What are your thoughts?  Is our access to information irreversibly free?  Need we take measures to stockpile and protect the information we have today in preparation for a darker tomorrow?

How Music Got Free – Cover to Cover

Thrilled to have received my copy of Stephen Witt’s How Music Got Free in the post on its date of official publication, I made myself comfortable, put on a full pot of coffee, and eagerly dove into what I anticipated would be a fast-favorite addition to my library.

The book quickly settles into an exciting rhythm – its chapters circling around the activities of key figures in the story of the music industry and of music piracy in the last thirty years. It begins with the struggle of Karlheinz Brandenburg to develop his MP3 audio compression format over twelve years of fine-tuning and a constant battle for acknowledgment by a fiercely competitive industry.

The action then jumps to a few seemingly inconsequential men working at the PolyGram compact disc manufacturing plant in North Carolina – an unsuspecting locale for the most pivotal characters in the end of an industry.

A chapter later, we are privy to private exchanges between the newly-appointed CEO of Warner Music and his fellow overseers of the empire. As the story unfolds, we follow these figures through label acquisitions and purges, through major shifts in industrial policy, through aimless crackdowns on “pirates” including the elderly, the deceased, and a 12-year-old girl who’d downloaded the theme song to Family Matters.

As these individual stories progress, the reader develops an in-depth perspective of the tumultuous end of an era for recorded music. The author offers an astoundingly detailed account of the lives and conversations of core members of the Rabid Neurosis warez group and their suppliers. The storytelling is exciting, calculated, and fast-paced. In elegant Hollywood style, each chapter leaves one scene at a critical cliffhanger to pick up at a similar point of action from another of the sub-plots in the puzzle that was turn-of-the-century music.

I read How Music Got Free eyes wide from cover to cover, captured by every thrilling twist in the tale. What could have been a dry and drab account of compression algorithms and legalities is instead an action-packed saga of a dangerous underground organization where anonymity is critical and risk is always high.

The book also explores the advent of the iPod and the birth and death of numerous filesharing services like Kazaa, Grokster, Limewire, Bearshare, the rise and fall of TPB, and Oink, as well as a few contemporary players I’d never expected to see named in print.

The ending is incredibly satisfying, and even evokes a strong sense of emotion and empathy in the reader – yet another surprise I hadn’t anticipated from a text on piracy. Witt’s book is a fascinating read and adds a much-needed perspective to a story which is still being played out before our eyes. This is easily my favorite title of the year.

Pirates to the Rescue: Giving the Listening Public What Commercial Services Will Not

Ladies and Gentleman – I’m proud to share my first published article as a music journalist for Queens Free Press in NYC! The article is live on their website and there are plans to feature it when the time comes for their first print edition.

The piece is titled, Pirates to the Rescue: Giving the Listening Public What Commercial Services Will Not.

Visit Queens Free Press and CHECK IT OUT!

By Jon Åslund [CC BY 2.5 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons

Rally in Stockholm, Sweden, in support of file sharing and software piracy.