The Ballad of Zack McCune

My love for the Berkman Center is well-known by those who know me. I love the programs they develop (Global Voices, Stop Badware, Creative Commons, Chilling Effects, and countless others), and the stuff they put out, pure and simple. This summer we see another brilliant one, care of the Digital Natives series.

Zack McCune is a Brown Student and Berkman Intern, and was recently sued by the RIAA for filesharing, along with 11 of his Brown brethren. Zack was kind enough to make a video along with a couple other Berkman folks detailing his experience. The pieces are short and sweet, and raise some good perspectives, including a few of the obvious questions those of us who study the RIAA think about.

Part One

Part Two

Part Three… is coming August 6th, and will be here.

Check it out. It adds a nice, smart, human touch to an issue that so often gets tossed as a statisic.

Edit: Let’s give credit where credit is due! Kudos to Nikki Leon and John Randall, who produced the above segments. Nikki gave me a teaser about next week’s segment, and the Lessig fans in the house will certainly want to tune in.

Thoughts for the Midweek: Free-Range History

(edit: I polished this up a little bit the following morning. I should stop writing when I’m so tired.)

Thanks again to the influx of newcomers, and hope you stick around.

I’m on the road for the next few days; in anticipation of my home shifting a few hundred miles south I’m spending the end of the week a few hundred miles north. Life is fun like that.

Here’s some food for thought until I get back to the usual ramblings. Here’s The New York Times’ take on an incident which many have been talking about on- and offline.

NYT:

The availability of cheap digital technology — video cameras, digital cameras, cellphone cameras — has ended a monopoly on the history of public gatherings that was limited to the official narratives, like the sworn documents created by police officers and prosecutors. The digital age has brought in free-range history.

This article comes courtesy of longtime buddy Jared Simons, who has been keeping tabs on a story that’s spread like wildfire around the cyberspace: during the Critical Mass ride in New York last week, an officer body-checked a cyclist seemingly unprovoked and later lied about it in a sworn statement, causing the cyclist to be detained for 26 hours. This is not new by any stretch; friends of mine who ride the Mass in New York often report incidents of rider abuse by the police, and a standard maxim in the protesting world applies to cyclists as well: citizen meets cop in court, cop wins. It takes a landslide of evidence to change that, typically.

The video in question:

On The Hyperlocal: Beacon St. Tree Fall

Those who are planning on traveling on Beacon Street in Brookline headed inbound tonight: be warned. A rather large (edit. Thanks for the proofread, Universal Hub) branch just fell across most of the street (just before Marion St. between Brandon Hall and Winchester St./Summit Ave. on the C) and traffic is barely squeaking by on one side. It’s been down for about half an hour at this point and crews are just starting to clear it out. No person, animal or vehicle appears to have been hurt. All in all, a nice capstone to some wacky weather we’ve been having in MA this weekend.

Want To Play The New Deerhoof Single Before Deerhoof Does?

There you go.

What are you waiting for?

I figure one good post on Deerhoof deserves another. As a rather clever approach to the age old, “we want to get the buzz out about our upcoming album but we don’t want it to leak too much,” situation, Deerhoof decided to post their single as CC-licensed sheet music, and encourages enterprising artists to make their own version, upload it to their blog, and link to the origin site here. There are some rather interesting interpretations up there already. A few are basic piano interpretations, but some dabble in the strange. My two favorite as of now are from Savant Trigger and Nick Hennies. You should also see the generosity of Lucas Gonze, who put up the track as MIDI, Sibelius, MP3, and guitar tablature.

Read more about it at Stereogum, Listening Post, and Brooklyn Vegan (who links to a video of WNYC’s sight reading challenge of the song).

Deerhoof’s Greg Saunier, on Obama

(image from Flickr user Mreh)

Largehearted Boy recently started an evocative series titled “Why Obama,” where various musicians, artists, and authors write short essays outlining their support for the Illinois Senator. Today’s post comes from fantasticly experimental band Deerhoof’s drummer, Greg Saunier.

Oh, as an editorial, please check all drummer intelligence jokes at the door. Listen to Deerhoof’s Milk Man and tell me that Mr. Saunier doesn’t have the mental dexterity of a Shaolin warrior.

Saunier’s essay surrounds a powerful element of Obama’s character as a speaker: his ability to engage audiences with clarity and precision. Or, as Saunier puts it, cutting down on the “gibberish” or regular politicians who, “want to sound smart but exclude me from the equation.” This creates an inclusive governance, empowering all citizens to be part of the discussion while not boiling away the complexities of these issues to meaningless talking points.

Saunier:

For all the chatter about Obama’s progressiveness on policy, vastly overstated in my opinion, what’s really progressive about him as far as I’m concerned is that inclusiveness in the discussion. If for no other reason than that the words coming out of his mouth are understandable, he is a radical politician. That’s the reason he’s a potential danger to the status quo – not necessarily the policy status quo (this remains to be seen), but the structural status quo. Imagine a country where citizens, especially younger ones, feel included in the political process, where they are expected to understand the details. I get chills when I do, because I can’t remember a single time that’s ever happened in my life, not at the presidential level. New citizens might grow up feeling that having a point of view is something other than pointless exercise in frustration.

While Saunier lays an excellent assessment of his public character, it’s worth nothing that this openess he’s encouraging has been backed with real strategic proposals. In fact, it was this November 2007 decision to create a Chief Technology Officer that brought me towards the Obama camp in the first place. The CTO is a near-cambinet-level officer, whose job would be to ensure open government meetings, create online wikis with public commenting on public issues, and mandate live webcasts of all critical hearings. Imagine if you will a presidency which engages the public through a variety of accessible online tools, paired with a President who decides to treat his speaking audience not as children requiring contorted metaphors, but as Citizens capable of deep, rational thought. What an exciting prospect.

Jonathan Richman Hits the Road Hard

Pollstar is reporting this afternoon that Jonathan Richman, a man whose charm and talent knows no limits (and head mind behind my favorite record of all time, The Modern Lovers) is spending almost all of October on the road, playing a show a night with only a few days off. This is the longest and hardest-hitting tour we’ve seen from Jonathan in years. Here are the dates and places:

Oct. 1 – The Parish Room, Austin, TX
Oct. 2- Rubber Gloves Rehearsal Studios, Denton, TX
Oct. 3 – Hi-Tone Cafe, Memphis, TN
Oct. 4 – Flying Monkey Arts, Huntsville, AL
Oct. 5 – Sluggo’s, Pensacola, FL
Oct. 6 – Common Grounds, Gainesville, FL
Oct. 7 – Skipper’s Smokehouse, Tampa, FL
Oct. 9 – Evening Muse, Charlotte, NC
Oct. 10 – Local 506, Chapel Hill, NC
Oct. 11 – Gravity Lounge, Charlottesville, VA
Oct. 12 – First Unitarian Church, Philadelphia, PA
Oct. 14 – New York Society For Ethical Culture, New York, NY
Oct. 15 – Club Helsinki, Great Barrington, MA
Oct. 16 – Pearl Street, Northampton, MA
Oct. 17 – Somerville Theatre, Somerville, MA (tickets on sale now)
Oct. 18 – SPACE, Portland, ME
Oct. 19 – Valentine’s, Albany, NY
Oct. 21 – Bug Jar, Rochester, NY
Oct. 22 – Mr. Small’s Theatre, Pittsburgh, PA
Oct. 23 – Donkey Coffee & Espresso, Athens, OH
Oct. 24 – Southgate House, Newpork, KY
Oct. 25 – High Dive, Champaign, IL
Oct. 26 – Off Broadway Nightclub, Sait Louis, MO
Oct. 27 – The Picado, Iowa City, IA
Oct. 28 – The Maintenance Shop – Ames, IA
Oct. 29 – The Bottleneck, Lawrence, KS

I wouldn’t be surprised if we see more dates added on as October gets closer. Something tells me he’ll press on into the Rockies and through to the West coast if the tour is going well (although it does create a curious little loop as it stands). I have to admire how many shows he’s squeezing in on this tour. For a person of his age (a ripe and feisty 57) this is quite an ambitious undertaking. I’ve seen him twice now, and both times I’ve been totally impressed by his showmanship. You will never see a person quite like Jonathan Richman again, so see him if you can.

His latest album is Because Her Beatuy is Raw and Wild, with rumors of a new one, A qué venimos sino a caer?, coming soon.

Tag Team Olympics

I do not write about my own personal music exploits very often, but I’m involved in a project right now that deserves your attention.

Roommate and killer DJ, Aardvark Chekhov (aka Aaron), has founded a website for a two-month music project of his: Tag Team Olympics. The premise is quite simple: get together nine artists and create a collaborative record. Each week a different artist creates a track, designed to flow from the previous aritst’s track. On the website side of things, you can listen to each song as they are posted. On the back end amongst us participants, we’re uploading not only the mixed and mastered song, but all of our source material: individual tracks, MIDI or DAW master files, and copious notes on the music and material provided. Participants are freely sampling from all previous work, creating something of a musical terrarium for the world to observe.

Two tracks are completed as of now, with a third coming this weekend. First came from Aardvark himself, with a second created by longtime accomplice Oscar and me. Aardvark dabbles in sonic landscaping and soulful grooves with his “Zap Rowsdower,” named from the MST3K Episode for The Final Sacrifice. Ours is a New/No Wave tribute to fellow Sci-Fi-era MST3K Episode, Overdrawn At The Memory Bank, borrowing liberally from the libretto of that masterpiece. You can listen to and download both on the TTO site.

What’s next, a garage rock anthem based on Parts: The Clonus Horror? I guess you’ll have to keep checking back.

Fair Use and Takedown Notices: Let’s Go Crazy.

This morning Ars Technica, go-to blog for all things technology, wrote a great piece on the ongoing takedown/copyright battle between Universal Music and The Electronic Frontier Foundation. The matter at hand surrounds a particular YouTube video that was issued a DMCA takedown notice, showing a young child dancing and singing to a Prince song (29 seconds of “Let’s Go Crazy”). Arguments were made before a judge on Friday – see the Recording Industry vs. the People article on the subject.

The critical question around this particular case is how Fair Use extends to the world of takedown notices. A home movie of a baby dancing to a small part of a Prince song is likely to be found fair, but the home movie still was taken off of YouTube by the copyright holder. As the Universal attorney in the meeting observed, fair use is a defense against claims of infringement and not a right that supersedes copyright claims. Ergo, in the eyes of Universal, any takedown notice issued for a piece of copyrighted material is valid, since only a judge can accurately determine whether a use is fair.

The first half of this argument is completely valid – fair use is a defense, not a right. It may be (and is) onerous to have to go to court to argue that a use is fair, but it is what it is. However, to go a step further and claim that all takedowns against copyright violations are legitimate (or at least not in bad faith) ignores three large issues: first, a marketplace issue, and second, a fairness of the courts issue, and third, a free speech issue.

Another Blogger Supports “The Dark Knight”

I came back from the IMAX theater in Hooksett, NH a few hours ago. For the next day, at least, The Dark Knight is my favorite movie. This was fantastic – even better than Batman Begins, which was the best of the serious Batman movies, in my opinion. Heath Ledger couldn’t be better as the Joker, leaving this performance as a sort of Requiem – as poignant, telling, and unfinished as Mozart’s (for tonight, at least. My blasphemy of the Romantic hero will probably subside by the end of the weekend).

But perhaps most exciting of all was the chance to see, for the first time, the trailer to Alan Moore’s Watchmen. Here it is for enjoyment by all:

I believe in Harvey Dent, and keep watching the watchmen.

The RNC Lives in Dystopia

I very much admire the work of dystopian authors – Huxley, Orwell, and more recently Mike Judge and Pixar. Be it through Soma, Big Brother, President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho, or Buy N Large, we’ve had a good run of authors reminding us that an obsession (or apathy) of our culture could easily spell destruction. Capitalism often is at the heart of it, and rightfully so.

But Michael Stipe may be wrong: it may not start with an earthquake, birds, snakes, or aeroplanes. It may very well come in the vanity of trademark law.