revver is the coolest CC thing around – make work, share work for free, see the tiniest ad at the end that does not interfere with your work, make money… It really accomplishes what I quoted Jenny saying this morning: She calls for new structures of economy, distribution, sharing, and says artists "really will come" if it suits them best.
SO, I now have the below video on Revver, here. Make me moneys!
@ Rio iSummit
So I took footage from Justin Hall and Rihaad Desai at the iCommons iSummit in Rio, of musician / Minister of Culture GIlberto Gil’s speech and beer drinking, and made a li’l drum beat-ish, singy like video and audio track. Trust me, you like it. They licensed their footage under a CC-BY Attribution, meaning it can be re-mixed and re-used or distributed so long as you attribute them, which I am doing. My version is also under a CC-BY – enjoy!
revver – same as below, but make me money by clicking the ad!
QuickTime: Sorenson 3, 320×240 @ 15 frames per second, mono sound. Just under 30 MB
QuickTime on blip.tv: full res (720×480) and stereo NTSC, 29.97 fps About 90MB
MP3 – stereo, hi-qual. 11.6 MB
@ Rio iSummit
Just uploaded my first piece to CCmixter. In late 2004, Christian Nerf took the soundtrack from this video and had some fun with it in the studio (check out a post about it, and download the first re-mix/result, here). I’ve now uploaded the original soundtrack to CCmixter to see if others are into it… Hope you enjoy and please let me know if you use it! Get to it.
@ Rio iSummit
One hour performance, drinks served. 52 7th Ave, Parktown North, Johannesburg South Africa
the release:
On 16 June 2006, South Africa celebrates the 30th anniversary of Youth Day. The act of remembrance is shaped by a multitude of senses ranging from sight, sound, physical touch and smell. This year Gallery MOMO invites you to join us in commemorating Youth Day through the experience of sound. On 11 June 2006 a group of artists including Nathaniel Stern, João Orecchia, Shane de Lange, Johan Thom and Dinkies Sithole will work together to create a sound sculpture to commemorate Youth Day. The artists will draw from their own, particular experience of life in contemporary South Africa to formulate a personal, aural response to the celebration of Youth Day. For example, both Shane de Lange and Nathaniel Stern are best known as artists working with digital media to create art: de Lange creates experimental sound by appropriating and sampling sounds from various sources including music, the body and even the sounds of a paper bag; Stern is known as a new media artist who uses interactive digital technology, often drawing the viewer and the artwork together in a new interactive, symbiotic whole. Other participating artists like João Orecchia, Johan Thom and Dinkies Sithole work with media such as musical instruments, video, performance and even their bodies to create experimental works that more often than not, refuse easy classification as ‘visual art’. Nonetheless, all the artists share a playful, experimental approach towards the creation and presentation of their work. In this way, each artist will prepare a series of aural responses to the commemoration of Youth Day. At 16h00, Sunday 11 June 2006, they will come together at Gallery MOMO and enter into dialogue with each other, and the audience, by creating a monument to Youth day through sound.
¨There is a new form of music piracy running rampant around the world, and your children could be involved placing you at risk of legal persecution¨ – the recording industry association of America (RIAA) warned parents to keep watch of their children´s activities in order to curb this new form of theft, stating ¨we will not hesitate to use the full power of the law to punish those who steal our intelectual property and parents will be held accountable for the actions of their children.¨
The RIAA´s South-African counterpart ASAMI echoed these thoughts.
Explaining the details of the crime in a press release, the RIAA stated that this new form of piracy goes beyond digital media exploiting an innate bug in the way music is heard to make copies into the human brain itself.
¨Basically, when you remember something, your brain has made a copy of it. Copyright prohibits copying anything without our consent and ergo, this is a crime.¨
The RIAA fears that there have been untold lost CD sales already due to people stealing music in this manner (coloqially known as ¨remembering¨). What is worse says the release, is that often people will remember a song they hear on the radio or television or at a friends house, and then decide they don´t like it – costing the artists a sale they would have had, had the person not remembered how bad the song was.
On top of this memory inately allows music to be utilized in other illegal ways including derivative works (known in the vernacular as ¨humming¨ a song).
While it is true that memory doesn´t always provide perfect quality copies, and people will often only remember parts of a song some people do in fact remember songs in their entirety, especially if they copy it to their brains multiple times as memory has the ability to fill in missing bits each time a song is received, the RIAA is frank about it all: Everytime somebody remembers a song, he is guilty of thef, and besides what about people with photographic memories ?
Appart from legal action against perpetrators, the RIAA is simultaneously pursuing legislative and techincal measures to curb the activity. A bill currently pending before the US congress will demand and extension of the CSSCA and DMCA protections to the human brain.
¨Basically if the bill passes, it will be legally required for all newly-made human babies to have genetic protection software installed which will prevent music from being remembered¨ said sponsoring congressman Geemee Cash.
On the technical front Sony-BMG is taking the lead with a new generation of CD copyprotection. A sony programmer who wishes to remain anonymous describes the system:
¨Essentially we are coating all new cd´s with a thin-layer of crystalized LSD, when heated by the CD-laser the LSD reverts to liquid and then to gass form, the listener then breaths it in, effectively destroying their abillity to remember the song they heard.¨
These moves however have not been without controvercy, a spokesman for the EFF responded by declaring that remembering music is an explicity allowed copyright exception under section 17 of the US copyright law, the fair-use statute and similiar laws internationally. The EFF went further to declare the RIAA´s plans for genetically preventing music-memory as a ¨gross invasion of privacy¨ stating that ¨how people choose to make new human beings is one of the most sacredly private matters in the law¨.
When asked about SONY/BMG´s proposed new LSD-layer copyprotection the EFF spokesman snorted and said ¨That´s just crazy, it´s even worse than that whole rootkit debacle – and besides it wouldn´t work ! The last time Japanese engineers mixed drugs and music we ended up with Kareoke !¨
***********
PS. This post is a parody… (I hope).
Are we losing our edge? I’m sitting here working and struggling with something that has never been a problem before: I want to listen to music, but it is definitely distracting me.
Once upon a time, I could listen to music and write with no problem. In fact, it was better that way. Now I find that I write much better in silence. This makes me feel lame. Is my brain losing its power? Or am I gaining focus?
I feel like this is a question that will primarily concern writers, but maybe not? I’d be interested to hear what other artists say about music and other distractions. How do you feel about them when you are trying to work? Helpful? Harmful? Neutral?