Aram Squalls

Inflation in the marketplace of ideas

Back in the dot-com days, we guru types used to roll out our favorite chestnut when we wanted to impress people, or to propose "radical" new business models: "consumer data is the currency of the Internet." But we never could have predicted how true this would be, what with the rise of social network marketing, psychographic and behavioral targeting, and widespread government surveillance.

Of course, this idea of information-as-currency hardly originated with us; it's central to a range of social theory by academic gurus like Daniel Bell and Manuel Castells, predicated on the notion that we are now living in an "information society" peopled by "knowledge workers."

Which leads me to my little thought of the morning (bear in mind I haven't had my tea yet): that just as global flows of capital and labor have helped to devalue our economic currency by putting our industry in a vastly larger and more competitive environment, global flows of information have helped to devalue our information currency.

Obviously, as I and others have discussed ad nauseum over the past decade, this applies to information-based commercial goods like music, video, news and such. However, I think it may also apply to other forms of information whose value has not traditionally been measured directly in economic terms.

For instance, a mere signature used to be enough to serve as a guarantee of our identity in legal, regulatory and contractual contexts. Now we are increasingly required to present multiple forms of photo ID, supply passwords, and even volunteer biometric information in order to complete transactions, cash a check, enter a building, or what have you. Traditionally, this "inflation" in the currency of personal information has been treated as a byproduct of the age-old cat-and-mouse game between information security (encryption) and information liberty (decryption). However, this doesn't preclude or conflict with another interpretation: our signatures have simply become a less valuable form of information currency as they have gotten more widely accessible. Today, even our social security numbers have become commoditized (they cost about $2 apiece online, according to a fairly recent NYT article).

Another potential effect of information inflation is the devaluation of ideas themselves. If profitable business, thriving culture, and even success in achieving the quotidian goals of our everyday lives are based on our ability to innovate, and on the strength of our ideas relative to other ideas, then the globalization of the conceptual economy certainly threatens to devalue our ideas, and thereby to undermine our potential success in business, culture, and quotidian achievements.

Of course, I'd be remiss not to invoke Jefferson's oft-quoted adage that "He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me." This premise -- that information, unlike other forms of capital, is non-rivalrous, non-excludable, and therefore increases rather than decreases in value with proliferation -- has been central to my work, and to many others', for some time.

This Jeffersonian framework for evaluating information is true when  we are discussing culture as a whole -- which certainly benefits from the "free flow of ideas" and the proliferation of cultural expression. Much as Metcalfe observed of all networks, the power and robustness of a cultural network grows exponentially as the number of expressive forms and practices comprising that network grows incrementally.

However, when ideas are in competition with one another -- as they must be for the Jeffersonian or Holmesian concept of the "marketplace of ideas" to function -- then the value of ideas-as-currency is derived from their relative strength, rather than their intrinsic qualities. Put in other terms, if you create a better mousetrap than I do, society overall will have fewer mice to deal with, but you'll end up with more food than I will.

Of course, there's nothing to stop me from taking your idea for a mousetrap, and adopting or even improving upon it myself. Hurray, everybody wins.

But wait -- not so fast. Technological and social latencies -- as well as ruinous IP laws (a/k/a institutionally enforced information latencies) -- invariably slow down the flow of ideas and the adoption of innovations (you might say the "free flow" is a myth -- always to be striven for, but never achieved), and therefore society becomes inevitably divided between information "haves" (those with better mousetraps) and information "have-nots" (those with worse mousetraps). And in some situations, such as a winner-take-all game (last one with a mouse loses), the speed of transmission is irrelevant, because only through the act of innovation (rather than the adoption of innovation) can an individual successfully achieve his or her goals.

Hence, the inflationary value of ideas. The wider and more fluid our information network, the more successfully and consistently we must innovate in order to prevent becoming information have-nots, or losing winner-take-all social dynamics. Today, we're already witnessing a kind of idea-hoarding that evokes images of Weimar-era Germans toting around wheelbarrows full of cash.

Before writing this post, I probably should have read the new Gladwell article on innovation and economics (it's been sitting on my night table for a few days). But I've got my own information latencies -- dozens of papers to grade, and only so many hours during which my son's in preschool. I'll take a look at it today, and check back in if I've got anything to add or amend.

UPDATE: The Gladwell article is great -- it punctures the myth of scientific genius by examining the ways in which ideas "in the air" occur to multiple innovators simultaneously -- e.g. Newton and Leibniz with calculus (strangely, no mention of Plato's contribution to the "in the air" premise). Unfortunately, he reserves the genius myth for the arts -- a claim I vehemently disagree with. However, other than describing the goings on at meetings of Myhrvold's idea-hoarding Intellectual Ventures (which sound like a lot of fun), the article doesn't have too much relevance to the question of information inflation.

UPDATE 2: Found this article from last year by Paul & Baron on a phenomenon they call "information inflation" -- however, their article refers to the sudden exponential growth in the volume of written information, and suggests the legal challenges associated with it. By contrast, I am using the term to discuss the devaluation of information, analogous to other forms of currency.

Forget Marvel vs. Capcom -- how about Anyone vs. Anyone?

Ever want to see Ronald McDonald and Hitler go at it head-to-head? Or how about God vs. a killer whale? Back when I was a bored teen, we could only fantasize about our ideal deathmatches. These days, if you can think it, you can make it happen.

Chris, a student in my Videogames class at NYU, recently hipped us to M.U.G.E.N., a free platform for creating characters and boards to use in a 2D, 2-player fighter. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of MUGEN characters available for free download from sites like this and this. Or, if that's not enough for you, you can make your own (just start with this video tutorial).

Below: Morrigan from Darkstalkers vs. Ronald McDonald (fighting in a BK parking lot).

Mash-ups hit the funny pages

Masha emailed me an interesting piece of news: cubicle totem Dilbert is going "Web 2.0" -- offering fans the ability to dynamically insert their own punchlines (take that, New Yorker!), and eventually to individually and collectively rewrite the entire strip.

Of course, there's nothing new about mashing up cartoons; what's new is the author giving you the tools and permission. That permission, by the way, is limited; mashers don't get any ownership stake in the product they help to produce, but according to the site's terms of service, they can share stuff noncommercially, as long as they don't piss anyone off:

United Media grants the users of the Web Site the limited, revocable permission to engage in Viral Content Distribution of such Collaborative Content as may from time to time be made available on the Web Site for such purpose.

Got a Miss Piggy mask and a frog fetish? Reply to this Craigslist ad post haste.

I really don't know what to say about this, other than:

1. I think that the rise of the "furries" subculture has something to do with configurability and our desire to extend the pleasure and freedom of online avatar-building into the physical (and sexual) realm.

2. Back in my college days, I had a whole riff about how we were the "Muppet generation" because the show sowed the seeds of postmodern critique via children's entertainment.

3. Disney now owns Henson, and they can't be happy about this. I can't believe it's been up without a takedown notice for two whole days (Passover weekend must take a lot of lawyers off the bench).

4. Eeeeeewwwww

Here's a sample, in case the ad is down by the time you read this:

"Some time ago, I found an original full head rubber Miss Piggy mask, circa 1977, complete with a full head of long blond hair. I am looking for a tall, sexy BBW, preferably over 300 pounds, to wear this mask to bed. She should also be open to playing with plastic wrap and liquid latex."

NYU-area cafe kiboshes charity concert for no reason

Over at the blog for my copyright class at NYU, a musician student of mine posted a horrific story. The managers at Think Coffee, a "socially conscious" cafe catering to the university crowd (it's practically my second office) interrupted her band during a charity show, making the absurd claim that the band was not allowed to play cover songs (never mind that the other bands on the roster had, and that Think plays commercial music over their speakers all day every day).

It's worth reading the whole post, not only for my student's story, but also for her excellent analysis about the chilling effects of copyright ignorance and overcaution.

Muggles mugged by magic magnate

There are already plenty of blog posts out there about the Harry Potter Lexicon fracas, but I've got to add my $0.02. In a nutshell, there's far more at stake here than simply a multibillion-dollar entertainment franchise, and the emotional stability and further creative output of a certain British author.

By suing the publisher of the Harry Potter Lexicon, Rowling is arguing for a very maximalist interpretation of the scope of copyright. This could have what we IP wonks refer to as a "chilling effect" on other people's creative work, and may paradoxically limit the ability of her fans to fully engage with her work (to say nothing of the negative PR value of the suit itself), depressing future revenues from this and other franchises.

Part of the problem is cultural. US and European IP laws are premised on very different notions of authorship. As the New York Times reported, a tearful Rowling "talked about the Potter books as if they were her children." This relationship, she suggested in her testimony, gives her a moral right and responsibility over the "lives" of her "children," wherever and however they may be used. This concept of "moral rights" is actually foundational to continental copyright laws, but in the US (where she's prosecuting the suit), we hold no truck with that kind of sentimental argument. To paraphrase Dylan, beyond a certain point, authors' "sons and daughters are beyond their command."

Of course, where that "certain point" lies is the subject of endless argument and negotiation. And, as people like Lessig and Vaidhyanathan have persuasively argued, even in the good old U.S. of A., the scope of authorial control over creative works has consistently expanded since the framers of the Constitution first granted Congress the power "To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries." A few decades ago, the idea that an alphabetized resource listing factual data about the characters and themes of a published book would be subject to sanction by the book's author would have seemed absurd; neither collections of facts nor characters nor plot elements were protected by US copyright laws. Today, in the wake of the Alice Randall nonsense, Rowling's chances of success -- or at least a satisfying settlement agreement -- seem far greater.

This post is too long already, but one more thing about Rowling's argument really bothers me: her claim that, as the NYT put it, the Lexicon "would compete unfairly with an encyclopedia she had been planning to create since 1998." The argument contains the seeds of its own undoing. First of all, she is asking the court to assess market harm against a product that doesn't exist yet, and the only proof of whose eventual existence is the plaintiff's own claim. Second, even if we believe in the veracity of her claims, the decade-long gap between creative impetus (1998) and announced plans (2008) is itself an argument against granting authors permanent exclusive control over the lives of their characters; quite simply, there isn't enough J.K. Rowling to go around. The world demands more Harry Potter than she can produce, and even her best intentions (the proceeds were earmarked for charity, the billionairess claimed) weren't enough to get the project off the ground, after a decade.

There's much, much more here to discuss, but I've got to prepare to teach my copyright class in a few minutes...

UPDATE

Karl of QuestionCopyright writes:

Of course, I completely agree with what you write.

Personally, I wouldn't even list the possibility of "depressing future
revenues from this and other franchises", because that implies that
perhaps if she'd taken actions to *increase* such revenues, they would
be inherently justifiable.  In other words: it's true that she's acting
against her own interests here, but what bothers us is that she's acting
against everyone *else's* interests.  If she suddenly started acting in
her own interests, but still against everyone else's, that wouldn't be
any better.

This position that her books are like her children... even if it were
not a misplaced sentimental indulgence (especially from someone who has
real children), it would be inappropriate to invoke.  After all, no
one's doing anything to any of her children!  Her books are still there,
as they always were.  Imagine if another parent observes how you educate
your kid and then gives their kid a similar education, thus turning out
a similar kid.  Who would object to that on the grounds that the second
kid is too similar?  Wouldn't you *want* the world to be full of kids
your kid could play with?  Sheesh.  Dumb metaphor anyway.

It's just censorship, plain and simple.  We ought to call it by its
right name.  As a writer -- and in particular, as a highly derivative
writer, not that there's anything wrong with that -- you'd think Rowling
would get this.  She's comfortable building on all the mythology she
received for free, because it's out there in the culture, but she
doesn't seem to understand that the way things get out there into the
culture is by people copying and building on stuff.  Her position is
apparently that although all the pre-existing things she included in her
books are just part of the culture, her books themselves *aren't* a new
part of that culture, because... uh, somehow, they're special?  Because
the author is alive?  Because it's modern times now and so we're not
creating new culture?

It's a bizarre feat of re-categorization, really.

(I'd have left this as a comment on your blog, but typepad requires one
to create an account.)

Radiohead remix sounds cool, but remixer emptor

Following on the heels of its market-shaking pay-your-own-price scheme for the album In Rainbows, Radiohead's mixing it up again by offering "stems" from its new single, "Nude," via iTunes for fans to download and remix. Remixes can be posted at a dedicated web site, where other fans can vote on their favorites. There's no official prize or competition, but you've got to figure the exposure for having the top remix will be potentially career-changing.

As with In Rainbows, what's interesting here isn't the plan itself -- musicians have been posting their tracks online for fans to remix for a decade. It's that Radiohead, long a major label darling safely ensconced behind EMI's garden walls, is stepping out and proactively pursuing new business and distribution models (the remixes can even be shared via Facebook widgets -- wow, these guys are on top of the Web 2.0 thing).

I do have a few quibbles and reservations, however.

First, what really fascinates me is that Radiohead is charging for the "stems" -- essentially, consumers will be paying six times for a single song -- once for the whole thing, and once for each isolated track. I haven't yet decided whether this is disgusting fan-exploitation and the reprehensible commercialization of the configurable public sphere, or a brilliant natural evolution of the music industry, following consumer demand where it's naturally leading. Maybe both.

My second beef, however, is much more serious. According to the terms and conditions, remixers -- even those who compose and perform their own additional tracks in their remixes -- will have zero stake whatsoever in the resulting song. No ownership of publishing or masters, no credit. Period. This is just plain wrong, and is the antithesis of everything that makes configurable culture great. If you're going to exploit the emerging demand for remixed content, and encourage people to participate in the co-production of cultural material, you need to provide a legal and ethical infrastructure that reflects those decisions. Otherwise, you're just continuing the monopolization of cultural production. Boo on Radiohead.

Here's a list of the terms and conditions, see for yourself:

You (the Entrant) hereby agree, confirm, represent and warrant that:

1. all rights in and to any remixed versions (“Remixes”) of the song “Nude” (“the Song”) created by the Entrant shall be owned by Warner/Chappell Music Ltd (“WCM”) and to the extent necessary the Entrant hereby assigns all rights in the Remixes of the Song to WCM throughout the World for the full life of copyright and any and all extensions and renewals thereof. If requested by WCM, the Entrant shall complete and sign a formal assignment of copyright to give effect to the foregoing;

2. all rights in and to any Remixes of the original sound recording of the Song (“the Master”) created by the Entrant shall be owned by _Xurbia _Xendless Ltd (“Xurbia”) and to the extent necessary the Entrant hereby assigns all rights in the Remixes of the Master to Xurbia throughout the World for the full life of copyright and any and all extensions and renewals there. If requested by Xurbia, the Entrant shall complete and sign a formal assignment of copyright to give effect to the foregoing;

3. Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood, Colin Greenwood, Ed O’Brien and Phil Selway will be registered and credited as the sole writers and WCM the publishers of the Remixes of the Song created by the Entrant;

4.    the Entrant will not acquire a copyright interest in the Song by virtue of creating Remixes of the Song;

5. the Entrant will not use any other elements or parts of the Song (“Stems”) otherwise than to create Remixes of the Song for entry into radioheadremix.com;

6. the Remixes of the Song do not incorporate any samples which are subject to third party proprietary rights or otherwise infringe the rights of any third party;

7. the Remixes of the Song are not obscene, defamatory, libelous, threatening, harassing, hateful, racially or ethnically offensive, or encouraging of conduct that would be considered a criminal offense, gives rise to civil liability, or violate any law; and

8. the Entrant will not exploit, or allow others to exploit, the Remixes of the Song created by the Entrant without seeking the prior approval of WCM and Xurbia.

In submitting Remixes to radioheadremix.com the Entrant confirms and warrants that they have full power and authority to enter into this agreement and hereby indemnify WCM and Xurbia from and against any and all costs and damages incurred as a result of any breach of the representations and warranties made by the Entrant herein.

9. by participating in Radiohead Remix, entrants agree to release and hold harmless Apple and its affiliates from and against any claim or cause of action arising out of such participation.

My exam, your take: Copyright expansion

Today, I gave the students in my Copyright class their second take-home exam (due next week). I don't really need any more grading work than I already have, but I'd be curious to see your responses and feedback. So have at it.

-----------

Congress has just passed new intellectual property legislation, containing the following stipulations:

- Copyright terms have been extended to author's life +100 years (or 150 years, in the case of works for hire)

- Copyright protection has been granted for the following:
    - apparel designs
    - interior design concepts
    - myspace/"pimp my site" templates
    - movie/tv/book/game plots
    - databases
    - recipes for food and drinks
    - funny walks
    - swimming styles
    - new instrumental timbres
    - public documents, such as laws and election tallies

- Possession of "infringing" copyrighted material, in any quantity, is a federal criminal offense, punishable by up to $200,000 and 9 months in jail per infringing item

- IP owners are permitted to engage in liability-free "limited surveillance" and "proactive neutralization of pirating tools and materials" if they have a reasonable suspicion of piracy.

President Rice has yet to sign the bill, although she is expected to make a decision any day. She can approve it, exercise a "line item veto" over certain elements, or veto the bill in full.

Please write two letters to the editor of your local newspaper, one explaining why it's imperative that Rice sign the bill, and one explaining why it's imperative that she veto it in part or in whole. Each letter should be approximately 800-1000 words long.

Sweet and sticky remix: Badu's "Honey" video

I'm hardly the first to blog about it, but the video for Erykah Badu's new single, Honey, is worth taking a look at if you haven't seen it. Badu has always worn her aesthetic influences on her sleeve, but in this video, the metaphor is stretched a bit -- she wears them on record sleeves.

The video filters R&B nostalgia through a configurable lens, featuring Badu lip synching to her song on a variety of classic album cover remakes from a broad range of artists -- De La Soul, Chaka Khan, The Beatles, and Nas, to name a few. I don't think I've ever seen a more perfect visual metaphor for her (compelling) schtick -- the sonic fusion of Afrodiasporic musics, old and new, into a forceful and fluid oral cultural history, aided and abetted by configurable technologies.

Lest I sound too much like an academic geek, let me also say that this is a dope track, with a bumpin' bass and a sweet, melismatic melody. Like much of her work, it's equally at home with on the dance floor or in the boudoir. I'm definitely going to be spending some time with this album.

If you're one to trace sources -- Which album cover was that one!?!? -- check out Soulbounce's side-by-side comparisons of the original album covers and the Honey mock-ups.

Also note that, counter to the spirit of creative reappropriation and homage that characterizes the song and video, Universal Music Group has (as usual) disabled embedding of their official YouTube release of the track. What that's supposed to achieve, other than pissing off bloggers, I'm not sure. It was very easy for me to find another version to embed, so they haven't thwarted my piratical intentions. Also, I'm gonna bet that UMG didn't get permission/pay fees to use all the LP artwork -- they'd probably argue (correctly) that it constitutes parody. (shakes head, murmuring 'tsk, tsk!')

Thanks for the link, Marissa!

Great CC-licensed sonic library: freesound project

If you haven't checked out the freesound project, it's worth a look and a listen. True to its name, the site hosts countless music and sound samples freely released under the Creative Commons Sampling Plus License. The site, which requires registration, just hit the half-a-million active users mark (that includes uploaders and downloaders).

The stuff they've got is great -- everything from the "Amen break" to ambient city noises. There are also some cool site elements, like geotagged samples and a "remix tree" showing the ways in which various samples have evolved through various reinterpretations and reappropriations. The interface isn't much -- yet -- but they've got some Google money, and seem to be working on version 2.0.

You can also browse through random samples here.