But the event at the New York Public Library with Jeff Tweedy, Steven Johnson, and me on Thursday, 4/7, will be webcast. Click the image above to go to the extremely cool setup at Wilcoworld.net.
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Meta
I wont be able to see this webcast. Quicktime wont run on GNU/Linux, you should know that Lessig!
Aww, me either, but I’m trying to get my sister who lives in NYC to attend… Too bad it seems that Apple owns a piece of this cultural presentation, I’m also on Linux… Maybe you could start the webcast by urging Apple to play nicer with GNU/Gpl software!
Hopefully I can see you next time you’re in Southern California!
Best,
michaelm
“who owns culture?” is the wrong question.
the right question is, who produces culture? and how does society encourage them to produce more?
Hmm, can’t view this using FOSS? Well I guess that is at least a partial clue to the answer of the posed question. As an exclusive user of FOSS I suppose I’m, once again, out of luck.
Generally, I don’t mind that there is much “culture” I can’t see being an exclusive FOSS user. That’s the penalty I have to pay for freedom – sad, but I can deal with it. A LOT of digital “culture” is about as healthy and appetizing as a greasy meal at McDonald’s so I really don’t feel as though I’m missing out.
However, this particular evening with Lessig and Tweedy is more like a scrumptious, healthy and appetizing meal that I apparently have to pass on if particular proprietary software is required in order for me to see it. That’s unfortunate.
I see 3 Blind Rodents are back to the usual “right” versus “wrong” world of argumentation… . Too bad, I think “Who owns culture?” is THE vital question. The questions the mice pose assume that the creators of culture are separate from society. The typical “us/them” mechanized and agenda-laden mentality at work…
Anyone have an Ogg Vorbis audio copy of this? Or a Vorbis+Theora audio+video copy of this? It would be great if this were made from the original rather than transcoded from the non-free QuickTime codecs used, but I’ll take what I can get. A Vorbis+Theora file could play in all the free software multimedia players (Helix player and Totem, to name a couple).
am i missing something here? quicktime IS free.
http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/
Nice job from all participants. Bravo.
There is no point to blame Lessig for the production decisions of the event producers. As far as I am concerned, you shouldn’t have any squawks about using Quick Time. But there is no pleasing anyone. I could have captured this event , but my respect for Lessig stayed my hand.
But rest assured at my own jobsite, no matter which numerous formats I convert the video, the pigs start to bark.
Tom Barger:
“There is no point to blame Lessig for the production decisions of the event producers.“
Not only that, it is pointless to blame anyone. I certainly hope that no one thinks that those who are looking for a free (as in freedom – I’ll pay for a copy that will run on my GNU/Linux system if one is made available) means to watch/listen to this event is blaming Lawrence or anyone for that matter.
“As far as I am concerned, you shouldn’t have any squawks about using Quick Time.“
You are entitled to that opinion. I would be interested, however, to hear what Lawrence thinks about that. Would Lawrence say to his readers/listeners that we “shouldn’t have any squawks” about using non-free software or non-free formats – especially when it comes to content that is socially charged?
Like I said earlier, most content on the web is junk food. I really don’t feel like I’m missing anything when a pop/rock video requires, for example, Windows Media Player in order to watch it and it is laced with DRM. But from what I can ascertain, this Lessig/Tweedy event was an important techno-social event in that it was intended to bring about dialog and attention to some issues. If the intention is to bring about awareness, then why not put the digitized product in a format that is playable for everyone – regardless of what operating system/video player they have on their machine?
What is the media file’s copyright license? Perhaps it is legal to convert it to any format and share that converted file with anyone who would like a copy without breaking the license agreement? You know…share it on eDonkey or Grokster, etc?
Just asking simple questions – not trying to accuse or blame anyone. But I must say that it rather deflating to me to be asked to compromise my freedom in order to see a socially influential media file.
I came across this when browsing hasbro’s website about the Monopoly game:
The MONOPOLY game is so much a part of today’s popular culture that my lawyers have trademarked many of its graphic elements.
http://www.hasbro.com/monopoly/pl/page.history/dn/default.cfm
I’m wondering if there is either a torrent of the webcast or somewhere to watch an archived streaming version, for those of us unable to watch on thursday.
IIRC (and I do have a patchy memory), there is a law or legal tradition in the UK that is called Right of Way. No-one can stop you from walking a path that traditionally has been a public path: you have a right of way there. There is a society that hikes across these paths in order to keep this right strong: even if a path leads through a house.
I remember doing volunteer work to keep some of these paths accessible. One day, we were putting in a fence, when one of the volunteers hit a water pipe. Some of us were dispatched to inform the land owner, but he shrugged away any of our protestations: he was not going to shut the water down. He knew that the organisation we worked for would have to pay the entire bill, and he was glad to make that bill as steep as possible.
In the UK, as elsewhere, and as with copyright, there is a strong tendency to make everything proprietary. Whatever you think of societies that stampede through other people’s houses, at least they are trying to preserve the commons.
The question is: who owns the UK? Is it only the land owners, or the people, or something inbetween? Is there still a commons in the UK? And if there is a conflict of views about who owns the UK, how is that going to resolve in situations like that of right of way?
That Larry, one of the major proponents of a digital commons, allows the use of proprietary formats, thereby locking people out, is relevant. I have no opinion on whether it is right or wrong.
Is there a non-quicktime version for those of us who use linux?
>>As far as I am concerned, you shouldn’t have any squawks about using Quick Time. But there is no pleasing anyone. I could have captured this event , but my respect for Lessig stayed my hand.
YOU CAN’T RUN QUICKTIME ON LINUX. Jeez.
Ken Waagner of Wilcoworld.net, the genius behind most of the Wilco web saavy, is going to make a full range of formats available, including a bittorrent (which I’ll be serving from my prodigem acc’t). So patience, please. These guys are giving free content. And as soon as they can, in free code.
I didn’t say you could run QuickTime on Linux. Jeez. I respect Ken Waagner, and I wouldn’t snag his video stream. But once having captured a steam, whether the source is Real or Windoze, whatever, then one can “make available” in BT, Dvix, Ogg Vorbis, MPEG 4, PSP Video 9 etc. Glad to accomodate our customers.
The only things I consider to be free and clear are CSPAN shows of Congressional hearings.
Lessig himself is a Apple laptop user, so I wouldn’t be casting doubts on his interest in remixing media in a painless way using QuickTime. Hopefully we won’t be hearing anymore PowerPoint jokes.
Again, this was a cool show. Hope to see it available for time-shifting.
ryanmeehan: Yes, you’re missing the distinction between free as in price and free as in freedom. It’s unfortunate that the English language ties both of these disparate concepts together in the same word. Most other languages don’t do this. Some use the phrase “free as in speech, not free as in beer” to make it more clear which definition the speaker is getting at.
The free software movement refers to a program as “free” for a user when that user may inspect, run, share, and modify the program anytime, anywhere, with anyone, for any reason. See the definition of free software for more on this and check out the FSF’s philosophy section for essays on various aspects of why free software matters. The FSF is the Free Software Foundation, the organization that wrote the most important free software license—the GNU GPL.
So, even though one doesn’t have to pay money to run Apple’s QuickTime software, one is not free to inspect it, share copies of it, modify it, or distribute modified versions of it. Hence, Apple’s QuickTime software is not free software, Apple’s QuickTime is merely zero priced proprietary software. One might be able to get Apple’s QuickTime to run via some emulation software, but that in no way addresses the lack of software freedom which is at issue here.
As an attempt to bring this into context on this blog by namedropping a relevant name: Prof. Lessig is on the FSF board and he works with some FSF folks as Director of the Software Freedom Law Center.
I hope this helps answer your question.
It seems ridiculous to call someone names for paying attention to their software freedom. This “pig” is going to “squawk” by pointing out that GNU didn’t become a viable alternative by caving into whatever someone wanted to distribute to us. Perhaps we ought to focus on multimedia formats we can all use because they’re implemented with free software; you know, walk the talk.
The Vorbis, FLAC, and Speex audio codecs are available on all the OSes people use these days. They’re high-quality and they are robust. I suspect that Theora (a video codec licensed for everyone to use for any purpose in perpetuity) will join this list when Theora can be decoded in real-time on more low-end computers. Currently, Theora players run on variants of GNU and Microsoft Windows.
Lessig – could you have at least used Windows Media streaming? At least totem can decode THAT.
“Ken Waagner of Wilcoworld.net, the genius behind most of the Wilco web saavy, is going to make a full range of formats available, including a bittorrent (which I’ll be serving from my prodigem acc’t). So patience, please. These guys are giving free content. And as soon as they can, in free code.“
bravo!
“who owns culture?” is the wrong question.
the right question is, who produces culture? and how does society encourage them to produce more?
� posted by three blind mice on Apr 7 05 at 3:24 AM
I guess the answer to who creates culture is whoever creates something shared with the rest of us or those that grant them the resources or capacity to create more for our mutual enjoyment.
Therefore to encourage the creation of more culture you either grant more resources or make it easier to create and communicate.
for the impatient, time shifted audio… http://bt.viachicago.org/details.php?id=183
I am encoding and will be posting a chaptered QuickTime stream of the audio later this afternoon (Monday), as well as a torrent, and a podcast of the audio, and will also be posting an archive of the video in the player and will also be making the video available.
Thanks for your patience, and stay tuned.
Ken
I look forward to seeing or at least hearing what happened.
If this is licensed to share, I’m sure archive.org would host copies of it. If you upload a FLAC or uncompressed WAV, archive.org will even make derivative formats for you (including in Ogg Vorbis format).
If you have a video, archive.org can make derivatives too. I’m not sure what formats they’ll be made in, but perhaps they could be persuaded to make a derivative in Ogg Vorbis+Theora.
Thanks so much for considering all of us.