The other aspect of Netlabels is in their history.  Many of  the Netlabels have been around for quite a few years.  They derived from the Demo Scene: a group of hackers (hackers in the good and correct sense of the word) who work with computers at the lowest possible level to produce demonstrations of what the machines can do. In some cases you would be quite astounded by what could be done with an Apple ][ or Commodore 64.  A lot of the music that these intrepid hackers wrote for the demos were initially released as “tracker” files, which predated MP3′s.  Eventually, with the rise of the Internet and MP3′s these intrepid multimedia artists started releasing music on their own for the world to listen.

I have become something of a fan of the Netlabel scene.  I believe they contribute more to the libre culture movement than is generally recognized.  The fact that the demo scene and Netlabels have been around for years, and predate the Creative Commons and the  libre culture movement says a lot for them.

Here I am presenting several sites that I have found quite a bit more enjoyable material on.  It’s unfortunate that two of these sites is no longer releasing new recordings.  However, the releases that have been made by all of these labels have contributed something interesting to the overall movement of free (libre) music.

Comfort Stand Recordings

Comfort Stand Recordings: This is the label that is no longer making any new releases.  Their main website page states:

After a 2.5 year run the stand has closed. Simply because the project is over and staff members and bands have gone on to other projects. We may return one day, but most likely in another form and dimension. We will no longer release any new works, but our 80 albums, 16 singles, and 8 compilations will remain online. Free and for a very long time. Many thanks to our past and future friends.

And indeed, their recordings are still available, and definitely worthy of downloading and listening to.  While not exactly a standard Netlabel, coming out of the Demo scene as others have, Comfort Stand Recordings presented an inspirational look at what the Internet can do when people are allowed to conspire on inspire each other.

These recordings were produced by a bunch of people that gathered on a mailing list dedicated to “Exotica”.  These are recordings of unusual music of all sorts of different flavors and styles.  Some of the participants decided that they wanted to start producing some of their own recordings or remixes as an homage to the recordings they cherished, and thus the Comfort Stand was born.

There are a couple of compilation recordings that serve as a great introduction to this fantastic Netlabel.  The first is Two Zombies Later:

Volume One

1. Br. Cleve & His Lush Orchestra – Shaken Not Stirred
2. Eric & Ryan Kilkenny – Bongo Avenger
3. Marble – Wah Factor 3
4. Philip Jackson – Nature Boy
5. Jeff Chenault and Andrew Izold – Exotica Revisited
6. Tipsy – Kitty’s Daydream (Longhair mix)
7. Scotch & Soda (Max McMillan) – The Lonely Bull
8. Don Tiki – The Natives Are Restless
9. Jack Fetterman and the in Hi-Fi Music Direction – Acapulco 2000
10. The Weird Lovemakers – Quiet Spillage
11. Skip Heller’s Hot Seven – Spy Perfume
12. Otis Fodder – Brilliant Pillows (Many Moons)
13. Astroslut – Love Theme From Astroslut
14. Der Plan – Jungle Village
15. Misty Roses – Up in Flames
16. Künstler Treu – If Jesus Came
17. Sem Sinatra – Toryansay

Volume Two

1. mr_melvis – A Walk Through The Powerhouse
2. Weirdomusic – Fiber, Ruler Of Pinakel
3. djfreshmoney – Whammo
4. Dana Countryman – Cocktails In Space
5. Jan Fornell – Drift
6. Bruce Lenkei – Moonlight Zombie Dance
7. Bumpenstein – Fuad Motel
8. Narcotic Syntax – Pingpong Voodoo
9. Hybe – Venom
10. Impro – Farid, Astronauts from Maghreb
11. Black Sash – You People
12. Mental Anguish/NOMUZIC – Blissful in Enchantro
13. Songs To Drink And Drive By – Walk On By
14. Magnus Sandberg – Island Knockin’

Think of these recordings as lounge music on acid.  An homage to the hotel lounge or tiki bar of the 1950′s or 1960′s, but updated through the use of technology to make for an even more unusual listening experience.

The second compilation that is a lot of fun is Wakka Chikka Wakka Chikka:

Volume One

1. Nick Chapman – Take Me Now!
2. Martinibomb – The Love God
3. DJ Bootsie – Vuluke Khall (Instrumental Version)
4. The Lounge King – Ici la Femme (XXX Mix) Louise Vertigo
5. Ton Rückert – It Was A Dream
6. Mr. Juno – Hatesex
7. SonnyJim – Suck My Disc
8. Pearls of Joy – Gloria
9. Lubna Lux – Baise et Rebaise Moi
10. The Devil In Miss Jones – Half An Hour Is For Free (featuring Fats Bob Trumpet)
11. Maquina de Atender Telefone – Give Me Anal Pleasure Please
12. De Zwervende Keien (The Drifting Boulders) – Wooden Shoes In Tirol
13. Thybbuk – Silk And Sweat
14. Colektro – Brainwank (Psycho Foo Edit)
15. The Funky Filter – The Porn King
16. Eldad Tsabary – Lophophora Williamssii
17. mr_melvis – Whose Fantasy Is This, Anyways? (featuring R. Stevie Moore and Ms. Demeanor)

Sub-titled “Porn Music for the Masses” it hits the target with dead on accuracy.  Just about everything you’ve ever thought of as a porno music sound track is in these recordings: every cliche, every hip-swinging rhythm, every guitar scratch.  And the best part: you don’t have to go looking at porn to get it, and it’s a lot of fun to listen to.

The recordings on Comfort Stand Recordings were released with a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial license. The Comfort Stand may be closed, but they have left a legacy that I hope many others will discover and maybe even build on throughout the years.

Monotonik

Monotonik & Friends: I was a little upset to find out that this site has also gone on a long-term, if not permanent, hiatus.  This is one of the longest standing Netlabels around, having started all the way back in 1996, eventually splitting into two labels, and eventually having their main label emerge as a major force in the Netlabels.

As unfortunate as it is, Simon Carless has reasons for setting aside Monotonik at this point.  He feels that the overall music scene has changed so much that the concept of a net.label doesn’t make as much sense now as it did back in the 1990′s.  While this may appear to be true, I think there are other reasons to keep the label going, and I hope that in the future Simon will realize this as well.

A great place to start with Monotonik, as Simon points out, is the 10 Years of Monotonik:

1. ’10 Years Of Monotonik – The Mix’

mix produced by Chris Whaley. This 74 minute long continuous-mix excursion into the Monotonik catalog pays tribute to many of the truly outstanding artist the label has released over the years: Esem, Vim!, Sleepy Town Manufacture, Transient, and Lackluster, just to name a few.  The release is based 23 separate tracks, each one from a different artist.  I’m sure after listening to this, you will want to dig into the incredible resource that Monotonik has been over the past thirteen years.

As with so many online releases these days, Monotonik has gone with an Creative Commons BY-NC-ND license.  While this is unfortunate that others are not allowed to build on these works, at least they are available for us to enjoy.

Also, check out another project of Simon’s: Legal Torrents.  This is a site that distributes movies, music, pictures, animation, audio books, books, and a wealth of other materials that are completely legal to download.

Resting Bell

I honestly cannot recall how I found Resting Bell, but I am certainly glad that I did find them.  They have a series of unique releases that are ambient, organic, experimental, and just different than most of the music that I have normally found on the net.  One of my favorite artists has a release on this label: K. M. Krebs, Symmetries:

1. Illumination And Division
2. Surfacing Briefly
3. Each Into A Darkness Of Their Own

is based on a live show the Kevin did, which is also available on another netlabel. The player above only has the first track from this release, due to a bug in the player. See the release page for all three tracks.

Another major work on this label is Birds Of Joy And Sorrow by Garden From Light. This is an ambient drone piece of massive proportions: it actually takes up two releases in the Resting Bell archive:

Birds Of Joy And Sorrow Volume 1:

1. Sirin
2. Rusalki
3. Bannik
4. Marowit
5. Likho
6. Vual

Birds Of Joy And Sorrow Volume 2:

1. Alkonost
2. Karzel
3. Sariel
4. Drekavac
5. Koschei
6. Kikimora

It’s unfortunate that most of the releases from Resting Bell carry a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND license as I would love to think that there would be artists that would love to build on these pieces. However, even with that being the case, they are still worthy of downloading or streaming and listening to.

In Closing

So, there you have it: a journey into the realm of the Netlabels.  There is a completely wide range of music out there from kitchy-psuedo-lounge, to straight up idm, all the way to ambient-drone-atonal music.  Basically it’s all just a matter of looking, listening and finding what is appealing to you.

Many people seem to think iTunes and MySpace are the primary sources of music on the internet.  A few may even think of sites like AmazonMP3 or eMusic as alternatives to the afore mentioned monsters.  However, if you search around a bit there are many many sites available that offer a range of music that is as interesting, competitive or a better alternative in some cases to the mainstream sites.  This series of articles will highlight a few sites each week in the hope of providing the music listener with some alternatives.

Two Unique Sites

Magnatune is the first stop on the tour of online music sites that are highly worth checking out.  It has recently been getting more exposure through their inclusion in Songbird and other music players.  Their website isn’t the most splashy affair.  Instead the designers have gone for a clean interface that is easy to follow and navigate, allowing you to focus on your music choices, instead of being distracted by too much “crowd sourcing” and artists trying to hawk their wares at you.

I am especially appreciative of the terms the offer their artists: 50 percent of the gross.  But not just on the recordings they sell, but distribution deals, merchandise, everything.  Note that this 50 percent is before Magnatune considers their operating overhead: they are really putting their artists first when it comes to remuneration.

They are also mindful of their licensing.  All of their releases are CC BY-NC-SA.  This means that many of the artists allow buildnig derrivative works on their work, as long as the attribution is maintained, it is released under the same license, and is not for commerical uses.  While I have stated issues with the NC clause of the Creative Commons deeds elsewhere on this site, it is clearly obvious that Magnatune primary concern is maintaining a revenue stream for their artists and themselves, which I don’t have a problem with.  (Especially when they aren’t super greedy about it, which we touch on below with the “chose your price” options.)

I’m also appreciative of the fact that they are selective of the music and musicians they select for their site.  I’ve been to other sites and dug around in their collections, only to find that I am really only interested in about ten percent of what they offer.  With Magnatune I find that I am more interested in eighty to ninety percent of what they offer.  In fact, I find so many of their offerings appealing that I find it hard to not sign up for an unlimited download account with them.  This brings me to another unique topic with Magnatune: their pricing scheme.

I know of no other site that actually allows you to set the price that you want to pay for a recording.  Yes, other sites leave it up to you to decide what you want to donate to an artist.  However, by taking this ideology and asking you to place a price on the individual recording there is something else that is happening: you are voting with your $$$.  In fact, their recordings have been so appealing to me, that I generally start thinking of paying in terms of $12 and up, rarely thinking that I only want to pay $5-$11 dollars, as most of the material I’ve listened to is comparable, if not better than, much of what I’ve heard coming from large music companies.

This actually causes a conundrum for me: I’ve been considering purchasing one of their unlimited download accounts.  There is so much material that I really like on Magnatune, that I estimate that I could spend over $1000, and still not have everything that interests me.  That’s a strong case for buying a yearly or lifetime download subscription.  On the other hand, I feel that if I did buy a subscription, my money would be getting more thinly spread between the artists, and I really want to have them benefit directly from my purchases.

And isn’t that just an odd situation?  How often do you read of someone wanting to actually pay an artist more money, as opposed to finding a way to getting everything free?  I think these statements are the most convincing argument for Magnatune, and why you should check them out: you may find yourself wondering how do you actually appropriately compensate the artists, and the site for the service they provide.

The Kahvi Collective was one of the first Netlabel sites that I found online, and to this very day, remains one of my favorites. They focus on electronica releases in many styles: IDM, Ambient, Drum-n-Bass, Instrumental, and many others.  With over 280 releases since they started in January of 2001 they have built a wildly varied and eclectric range of releases that is certaing to have something for just about everyone.

The Kahvi Collective encourages listeners to make donations directly to their artists, so you know where your money is going.  They run the site as a non-profit organization, and ask that you make donations to them (but don’t hit you over the head with the donations…in fact, the page for submitting donations has another form for making a donation to an artist, putting the artists on equal footing with their organization).

A few of their artists have created commercial releases avaialable through iTunes, beatport, amazon.com, MSN Music, eMusic, and other sources.  These releases are featured in their own section of the site and are kept separate from the free releases.  There are also a few Kahvi Collective releases of tracks that aren’t avaialble elsewhere, which are used to raise funds for the site.  Another excellent choice for a business model.

The only issue I have with the Kahvi Collective is their choice of CC BY-NC-ND-SA for their licensing scheme.  While I understand the need / desire to support artists, I would like to see this changed: instead of applying this license across the board to all releases, I would really like to see the artists be able to make other choices if they desire.

Summary

Okay, this is all for this week.  I hope you take some time and check out these sites.  They are really worth the time spent, and worth even more if you make some contribution to them. Next week I’ll present a couple of completely free download sites (free as in no $$, and libre music).

Scope. This privacy policy covers all of Facebook. It does not, however, apply to entities that Facebook does not own or control, such as Facebook-enhanced applications and websites.

Yes, it is true that Facebook doesn’t own the sites of third party vendors, however they are allowing these third parties to write applications that interact through Facebook with their users.  So this leaves a gap, Facebook should start off with a requirement that any third parties interacting with Facebook users minimally comply with Facebook’s own standards.  How does Facebook make certain that this is true?  Simple enough – Facebook has already established a connection with TRUSTe.  Why can’t they specify that any third party applications and / or vendors comply with TRUSTe?  If TRUSTe isn’t enough, why not use a third party to resolve these kinds of things.  In fact, I have been thinking for a while that it would be a good idea for the EFF to maybe branch out in this direction: offering a service that uses a set of established privacy criteria to judge if two (or more) institutions are compatible on their privacy statements / options / etc.

This next statement is worrisome as well:

Transactional Information. We may retain the details of transactions or payments you make on Facebook. However, we will only keep your payment source account number with your consent.

Okay, so at least they aren’t keeping my bank account or credit card numbers.  But, they are keep track of the transactions I’ve made through their site.  That’s definitely information that the government may want to subpoena at some point in one of their grand-sweeping-investigations-for-whatever-reason.  Fortunately, I am a little less concerned about this for several reasons:

1. I have never made any transactions through Facebook
2. Our current administration is a little less zealous about going on witch hunts, and more focused on addressing the real issues
3. There’s nothing in any transactions I’ve done (on or off line) for me to be concerned about.

Then there’s information that you are making public, and might not even be aware of it:

Certain categories of information such as your name, profile photo, list of friends and pages you are a fan of, gender, geographic region, and networks you belong to are considered publicly available, and therefore do not have privacy settings.

Why don’t most of these things have privacy settings?  My friends are my business, not someone else’s (especially not a spammer or other businesses).  My geographic region is public information?  Really?  Since when?  The networks I am in is public information?  So great, anyone that joins a network can spam me using the network information.

Some of the content you share and the actions you take will show up on your friends’ home pages and other pages they visit.

Umm, okay, this is kinda okay — I know my status updates show up on friend’s home pages…and if I explicitly share content, that’s the intent of sharing it.  But, this is a vaguely worded statement “Some of the…” and “other pages they visit.” is just a wee-bit open ended of a statement.  This should be clarified — right now as a policy, it’s possible to drive a Mac Truck through it.

Now consider this statement carefully:

Even after you remove information from your profile or delete your account, copies of that information may remain viewable elsewhere to the extent it has been shared with others, it was otherwise distributed pursuant to your privacy settings, or it was copied or stored by other users.

Okay – I understand the concept that if I shared information with others, and they chose to make copies, I cannot (easily) stop them.  However, this sounds like Facebook doesn’t take responsible action to remove information from their system when I delete it…  They only remove it from my immediate profile, but if it shows up in someone elses profile it isn’t removed from there.  Personally, this is a pretty big FAIL.

I think this was mentioned in the EFF article, but it’s worth mentioning again:

The default privacy setting for certain types of information you post on Facebook is set to “everyone.”

This means that some of your Facebook information is viewable to everyone – even without logging into Facebook.  Bears thinking about and checking your Facebook privacy settings.  And, this is a definite example of why I feel less secure with Facebook.  When you have to check your default settings to make sure things aren’t being shared with the world that you want secure that is a problem.

You can choose to opt-out of Facebook Platform and Facebook Connect altogether through your privacy settings

This is another item that I have had an issue with: most of these things should be Opt-In, not Opt-Out.  The idea that you have to go out of your way to turn something off is the wrong way to handle it. Why do I think this way?  If you have to Opt-In to something, you are more likely to make certain you understand what you are turning on (well, okay, maybe not, but it does make it the users obligation to understand what they are doing).  By having things turned on by default many people just “assume” that what the system (platform) does is correct and for the best, which may not be the case.

You can block specific applications from accessing your information by visiting your application settings or the application’s “About” page

Another item I have issues with: having to go in and turn things off in Apps.  This should be designed such that when you are allowing an application to access your information, the application has to ask you for the specific items it wants to access.  I’ve seen some applications do this: good for them.  However, there are many that don’t.  This has meant, for me at least, that I have had to go through all of the Apps that I allowed access to my profile and turn them off — especially the ones that kept nagging me for stuff.  They just got severely annoying.

Continuing on down the Privacy Policy, there is a whole section dedicated to “How We Share Information“.  Now, I’m just going to say as a start: this section is too long and complicated.  It should be as simple as: we don’t share information unless you Opt-In or direct us, a partner, or application to share your information.  There is the questionable situation of “legal” issues, and those really need to be handled on a case by case basis with a strong bias towards keeping your information private.

That being said, I’ll pick out a few of the more worrisome points:

We share your information with third parties when we believe the sharing is permitted by you…

That’s one of the worrisome points right there: “we believe”.  That doesn’t mean that they require some validation, just a belief, which is far too subjective, in my opinion.

To advertise our services. We may ask advertisers outside of Facebook to display ads promoting our services. We may ask them to deliver those ads based on the presence of a cookie

So, the cookies that Facebook uses to keep track of our status can also be used for advertising?  That seems rather suspect to me.

We may disclose information pursuant to subpoenas, court orders, or other requests (including criminal and civil matters) if we have a good faith belief that the response is required by law.

Now, I don’t want to tell Facebook that they should put them selves in the way of a legal issue, however “good faith” shouldn’t be the measure here.  There should be a firm, solid legal basis for compliance with a subpoena or any request of a legal nature.  Even worse is this part of the statement:

This may include sharing information with other companies, lawyers, courts or other government entities.

Umm, no.  Court orders / subpoena’s and Government Entities are one thing.  But, lawyers and companies are something else altogether.  Under no situation should our private information be shared with anyone that doesn’t have a specific and legally binding reason to have access to our private information.

The bigger concern I have with this clause is this: no where does Facebook state that they will notify the user if there has been a request for their private information from the site.  This seems to me to be a major problem.  As private individuals we have the rights to understand and any all circumstances under which our private information is being accessed.  I would say this should be even more of a concern when there are legal issues tied to the access of this information.

Transfer in the Event of Sale or Change of Control. If the ownership of all or substantially all of our business changes, we may transfer your information to the new owner so that the service can continue to operate. In such a case, your information would remain subject to the promises made in any pre-existing Privacy Policy.

Admittedly, this isn’t a concern just with Facebook, but any company that handles a lot of your private information.  This is something that is always worth being aware of…you never know who could end up your information.  (For example, who would have guessed that News Corp. was going to buy out MySpace?)

Limitations on removal. [...] Additionally, we may retain certain information to prevent identity theft and other misconduct even if deletion has been requested.

IMO, the above statement seems somewhat odd.  If you have deleted your account because you don’t want people to have your information, Facebook thinks they need to keep part of your information?  Seems somewhat odd, and I would love to hear a clarification as to what they are trying to prevent.

okay, so that brings us pretty close to the end of the Privacy Policy document.  And, as you can see, there are a lot of things that I feel that users really need to be aware of in this document, as well as some things where I just feel the policies need to change.  And, as if that weren’t enough, there are plenty more documents to go through on Facebook’s site, such as: Statement of Rights and Responsibilities and Facebook Site Governance Page just to name a couple.  There’s a whole list of pages that are worth looking at at the end of Privacy Policy document, including:

• reporting a deceased user
• reporting an impostor
• reporting abusive content
• reporting a compromised account
• requesting deletion of data for non-user
• removing Friend Finder contacts
• reporting and blocking third-party applications
• general explanation of third-party applications and how they access data

That’s just a lot more information to sort through than I have time or space to work on.  And, I suspect, it’s more information than the average user of Facebook can keep track of.  It’s this basis that I have problems with many of the social media sites now, and keep feeling that I am a little less secure than I was just a few years ago: the documents are getting more complicated, the interactions are getting more complicated, the things that you can do to protect yourself are getting more complicated.

IMO – someone needs to start telling these companies: you are dealing with PEOPLE not legalistic lawyer-bots.  Make policies that are understandable by people and don’t take several hours to interpret, and require that you have to watch carefully for every time there is some change on your website.

The Site and The Code

To be brutally honest, there are quite a few things about Jamendo that I don’t personally care for.

First, I think the website user interface is poor.  It has the look of the Playskool Windows XP user interface, only very very orange and purple.  The visual flow of the home page is cluttered and difficult to follow.  The three column layout doesn’t make a whole lot of sense: the organization of the content just doesn’t flow all that well.

Finding things on the site can be more complicated than one would think.  I was talking with someone in IRC right after I read the TechCrunch story, and we started looking for a place to make a donation to Jamendo.  It took two of us nearly half an hour to find the place to do it, and even then I don’t think I could find it again without searching.  Why isn’t there a button or someplace easy right on the front page to make a donation?

Then there is the forums.  The way the forums are organizationally a mess.  I keep trying to go in there to read some things, just to see who likes what artists, and what topics there are regarding the site, etc.  But I keep being confronted with a long list of topics, none of which look like things I want to read.  And there is no real navigation or heirarchy to allow me to zoom in on the things that I want.  And, even trying to search for the information I wanted was unsuccessful (mostly becuase I didn’t know the terminology used to describe what I was looking for…).  When I posted a message about it (making a suggestion) I was immediately ponited to a thread that provided a work-around, but didn’t really address the issue itself.  It’s possibly just me, I just feel that if there were more structure to the message boards, I could have found the information I needed.

After this story broke, I spent some time digging around the Jamendo website, getting a feeling for a few other things about the way it is put together and run.  The thing that was a surprise to me is that the whole system appears to be closed source.  There are open API’s for communicatnig with Jamendo, and there is a developers area for those that are working on applications.  However, when it comes to the system itself, it seems that there is no review of the code.  There isn’t any open source tracker system.  Okay, there is a Google Code site, but there is all of three defect reports, and only API code in the repository.

Artist Problems

On the same weekend that Jamendo’s problems came out in the public, one of the most prolific and most listened to artists on the site write a blog entry: Jamendo Corrupto (originally in Spanish, translated into English).  The blog entry lists a number of issuse that PeerGynt Lobogris had with Jamendo, to the point where he has left the site.

If even a portion of the allegations made in PeerGynt’s post are correct, there are some very deep problems with Jamendo as a company.  This personally leads me to the think that the future of the current company is quite bleak, and should be seriously considered when think about any solutions.

One More Problem

There is something else that has to be considered about the downfall of Jamendo: there will be collateral damage:

• The many hundreds or even thousands of artists that will lose their place to host their music, and try to build a reputation and a following is a serious impact to the community.
• Music players like SongBird, Amarok, Rhythmbox and others have built in support for Jamendo.  While it’s possible to remove this support, losing the site and the potential for bringing new listeners into the cause is major loss to the Free (Libre) Culture community as a whole.
• Libre.FM – the fledgeling Last.FM replacement relies heavily on using Jamendo’s database for identifying free music that people are listening to.  Again, it’s possible to do something to replace Jamendo (and this has been discussed in the Libre.FM channel on freenode), it still represents another major loss to the community as a whole.

And those are just the ones that are coming to my mind immediately.  There are probably others that I have not even considered at this point.  However, just those three items are serious enough.

So Where Do We Go From Here?

It seems to me that it is probably time for there to be a major consideration about Jamendo.  I personally don’t think that it is going to survive in it’s current form.  While there is a movement to raise funds to keep Jamendo going, this may not be the best thing for the future of Free (Libre) Music and Culture, and that suggests it is time for something else to happen.

Recent history has shown us the path in cases that I would suggest are similar to Jamendo: StatusNet was born in reaction to the closed nature of Twitter, Libre.FM was born in reaction to Last.FM.  Both of these projects make the case for movnig from Jamendo’s current structure into something newer, open source based, open development based, and a more distributed system.

Another case to consider (as pointed out by Fab on Linux Outlaws Episode 131) would be the idea of moving into a foundation type structure / organization.  This would be much in keeping with the way Firefox and the Mozilla Foundation have organized themselves.  And it makes sense, this would allow there to be a formal entity behind any future development, while making it more open to the community as a whole, and hopefully generating new interest in the project.

Another possibility would be to look at something similar to OpenOffice.org.  Wether you like their product or not, one can’t argue with the fact that they are an open source environment, and have managed to weather many storms, changing of hands, etc.  And are now in a position where it wouldn’t be easy for them to be taken out of the community.  (Which couldn’t be said in the days when they were owned by Sun, and much of their source code was not available under free software compatible licenses.)

One suggestion that has been made a couple of times that is interesting: Google should buy out Jamendo.  This is something that I don’t think is totally out of the question.  Recently Google has bought several music services for integrating into their platform(s).  Jamendo would make a good addition to this.  However, some have suggested that they shouldn’t make changes to the service.  I would disagree with that, given what I have discussed earlier about the platform not being open.  If Google purchased Jamendo for the good of the community, and to better integrate their technology into their platforms, I would want to see the code opened up for everyone’s good.

Conclusion

So, Jamendo’s current problems seem to go well beyond the funding problem that they have stated they are having.  The blog post from PeerGynt Lobogris makes Jamendo out to be “corrupt”.  I personally doubt that they are truely corrupt, however, I think their problems have been making things difficult.  I think they are understaffed, and there possibly could be a level of incompetence based on what I have seen…  I say this because I see that Jamendo has the facilities to add advertsiting, yet no one appears to be selling ads on the site.  They have the Jamendo Pro service, and that might be useful for generating revenue, but certainly that is a more difficult route to go than selling advertising.

The platform itself is another issue.  It seems quite strange to me to be supporting the Free (Libre) Culture movement with an essentially closed platform.  Don’t take that the wrong way, I think that Jamendo has done great things to support the Creative Commons and Free (Libre) Culture.  However, I would think that they would be better served to open the platform, involve more developers, and build an Open Community around their system.

A combined issue: I noted how difficult it was to find the location to make a donation to Jamendo.  This points to a weakness in the platform itself: it should be easy to make the dontation spot more visible.  And, it shows a level of incompetence that the fundraising hasn’t been approached more broadly.

As I mentioned above, I think we’ve seen the relative success of alternative platforms such as StatusNet and Libre.FM. If this approach was combined with the idea of a Mozilla Foundation style organization might be the best thing for replacing the current Jamendo structure.

I’m not altogether sold on the idea of Google buying out Jamendo. I think they have their own irons-in-the-fire so to speak, and while it could be a good idea, I would like to see a situation where the people working on the project are more distributed.  The idea of distributing the people working on a project amongst multiple companies it becomes more difficult to tear apart the project.

So, those are my thoughts, as such.  There really is no end to the complications of this sitaution, or the possibilities for what can happen.  All we can hope is that whatever does happen happens for the best.

But, after watching the interview, there was much more than just the sound-bites that are worth thinking about and considering.  Read on for my reactions and thoughts.

The Sherman Alexie interview was quoted in an article on the CNN website: eBook Digital Piracy. The article spends most of it’s time talking about Digital Piracy as an issue facing publishers, and very little time looking at the positive side to eBooks.

To me it is astounding that there is still a major imbalance in terms of what is being presented in the national press and national media when issues of technological change are being presented.  The missing element is in looking at the successes that technology has brought about.  For example, nowhere in the CNN article was there any mention of Creative Commons, O’Reilly Media, Project Gutenberg, etc.  Or, for that matter, authors like Corey Doctorow, J. C. Hutchins, James Boyle, amongst others. The media seems to be scared of looking at issues from the perspective of changing media.  They seem doubly blind by the fact that they are part of the change.

But, I digress from the point of this article:  Sherman Alexie’s comments.

Open Source versus Artistic Ownership

The first thing that really stunned me in Mr. Alexie’s comments is his confusion over “Open Source” and “Artistic Ownership”.  If anything, there is more of an ownership in the Open Source community than there is in the arts in general.  Why do I say that?

In “Open Source” communities, you are recognized by your contributions: you increase your visibility or mind-share through your contributions.  This is  a fact documented as far back as The Cathedral and the Bazaar and Homesteading the Noosphere (the pivotal essays by Eric S. Raymond). It is your mind-share that is your “ownership”.

The same exists in the online artistic communities.  Those authors that chose to publish their works under a Creative Commons license do not lose their ownership.  If anything, they are able to propegate their ownership further by specifying the types of uses that their works are released under. By specifying with in any license that attribution (CC-BY) is a requirment, the creator has the ability to allow others to build on their work, while still maintaining a strong portion of their mind share.  In the many of the older works, once they entered into the public domain, anyone could build on the works, without having to specify an attribution.

The practice of borrowing from another authors work is common in literature.  As an example, Laurence Sterne was so taken with Shakespeare’s works that he named one of his characters Yorick.  And, went so far as to work the line “Alas, poor Yorick!” into The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (the reference is at the end of Chapter 1.XII. of the Project Gutenberg edition linked to here).

But this isn’t an isolated case.  There are whole tomes dedicated to examing the cross-referential and influential materials that authors choose to build upon in their works.  I’m certain that Mr. Alexie’s works have been subject of such intellectual endeavors themselves, and he would be hard pressed to say that he has never written anything that doesn’t have references to other literary works.

But, don’t take this the wrong way.  There is nothing wrong with this whatsoever.  The act of using references to other works is a part of the art form being practiced.  It is seen as being part of the dialogue between authors and society.  It is part of the tapestry that is woven to carry on a conversation on many levels that has continued for hundreds of years, and I would argue is a necessity if any of our works of art and culture are going to have meaning beyond the moment that they are published.

Destruction by Digitization

Okay, I think I’ve flogged that point.  However, Mr. Alexie didn’t stop with that one statement.  He went on to say that digitization of literature was destroying the culture of the book market.  While on his latest book tour he found himself attending more afternoon movie matinees, instead of doing local promotional work (like interviews for local newspapers and TV, etc.)  And that there was a decline in the independent book sellers, and the literary communities.

That may well be true.  However, I wouldn’t have linked the digitization of books to this phenomena.  From everything I have seen, this was well in decline before the advent of the Kindle, or any of the other book readers.  In fact, I would suggest that there is an even better chance that there will be a resurgence in the reading community because of the digitization.  However, it will take place in a different form, as the technology will enable different forms of community to emerge.

Just to understand what the difference will be, just look at this article.  I am responding to an interview with Mr. Alexie by providing the full context of his actual statements, in their original form by actually embedding the interview in this article.  This is something that no published article could do. I would have to carefully transcribe the interview, and either quote or paraphrase it very carefully within the body of this article in order to respond.  With this new technology, I allow the reader to actually experience Mr. Alexies comments in their complete context.

By publishing in this manner, I am adding to the conversation that needs to take place between the old and new media, between authors who have built their ways working around the older methods and those of us who have adapted to the new media. And most importantly, between those creators who were used to having communities form around their work, and those who are trying to form a community with their work (ie, those that are taking a more active role in building their community, versus the passive role the creator has taken in the past).

Scarcity and the Physical Object

The final point that Mr. Alexie made that I will address was feeling of loss for the physical object of the book itself, in it’s physical form. To this, I can only say that there is a level of undeniable truth: there is a loss of the physical object, and those of us who are book lovers do feel it.

However, there are two other points that are worth considering: first, the physical form of the book uses a resource that there is a limitation on.  We cannot keep using paper at an incredibly high rate, deforestation is an issue that we need to be concerned with on a ecological level.  This planet doesn’t have infinite resources, and we can recycle and reuse the resources to some degree, but paper is one of the items that we will eventually need to be concerned about exhausting.  And consider, if there is less of a physical object to ship, the less of a carbon footprint is created.  (That is, if there are fewer of the phyiscal objects, the lower the net energy put into the creation, distribution, etc.)

Which, brings up my second point: scarcity.  One of the articles I was reading suggested that removing artificial scarcity was alway a good idea.  I would suggest that this is one of the factors that Mr. Alexie should actually be applauding.  Why?  Because (a) the removal of a physical object makes it more likely he will be able to build a larger audience.  According to Amazon’s stats, owners of the Kindle bought three times as many books, as non-owners of the device did.  This was discussed briefly  in the previously referenced CNN article. (b) By removing the scarcity for the common object, the actual scarce object (ie, the physical books themselves) take on a higher value.  Those who want to actually own a physical copy of the book will evntually become a smaller segment of the population, and typically that segment is willing to pay more for the phyiscal object.

This is a corner we are starting to see come about in the music industry.  Those that want the physical media are paying more for it (believe me on this one, I know it first hand) than those that are willing to purchase the digital form of the item.  Just look at the businesses iTunes, amazon.com and WalMart have built around digital music.

I personally don’t believe that all the barriers to scarcity are completely removed by the digital model. Several factors such as: bandwidth, network accessibility, and storage are still elements that are subject to scarcity rules at this point (but they are becoming less and less of a factor over time).  However, with the adoption of the digital model, the physical objects have taken on a more significant role.  How many people purchased the deluxe editions of the Lord of The Rings movies?  And the prices for these editions were far greater than the same product in their non-deluxe edition.

Summary: So What Happened to Piracy?

So, what happened to the point that started this whole essay: eBook Piracy and Open Source?

Well, once I explained why Open Source and Piracry weren’t logically linked above, the subject of piracy itself become an almost non-issue.  There are so many other factors to consider, that eBook Piracy itself became the proverbial mole-hill.  And, in fact, the last subject above brings up the example that proves that piracy becomes a mole-hill: the music publication industry today is a greatly changed place.  Certainly it’s not completely recovered from the problems it has been having over the past couple of decades, however the change to digital media has actually turned about the piracy issue.  These days, many people are much more likely to go to iTunes or Amazon and purchase a legal (and notably, DRM free version) of the work they want.

What the industry hasn’t figured out yet is how to engage the new market in a model that reflects it’s overall makeup.  There is still too much generalization in some respects.  For example, we see marketing concepts taht work for Brittany Spears teenagers being applied to the Frank Sinatra generation.  The fact is, they are different sub-markets that respond to different stimuli.  Until they understand this and work with large cross sections of the market in a manner that is appropriate, they may not get back to where they were.  In fact, I might suggest they will never get back there because as a strictly business model there is a large difference between the purely entertainment oriented population they appeal to and the more artistic or socially oriented groups.  I don’t believe the two are as closely inter-related as has been believed in the past.

And when you start looking at the other factors: removing scarcity, making the truely scarce more valuable, increasing the overall artistic ownership for the creator that works with his / her audience, the re-invention of the community, the need for the creator to be more engaged in the act of building their community, etc. piracy pales by comparison.