HAM 420 - About Me

Hey, so this is my old blog about copyright which I haven’t looked at in ages because instead of researching, I’ve been sitting in front of a keyboard attempting to fashion something close to a thesis. It’s really fun replacing piles of journal articles and books with an empty page, empty pots of coffee and serious self-doubt. The wonders of post-grad study.

The deal is that I started second semester, which was amazing in itself and my new subject Covergent Journalism was all like “newmediahaveablogwritethingsweb2.0videohtml”. From what I gathered the general thrust of the plan was to blog while studying which was an awesome idea and that for our first week we should write about ourself. A sort of text based version of the awkward first tute where everyone stands up and desperately tries to relate something interesting and humorous about themselves to the class and fails horribly at both. So here’s my attempt.

I just graduated from a B.A (Media and Comm.) at Swinburne in 2007 and rather head straight back into study or actually face the terrors of full time work, I decided to go overseas. I did the whole America/U.K/Europe thing and tried to find myself but ended up only finding a few sweet bands, some cds, cheap beer and discovering how to make a snowman which was pretty cool in itself. I’ve also done community work for PBS fm, Syn fm and 3SSR when life hasn’t gotten in the way so I know my way around a radio studio. This is longest time I’ve managed to keep a blog alive which is an achievement in itself and I often wonder if I should expand the content I write about. Then I forget about it for a week or two and the idea doesn’t raise it’s ugly head again.

There’s too many things I love so I’ll stick to what I’m enjoying at the moment.

The Daily Show’s election coverage, playing music, transcribing bass lines, Miles Davis, Pavement, The Whitlams, drinking stout, filing cabinets, buying smart books I’ll never read, Dave Eggers, ABC vodcasts and podcasts, listening to Radio National (and therefore beginning to turn into my Dad), Running, enjoying some sort of weird schadenfreude watching my Melbourne’s Demons horrendous demise, The Dark Knight.

Things I hate? Racism, Violence and World Poverty. Yeah! Christ I sound like Bono. Umm Generally? Short sighted Government Policy, boring politicians and people, a lack of humour in the world, small-mindedness, central heating not working, Weezer’s last album, not having seen Indiana Jones’ last installment

Things I’m ambivalent about: John Birmingham’s blog. I’m not sure if I like it or hate it yet or if it’s just not as good as his previous work.

I need to learn how to work video and brush up on my html and flash which hasn’t been dealt with since 1st Semester 1st year. I also want to be radcore at audio and not just more than competent.

Seven + 1?

So I completely forgot my complete infatuation with MGMT - Time to Pretend. What a great song about nihilistic, life-avoidance scenester lives.

This is our decision, to live fast and die young.
We’ve got the vision, now let’s have some fun.
Yeah, it’s overwhelming, but what else can we do.
Get jobs in offices, and wake up for the morning commute.

Hooray for beefy synth chords which pile up on each other like a drunken game of ’stacks-on’, a great hook which sounds like the smallest casio you can find screaming above an electronic choir and the best video clip i’ve seen in ages.

Seven Songs

It hasn’t been a busy month, just one of those months where copyright pales into significance compared to some massive life issues. Oh as well as being in bands, doing radio and working my guts off. Hence the lack of postings, but in any case I’ve managed to bash out a rough first chapter and I’m currently avoiding reading Senate reports, so I must be doing something right (?!?).

Thanks to (con)temporary:

“List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they’re not any good, but they must be songs you’re really enjoying now, shaping your spring. Post these instructions in your blog along with your 7 songs. Then tag 7 other people to see what they’re listening to.”

The Whitlams - Melbourne

Despite their over-wrought production and attempts at epic balladry, I am a Whitlams fan - mainly because of their over-wrought production. However, I’ve always hated this naff, trite attempt at setting my fine city towards some sort of musical accompianment, considering what The Whitlams have done previously, Melbourne pales in comparison to sterling efforts like Royal in the Afternoon. The worst offense in this song is the bridge, where a sachharine keyboard sits under some trite lyrics:

If I had three lives

I’d marry her in two

I’m dreaming of a time

That we sit when the music stops.

Then why did I get goosebumps when listening this song the other day? Because immediately following this bridge comes forth a verse which highlights Tim Freedman’s skilfull attempt at painting wonderful character sketches.

She has an aversion to conviction

She’s more confused than ever

Won’t pay her fines and wonders when the cops will get her

She calls her dog the bear and walks me with him to the corner in her pajamas

What a great summary of a person in a verse and I love that crapness and brilliance can be in such close proximity in the one song.

P.J Harvey - The Whores Hustle and the Hustlers Whore

I miss the 90s and there’s no-one who can encapuslate this era better than P.J Harvey. The song is a wonderful bookend to a decade which held festivals, moshing and CDs up like demi-gods.  I’m tempted to simply dump the entire song in here but i’ll be satisfied with half.

Speak to me of heroin and speed
Of genocide and suicide, of syphilis and greed
Speak to me the language of love
The language of violence, the language of the heart
This isn’t the first time I’ve asked for money or love
Heaven and earth don’t ever mean enough
Speak to me of heroin and speed
Just give me something I can believe

The whores hustle and the hustlers whore
Too many people out of love
The whores hustler and the hustlers whore
This city’s ripped right to the core

What desperation, what imagery and what a wonderful lyrical connection to the album title Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea. This is the guts of life. With a scungy guitar behind P.J’s voice giving it added impetus and authenticity by the time P.J starts her falsetto yelps at the end of the song, you’ve already ran a street scene in your head and seen the worst a city has to offer.

Joanna Newsom  -Peach, Plum, Pear

I’ve actually listening to Ms. Newsom non-stop but because I’ve got this song on two different albums, this one has stuck. It’s a bit more brittle than her other work, a bit more sad and contradictory and it’s got a certain depth of melancholy playfulness which goes deeper than any of her other work.  You can feel a scene leap out of her harp and on to the page of a children’s book but much like the Brother’s Grimm there’s adult seriousness here. The choral final lines of

Peach, plum, pear

Peach, plum

are a wonderful simplistic ending to such a complex song with it’s jarring bass and vocals which jump here, there and everywhere.

And we were galloping manic
To the mouth of the source
We were swallowing panic
In the face of it’s force

There’s something more here, which makes this such a great song.

James Brown - Sex Machine Pt. 1 and 2

I don’t really need to explain anything here but it’s simply the bravado, arrogance and the groove of James Brown. The horribly long, contrived and awesome leap to the bridge. The self-referential patter mid-song. And the groove? Again. Wow.

Against Me! - These Anarcho Punks are Mysterious

This song has aged for me immensley over the course of the year mainly because I’ve listened to it heaps, but there’s certain parts where it simply lifts. What makes this song special is that it doesn’t need production wank or driving drums to make the song lift. Regardless of the setting - acoustic, live, record - it simply does of it’s own accord because it’s one of Against Me!’s best songs. Especially when placed against the endearing but occasionally jarring Reinventing Axl Rose, this song stands superior.

Let’s try to keep
As much emotion out of this
As possible.
Let’s try not to remember any names.

All of a sudden,
People start talking about guns,
Talking like they’re going to war
‘Cause they found something to die for.

If you ever need a case against political aggression it’s these two lines. They should be remembered.

Feist - I Feel it All

Give me three simple chords, distorted to start a song and give me a groove which is undeniable to follow it up. There’s the voice with the brief whispers behind it, the descent into the chorus, the return to the theme and the high piano notes balancing against the rhythm section and Feist’s playful vocals throughout turning a simple song into an restrained exercise into space and vocal sound.

Kick drum on the bass drum floor

Good line. Don’t know why.

Mates of State - The Re-Arranger

This is an amazing song off an average album but it does what Mates of State do well. The syncopated organ bass, the vocal histrionics which fly across the song like soaring angels and the layered harmonies create a building base as the song continues. What I love about these guys is that they never settle for a simple pop song. At 2.30 the song explodes. A quiet re-arrange leaps into hundredstrongchoir territory with a thousand voices and a kick drum which tears through the centre. Then they bring it back with one of their classic restrained bridges before slowly building back up towards an elongated end which simply re-inforces what they’ve been doing amazingly all through this song. Harmonies, syncopation, beat and vocal scaling on a massive scale. Oh and I forgot the speedy start and brass intro which is in complete contradiction to the drawn out end and they manage to get there somehow. I don’t know how.

I was searching for my seventh song but I can’t believe I forgot this one. Amazing. Amazing.

cbf passing it on, I don’t think I actually know people in my blogroll apart from LF. LOLZ.

Internet, tech-determinists and copyright.

Also I think it’s important to remove web 2.0 from this discussion. Or at least I want to. To me it seems like a catch-phrase which may die in a few years and is more of a marketing concept than a valid term which can be used in academic discourse. Of course now I need to find something to replace it.

Furthermore I think it’s good to separate that term from the issues at stake. As shown in my e-book post, these are issues which are having an effect. Those problems are more vexing when considering libraries are buying more e-books in place of physical objects in their collection. Sure it’s cool if it works and more students will get access to knowledge but in situations like this one, it’s a horrible idea.

One shouldn’t bunch up advocates like Lessig, Litman and others in the tech determinist bundle. If anything it’s more tech determinist to use technology to lock down your work and not trusting people. I’d argue the copy-left crowd are way more pro-culture and pro-people than beady eyed, knowledge hoarding bastards who try and time your reading habits to the second and then ask if you’d like to continue reading.

It’s ridiculous I can write on my blog but not my thesis. ARGH.

E-book woes #2

Apparently my browsing timehas expired. WTF?! Could you imagine if a book told you that? Is this not insane?

The Financial Incentive to Create

It’s time to get philosophical on garage networks so sit down, grow a beard, put on a black turtleneck and try and maintain some world weariness ferchrissakes.   

The blog’s title The Financial Incentive to Create is one of the central underpinnings of copyright (the concept that is, not my actual post title - that would be weird). This concept is best put forward by the U.S constitution.

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.

from wikipedia

Or in other words, allowing for significant financial gain for the creator of the work to encourage further creation.

This is a favoured area of study for particularly sadistic economists I imagine they become terrible dinner party conversation as a result.   

I’m being mean.

It’s a fine notion to try and find out the exact incentive needed for creators to continue to create effectively, especially when discussing things like copyright extensions and the like (Milton Friedman thought so when he weighed into the Eldred v Ashcroft case and he’s no-one’s bitch). But I feel it’s just weird. And this whole copyright thing is kind of weird. Because it’s left in the hands of people like Milton Friedman and Lawrence Lessig and Jack Valenti and Metallica (try as you might, after seeing Some Kind of Monster you can’t convince me they’re artists).

• What the protectionist wave of copyright (RIAA, Valenti etc.) likes to argue is that unless there’s a big fat paycheck at the end of road, people aren’t going to create.
• What economists do is make complex graphs of how people create and how long they need to be creating for under certain socio-economic conditions before they can’t create any longer or something like that.
• What Copyright activists put forward is a Helen Lovejoy ‘Won’t somebody think of the children!’ approach to creativity which sends people off into imagining an Orwellian future where the RIAA will tear into your house and drag you away for sampling Ben Lee’s latest album (I have no idea why you’d be doing this by the way. Maybe that does give them cause to drag you away). Making creativity therefore dead.         

I feel that’s what being lost in this web of laws, legislation, cases and graphs is that people just create. For no incentive, often with no idea that their little song or movie will make money and usually only for the benefit of a few friends. No-one expects a pay check, when one comes it’s nice and when a record executive knocks on your door, you generally freak the hell out and then wake up twenty years later in drug induced haze. At least that’s what movies have taught me.

Copyright is a system of laws to regulate how people distribute their ideas. But, normal people (as opposed to the entertainment industry) don’t give a shit. Most people when they write a song don’t immediately call up a lawyer, or demand a statutory license if someone wants to cover their song or even consider these issues when they create.

Creativity and its incentive is the issue here. I’m not denying that there’s an economy for creative works, far from it. But it’s wrong to naturally tag on an economic incentive to people making things and then argue that unless their argument gets through creativity will just stop dead in its tracks. I call bullshit.

 

EDIT: I didn’t get really philosophical but more ranty - I’ve read to much.        

Half asleep and stuff piling up on my desk

I’ve managed to pile up all the books I’m reading (or not reading) in a threatening pile on my desk, have about five cups of coffee and then play megaman 2 for a few hours.

‘Don’t do your thesis. Beat Bubble Man instead!’

Megaman sums up everything I love about 80’s japanese games. Non-existent storylines, difficulty level = impossible, amazing music from an 8 - bit piece of software and awkwardly translated English.

I’ve also become addicted to another awesome webcomic.

Promises, Promises.

So I’ve decided to take the hard route and focus my thesis on a subject area I know only from 3pm re-runs of Judge Judy and the occasional Law and Order episode.

For no good reason, but I’ve completely ran from my original ‘celebrity and image’ plan and have ended up through some weird rabbit hole or alternate dimension looking at -
Web 2.0, DIY ethos, networks, baudrillard, music industry, piracy, copyright.

Which are great topics and up until three weeks ago I knew nothing of them. But now I do and while I’m not going to be declaiming judgements and pointing violently at defendants crying out ‘He did it, He did it!’, I feel I’m a bit more down with Law.

And it could be worse. A friend told me today her ex was doing a animal behavioural science honours on the communication of swans. Which is at both times the best thesis ever and the most crazed idea to come out of Melbourne Uni.

United and Divided

The two editors of New York’s two Pakistani newspapers hold completely opposite political views, run two utterly different organisations and are best friends.

“Mr. Farooqi is a disheveled, chain-smoking Muslim who boasts of his journalistic exclusives. Mr. Khalil is a dapper, entrepreneurial atheist who enjoys his whiskey and boasts about the lucrative advertisements he garners for his publication.”

Link Here.

the australian vs. the netz

“Lastly, while the internet has democratised access to the public arena, it has also coarsened debate. We admit we have not been above the odd ad hominem attack ourselves. It’s time for a little more elegance, a return to the debating conventions of earlier times, to the rules obeyed by men and women of letters.”

This is a recent editorial from the The Australian attempting to dismiss ‘The Internet ’ (notice it’s one big word, because everyone knows everyone else on the netz). Last year The Australian got in a massive war with the blogs and according to at least one esteemed commentator, came off second best. So here it is trying to reclaim a place in the media landscape long since torn away from it.

Public debate has been democratised to a large extent. Instead of debate solely existing on the illustrious opinion/comment pages of The Australian, with a select group of ‘men and women of letters’ presenting pieces to be read by the inactive and mindless public, people are finding their own outlets to argue and discuss. With blogs and websites giving academics, politics desperados and the general public greater freedom than a newspapaper page could ever allow them, it’s no suprise that the blogosphere is booming.

And it’s no suprise that an ageing format has a look in the mirror, witnesses it’s own slow demise and then turns five year old on us all and shouts ‘The internet started it!’.

- Gary Sauer-Thompson discusses The Australian’s editorial.