Apple argued in this jailbreaking case that copyright law prevents people from installing unapproved programs on iPhones. But the EFF successfully argued that making a phone interoperable amounts to fair use. Copyright law says that if you pay for something, you have the right to use it as you wish as long it is not for some kind of commercial benefit.

The ruling also applied to video remixing, so is it possible we’ll see the return of all those great Hitler parodies spun out of Downfall?

Can capitalism survive the present trauma? Yes, of course.” But, Harvey explains, it can only do so at a terrible price. The mass of the people will be required “to give generously of their fruits of labour to those in power, to surrender many of their rights and their hard-won asset values (in everything from housing to pension rights) and to suffer environmental degradations galore, to say nothing of serial reductions in their living standards which will mean starvation for many of those already struggling to survive at rock bottom. More than a little political repression, police violence and militarised state control will be required to stifle the ensuing unrest.”

—David Harvey (who must be the only Marxist in America)

Fun stuff. This video shows a cartoon animation of Harvey’s explanation of the financial crisis, being drawn in real time with Harvey’s lecture on the audio track. Very creative delivery that adds zing to the dry academia of it all. Can one be any more contrarian than to be a Marxist in the USA of 2010?

How will musicians and writers, and other artists and tradesmen whose work is now primarily digital, make a living now that their product can be so easily and freely acquired?

Jeremy poses that the barriers to entry have been removed. Any musician with GaragePro can become world-famous: “The limits are only on ability, marketing savvy and drive.” He argues that the business model of the big labels is defunct, and I’ll grant that Big Music has lost its former sway, but can the model really be outdated if there are still commercial pop superstars making big money with the help of mega-amplified media attention?

But ok, bands don’t make much money from their albums anyway, it’s the record companies who take that home. The artist makes money on the tour, right?. That was true for a band like the Grateful Dead, who made all their money from touring and whose records sold poorly – but new, anonymous artists cannot conjure up legions of fans to follow them cross-country. According to EJ, who should know these things, the labels put the young artists out on tour and take most of the returns for themselves, leaving the artists with the merchandise take. “If you’re out on tour and you’re not selling merch, you’re not making money.”

It seems there’s no money to be made for anyone anymore selling CDs. Around the table, no man could remember the last time he’d bought one. Digital music purchases were also rare. All admitted to downloading free music, often illegally, though some said they had dialled back from the days when they could fill an entire hard drive in an afternoon. “I’ve got way more music than I could ever conceivably listen to.”

One participant brought up software downloads as a comparison. “I had a project for which I needed to have Adobe Dreamweaver. Well I looked it up and it’s four hundred bucks! But within minutes through a simple Google search, I was able to find the torrent, follow the crack instructions to load the software onto my machine and use it. Now, would I walk into a computer store and see this program for $400 on the shelf, put it under my coat and try to walk out? No fucking way! But I’m happy to do essentially the same thing over the internet, because it just doesn’t feel like stealing.” This sentiment was echoed around the table.

Despite the lack of legal, paid downloads happening, we were not hostile to the idea. But for most, it was the price. “Ten dollars for an album is still too much.” I asked what a good price would be, since I felt that $10 for an album is not so excessive. Five-dollar albums? Jeremy said yes, he’d buy albums at that price. But Don was obstinate, and said albums should be a dollar, because then he would just buy them on a whim. What didn’t occur to me at the time was that there could be a service that adjusted the price per album according to how much money each subscriber vowed to spend on a monthly or yearly basis. So I could sign up and guarantee that I’d spend $500 this year on music: at that level I could get albums for $2. Kind of like the BMG mail order service of my high school days, when I started my first collection (CDs) by becoming a member. (Join Now and Get 6 CDs FREE!)

Another noted the proliferation of auctioning sites like eBay and asked why there was not a platform for auctioning mp3 songs and albums, or tickets to movies. “Why is every movie the same price? Some movies are clearly worth more than others.”

What about cash donations? I related a recent story in which I had “otherwise acquired” an artist’s album and was so moved by it, and listened to it so often, that I decided it was absolutely criminal that I hadn’t paid this guy – I went online and bought the album I already owned, just on principle (and as a result, probably transferring about $0.89 to the artist in question). And it’s true that people support art they love with their dollars even when they don’t have to. But the argument that won the evening was, “altruism is not a business model.”

If not charity, what about “Artistic Freedom Vouchers” from the government? Each of us gets $100 from Uncle Sam to spend on art and art alone… I leave it to you, gentle reader, to pursue that thread or not.

***

As for the news, we discussed James Fallows’s recent piece on Google “saving the news”, and it seems that the best news for the journalism industry is that everyone inside Google assumes that “users” (“readers”) will once again pay for their newspapers and magazines – and pay willingly – it’s just a matter of how. The argument is sound, because it also depends on the news changing somewhat. No longer will newspapers and media be able to provide the same stories as everyone else. They will have to provide something unique.

“Usually, you see essentially the same approach taken by a thousand publications at the same time,” [Krishna Bharat, the engineer who designed Google News] told me. “Once something has been observed, nearly everyone says approximately the same thing.” He didn’t mean that the publications were linking to one another or syndicating their stories. Rather, their conventions and instincts made them all emphasize the same things. This could be reassuring, in indicating some consensus on what the “important” stories were. But Bharat said it also indicated a faddishness of coverage—when Michael Jackson dies, other things cease to matter—and a redundancy that journalism could no longer afford. “It makes you wonder, is there a better way?” he asked. “Why is it that a thousand people come up with approximately the same reading of matters? Why couldn’t there be five readings? And meanwhile use that energy to observe something else, equally important, that is currently being neglected.” He said this was not a purely theoretical question. “I believe the news industry is finding that it will not be able to sustain producing highly similar articles.”

I think that maxim could be applied equally to producers of art and media everywhere.

CaptainCrawl is THE music blog index, type in an artist name and check out what comes up, you should be able to find links to blogs with full albums to download.

Radiobutt was the best music blog around, dude put up all the newest indie albums, had a really good site. It was hit hard by the music industry cops, relaunched and then mysteriously went down again. If you click on the link for it you’ll can read the guy’s farewell, he doesn’t say anything about the industry, but I’d bet the constant threat of legal action finally put him off. This interview between radiobutt and captaincrawl is essential reading for Wednesday night, CC says so many things that mirror what I think.  radiobuttmusic-vs-captaincrawl

I also wanted to link to Patch, which is one of our people’s current gig, a local community news sources that I think is an example of one of the ways people are trying to make a buck off news in a creative way these days.

(From Rindy):

For ideas about the future of journalism, it’s worth reading some of the work of NYU media critic Jay Rosen. He writes often about the ills of the national press today, who believe in what he calls “the Church of the Savvy“:

To the savvy, the center is a holy place: political grace resides there. The profane is the ideological extremes. The adults converse in the pragmatic middle ground where insiders cut their deals. On the wings are the playgrounds for children.  But to argue directly for these propositions is out of the question: political reporters don’t conduct arguments, they tell us what’s happening!  Instead an argument is made by positioning the players a certain way while reporting the news and doing “analysis.”

Another lament of his is He Said, She Said Journalism, in which “balance” is created by reporting what both sides say about a dispute (there are always two sides, never three or four) without bothering to fact check the obvious clashes of truth in the arguments. It’s practices like this that have readers seeking out new outlets for journalism. Where the news has traditionally given us the View From Nowhere (the myth of objectivity), we’re more interested now in reading honest analysis from writers who are upfront about their own opinions and who document their work thoroughly for others to follow.

For a great example, read what Mac McClelland has been reporting on the oil spill, and the heinous way in which BP has been treating journalists.

The next Junta will take on a subject that is sure to scuttle consensus. We are going to meet to discuss changes in the world of music and media being brought upon by technology. Titled the Creative Destruction Junta in a nod to that economic term whereby one industry dies as times change but in its wake comes a new industry with accompanying new jobs. It sounds like it fits together quite nicely, and while it has proven to be a sound economic concept, it doesn’t necessarily speak to the impact of those lost jobs, those changed lifestyles, and what is lost in the process.

The music industry has been the impetus for this discussion. There are a number of musicians in the Junta and this debate has come up already a number of times, in part at the Downtown music scene Junta, many moons ago at a forgotten East Village bar (read the intro and the wrap to that meeting, from Dec 2008). Essentially we have witnessed the drastic hollowing of the music industry machine as technology has lowered the barrier to entry in both recording and marketing. The compact of the past between musicians and industry has been one whereby the music company would take a gamble on a new act, making a large capital investment in studio time (which historically has been very expensive) and in promoting the band. The odds of success were low, but the record company would recoup its investment on the occasionally blockbuster act that made it millions. Most bands made very little off this model, but it was the only way to get heard by a wider audience.

In the 21st Century that has changed. Bands can now record an album with sophisticated programs on their own computers for very little. They can post the album online for free and reach the whole world. The limits are only on ability, marketing savvy and drive. Traditionally, musicians have made money off playing live with the record companies, as mentioned, receiving the lion’s share of the profits. Records are still made with the backing of the industry, but the evolution of online piracy—from file-trading to the blog revolution—has undermined this model. Now an album has become, in many ways, a business card—“come see me when I hit your home town”.

But there is something lost in this. Bands that work hard to record an album, often with the backing of a scrappy label staffed by dedicated music-heads, are often not making enough to scratch out a living. It is also pretty mind-boggling to figure out what to check out for the average listener.

The world of media has also been hugely affected by the technological changes of recent years. Print media has been devastated by the need to establish an online presence and react to the overwhelming feeling of the online community that its content should be free. The partisan echo chamber has been exacerbated with those on all sides now turning to their favorite bloggers or slanted news source to reinforce their beliefs. This has, in many ways, narrowed and infantilized our society. The implications on our society are potentially huge.

Do you download music? How do you justify it? Are you willing to pay to read a news story, even a few cents? We’re looking forward to hearing your thoughts when gather next, on 6/30 (to be confirmed).

The majority of Gazans have no electricity for 8-10 hours per day on account of Israel having destroyed the area’s only power plant and not permitting it to be rebuilt. Something close to 100% of the water in Gaza is contaminated, because the sewage system has been destroyed, and the Israelis will not allow materials into Gaza that might fix it. The WHO has reported that “In the Gaza Strip, private enterprise is practically at a standstill as a consequence of the blockade. Almost all (98%) industrial operations have been shut down.”

The above figures are taken from this article at Foreign Policy, which lays out more of the crisis in detail.

The Israelis claim to be blocking only items that can be used as weapons, and yet they have prevented many food items from entering Gaza, such as fresh meat, canned fruit, and certain spices, which obviously have no weapons use. This chart from the Economist lays out some of the things which have been blocked.

The BBC has further details about the costs of the occupation and blockade, including revelations like this:

• the number of Gazans that the UN helps who are unable to buy basic items such as soap, stationary and safe drinking water has tripled since 2007
• Gaza unemployment is near 40%, so many people cannot buy supplies even when they are available
• The UN’s FAO says $180m of trees, fields, livestock, greenhouses and nurseries were destroyed during operation Cast Lead. The Palestinian Authority estimates 15% of agricultural land was destroyed

All of this is being done to punish the Palestinians for electing “the wrong government”. While Hamas has certainly committed acts of terrorism, it is clear that the effects of the occupation and the blockade amount to terror wielded against the Palestinians. We condemn Osama Bin Laden when he justifies attacks against Americans by saying that America is a democracy and the people have chosen their government, yet when we see the Palestinians elect a government we do not like, we find it justifiable to commit terror against them. I say “we”, because I am an American, and because America is Israel’s partner in these efforts. If we did not finance and defend these actions, we would not be culpable. Alas, we are.

So frustrating reading about the Israeli raid on the flotillaoff the coast of Gaza. While I think the Israelis did a relatively poor job of operational planning (they expected to catch the people on the ship asleep and not particularly violent) and weren’t exactly nimble in terms of their PR response to the deaths on board, the outcry is part of the continued hypocrisy of how Israel is treated internationally.

Turkey has been the most strident in its criticism, but the reasons why are a bit more complex than what Prime Minister Erdogan would have you believe. Erdogan is from an Islamist party that has challenged–successfully–the secular establishment that has ruled Turkey since it become a modern country. He has slowly eroded the ties with Israel (the closest of any Muslim nation) and this current imbroglio (the ship raided was flying  a Turkish flag) has given him the pretext to whip even more anti-Israel sentiment to burnish his religious and nationalist credentials ahead of an election that will take place approximately a year from now. Anyone who has seen the footage of Israeli commandos being hammered with metal rods as they landed on the deck, or thrown overboard, might disagree that deaths on board, however unfortunate, were not a “bloody massacre”. That’s just one of the many virulent statements he has made in the last 24 hours that make him sound less like the statesmen of a country that aspires to join the EU and more like Ahmadinejad. Erdogan is taking his place in a long line of Muslim leaders using the Palestinians as pawns to both advance their own parochial political interests and distract attention from problems at home.

Even more frustrating is watching Euro-liberals posturing like revolutionaries over this. I was watching the BBC when Bangkok was going to hell recently and they had an interview with a Brit who was hunkered down with the Red Shirts, dude fancied himself a modern Che Guevara and obviously had little understanding of the nuance of the local situation, it was easier to say it’s rich versus poor than really understand the complexity of what was going on. Similarly, the mingling of latent anti-Semitism and guilt over both colonialism and historic anti-Jewish feeling colors the Left in Europe and the people who were on board those ships and protesting in European capitals. They should look in the mirror and understand that the legacy of their country’s colonialism is the root of most modern conflicts. Similarly, they can avoid remembering what actually spurred Zionism and the establishment of the state of Israel (European anti-semitism) and continue to revel in seeing the Israelis acting like fascists if that’s how they want to view it, but they are deluding themselves. There is no humanitarian disaster in Gaza, no one is starving and food and medicine flows into Gaza. If the people there want a better life they should get rid of the terrorist organization that they have put in power and who are responsible for their misery and isolation. And if the clueless lefties want to do something real to help people who are actually suffering they should go to Darfur or Congo.

We began Wednesday night with Alex reading from the introduction to his book, which centered on a speech Glenn Beck made in Tampa, in November 2009. There Beck announced “The Plan”, an as-yet-undefined blueprint for taking America back from the progressives and advocates of “social justice”. Beck believes that this phrase is a euphemism for socialism.

Though Beck does not intend to announce details of the plan until August, he has said that it will encompass 100 years. We can safely assume that it will hit the major Tea Party points.

Alex touched upon the emotional nature of Beck’s speaking style in this passage:

Finally, inevitable as gravity, there was the florid signature that appears somewhere at least once, often twice, in every Beck performance. This is the moment when the voice catches, the eyes mist, and it seems, for one or two excruciating moments, that the reluctant patriot might not be able to hold back the tears, so verklempt has he become at his rote invocation of love of country, or the brave troops, or George Washington…

You don’t have to read past the title to understand this is an anti-Glenn Beck book. But right from the beginning, Alex is unrelenting in his criticism, which is sometimes laced with sarcasm. Though he says the book was not commissioned as a hit job on Beck, the target audience is clearly the young, urban, liberal elitists who mostly know Glenn Beck from watching The Daily Show.

Alex talks about Beck as a dangerous force to be stopped, but also as a charlatan whom he compares to P.T. Barnum. The question was raised whether it was fair for us, in our conversation, to ridicule Beck as insincere. Perhaps we are mistaken and he does, in fact, have genuinely strong feelings about “loss of liberty” in this country. Or what if, yes, it is a performance, but it is intended to convey his message, which still has value?

The Junta being what it is, there was not a lot of sympathy for Beck in the group. But Jeff valiantly tried to counter our native arguments with the viewpoints of his father, who watches Beck’s show (as does my own). For those who genuinely feel that the government is encroaching too much on our private lives and businesses, for those who feel that the country has moved too far away from religion, Beck’s message can ring true. Just because some of us feel that these fears are unfounded or misplaced (I, for one, worry far more about the government’s assassinating US citizens or wiretapping our phones without warrant than I do about the federal takeover of GM), this doesn’t mean we should reject out of hand the concerns of our fellow citizens outside the major cities. “If you think about conservatives as stupid, then you’re making a mistake,” Jeff said.

Alex’s rebuttal to that is that Beck is indeed dangerous. When he talks about Obama and progressives representing a “virus that feeds upon the host of the Republic”, when he says “I’m going to be a progressive hunter like the old Nazi hunters” (as he did on his program, June 10, 2009), Alex argues that Beck is playing the fear card to such a degree as to be inciting violence. He is appropriating the language common to genocidal regimes.

Cedric said that, to him, commentators like Beck and Rush Limbaugh seemed to be moving closer to entertainment (and away from serious political debate) every year, with less and less of a grip on historical fact. Alex agreed, and talked about how Beck has, in his opinion, grossly distorted history. “The American Revolution was about destroying centers of power to create an egalitarian society,” he argued. “But over time, private corporate power grew to such a degree that it became necessary for government to introduce a ‘flattening’ effect, with the antitrust laws, income tax, etc. Without government exerting that power, we end up with a segregated society – gated communities and the poor – is that what the Founders wanted?” Adam Serwer, at the American Prospect, talks about Rand Paul employing a similar distortion in his recently panned comments about discrimination.

As is typical for a Junta meeting, we wandered off on various tangents here and there, like the nostalgic idea of 1950s America and whether it really existed (and if it did, why), the merits of the French ban on the burqa, the origins of American progressivism, etc, etc. It was a great night with a lot of food for thought. Be sure to catch our next meeting, likely near the end of June.

But Thaksin didn’t take to exile well and has spent years battling to get back to Thailand and has fueld the fire of class struggle as a stalking horse for his own ambitions. And now Thai society is turned upside down. Some are talking about establishing a Republic, further minimizing the role of the King. The nature of democracy and the social fabric of the country is tattered, the rural north feeling enraged by recent events; no one has talked for a while about the Muslim insurgency in the south, but that is still simmering. In short, Thailand could be pulled apart.

I used to tell people who hadn’t been to Asia before that Thailand was the best first country to visit. Beautiful, exotic, great food, amazing beaches, beautiful temples, friendly people who speak English and Thailand is used to tourists. But now how can I say that? The NY Times had one of the better stories I’ve read recently today and I thought this quote was a particularly powerful summary about the events in Thailand for those who have followed the country for years.

“This is the worst crisis Thailand has had, ever, probably — maybe World War II — and where we go from here I don’t think anybody knows,” said Charles Keyes, an anthropologist at the University of Washington, Seattle, who has devoted much of his life to the study of Thailand.

“My understanding of what I have learned over the years here has really come into question,” he said. “I question all the things I’ve learned about this country.”

http://www.alternet.org/media/146752/how_glenn_beck_re-invented_himself_as_a_crying_conservative?page=entire

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/17/opinion/17krugman.html?hp

http://www.alternet.org/news/146403/the_five_creepiest_moments_of_the_southern_republican_leadership_conference/?page=3

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/16/opinion/16rich.html?src=me&ref=opinion