lovehatethings

While the Canadian parliament is out of session for the summer Conservative Sith Lord Jim Prentice's Bill C-61 (Canada's take on reforming copyright and Digital Rights Management) is getting batted around more than a pinata at Cinco de Mayo.

For as complete a compendium of information as you could hope to get on the issue, I refer you to michaelgeist.ca where almost every aspect of fair copyright for Canadians is represented through links to interviews and articles.

While my thoughts on C-61 are pretty clear, I thought maybe another question would provoke the marketing wizards that sell music in stores or online: am I just renting music?

For years people have been able to rent paintings and sculptures from galleries in order to decorate their lives for a few weeks or months at a time. Why should music be any different? If the only rights "owned" on a piece of music are by the artist, producer, and writer, what am I really paying for with a 99 cent song download or a 15 dollar CD purchase? If I cannot take that CD and replicate into the other formats that allow me to enjoy it at its fullest, I seriously have to consider whether buying (should consumer ownership of art actually exist) is such a worthwhile thing.

I don't purchase CDs at stores or online anymore, but one of the places I do buy them is when I'm at shows of smaller or independent performers because often those purchases entail more money going directly to the artist. The first thing I do when I get home, however, is rip all of the tracks onto my computer so I can use them on my Nano. If I buy the same tracks online, Apple takes the cut that band gets at the venue. This formula works the same for a music store that takes a cut every time a CD gets purchased. But, if Bill C-61 passes, I'll have to wonder if it's ever worth it for me to buy a CD again. If every CD mastering house starts to put forth an even insignificant protection scheme on every CD, I can be fined tens of thousands of dollars for ripping one disc. If I ripped a DVD to my Nano to watch on a flight to Vegas, same penalty.

And this raises a further question: if purchasing a song, or collection of songs, in any format does not give me any real rights of self-distribution, am I really "buying" anything at all? How would the average consumer feel about renting music instead of buying it? Would you be willing to pay 99 cents for a song that you could only listen for three months on one computer? Should I buy a DVD that I can only watch on my laptop computer but not a DVD player? I may as well just buy an iTouch and use wi-fi to stream everything without owning a single song or film.

Those who rent paintings do so to make a statement, send a message, impress visitors or sell their condo. I don't listen to music or watch the films I do to impress anybody. Ask my friends and they'll tell you I have some pretty messed up loves and hates when it comes to music and films that wouldn't impress anyone. So if I'm purchasing music, it's for the long haul, and the last thing anyone should want is to prevent a lifelong love of a band or song to be threatened just because formats change.

And that's the real rub isn't it? CDs will be obsolete in five years or less and the music industry is afraid, because while they could sell people on compact discs being "better" than vinyl in the 80s (at least enough to make you re-buy your entire collection), that pitch is going to be far more difficult when the average download quality pales in comparison to the CD you have now. The average mp3 has six to ten times less audio information than a track form a compact disc. Why would I buy everything again in a lesser format unless the law forced me to?

Bill C-61 is a cash grab by the music labels, retailers, and their lobbyists in Ottawa. Sure there are pieces in the bill that deal with music re-distribution (from one party to another) but we already have legislation to deal with such occurrences. Bill C-61 will serve to do one thing upon its signing - make half of the population instant criminals. Thank you Sith Lord Prentice, may I have another?

I suppose there is no mystery to this lovehate. After submitting numerous posts to the on this blogging platform over the past few weeks, it would be hard for me to say that I hated blogs. There are some things, however, that I just don't get. A recent post at readwriteweb indicates that "lifestreaming" is the future of blogging. As much as I would like to think that reading about someone's entire life was interesting - it's not. Sure, something can be learned by examining the ordinary, but that doesn't mean I want to read, or pretend to share, someone's day to day meanderings through their existence. And I say this even though I'm on Twitter and Friendfeed and Facebook and Plurk and Pownce and usually jot a couple of quick notes every day that are more humorous than telling. Suffice to say, someone who has the time and inclination to record their entire life on a blog really shouldn't have much time for an extraordinary life. And when I devote time to reading for entertainment, I better not be reading about someone watching TV in their apartment for three hours.

I certainly don't begrudge someone who wishes to document their existence on the web (there may be something quite therapeutic about it), but surely there has to be some serious editing involved. While I applaud Andy Warhol's vision in making the film Sleep, I sure didn't want to sit through five hours of it. Whenever I hear someone review a film, play or television show and say they loved that the characters or dialogue were "so real", I cry foul. Even the most authentic documentary, unless shot in real time, is only a simulation of reality that someone manipulates. A "lifestreaming" blogger becomes the gatekeeper of their own life with regards to what gets relayed to readers. While the blogger may have had a "real satisfying trip to the bathroom involving a number two", I certainly don't want to hear about it, and most bloggers have the decency not to tell me. This same act of choosing to avoid events that may clash with social mores or taboos turns lifestreaming into more simulation and less documentation. And to be honest, I'm fine with that.

I believe that we are all just stories and when you leave a room, the people left behind speak of you ill or well with others in relaying your history. If lifestreaming turns out to be simply a bunch of people sharing every minute of their lives online, why should I be interested? I'd much rather they lie. I'd enjoy reading of grand adventures. Instead, my fear is that the lifestreaming movement will eventually deconstruct itself into endless posts of "I'm texting from my cellphone to my lifestream about texting from my cellphone to my lifestream." While honest, not too exciting.

Blogging as a means of artistic creativity or to share ideas - great! Blogging as a means of "sharing" one's life with friends - sure, I can buy that, maybe not too exciting to others, but okay. Blogging as a means of documenting the daily meanderings of one's life - I guess, if you want to, but why should I, or anyone, have an interest? The less I know about someone, the more fascinating they become. Just give me the interesting snippets and my mind will fill in the rest.

Lifestreaming echoes the same problems faced by people with webcams on them 24/7. I don't care how cute the young woman is while moping around her bedroom about how her parents or boyfriends don't "get" her, she will become boring: quickly. And the less boring she becomes, the more boring you become.

Love blogging - hate lifestreaming.

Remember Ginger?

In 2001, Dean Kamen had a secret project (sometimes also known as IT) which caused tumultuous excitement around the tech world and media in general. No one knew what IT was? Some speculated on it being a new kind of engine or a futuristic anti-grav platform. Instead, it was the Segway. With much hype and hoopla Kamen predicted that the Segway "will be to the car what the car was to the horse and buggy". Essentially the Segway was to be the car "killer".

Now, some seven years later, Toyota has released the "Winglet Personal Transporter" which is being trumpted as the Segway killer. If the Segway was Ginger, let's call the Thinglet Maryann. They're both nice to look at, but ultimately they're bound to always being an afterthought while Gilligan, the bumbling auto industry always manages to screw things up while remaining the star of the show.

From 2001 to 2006, 23500 Segways were sold. Now I don't know how many millions of cars and trucks were sold in that same time, but of all the threats to the automotive industry, I don't think the Segway was high on their list. If the Segway was supposed to be the car killer, I don't even think it could be accused of attempted assault (even though there was a battery). That the Winglet is being touted as the "Segway Killer" is kind of like Martin Prince saying he could beat up Millhouse after Millhouse got his butt kicked by Nelson. When Ford was pitching his version of the "horseless carriage" in the early 1900s, I somehow doubt he was calling it the "Horse Killer".

Seemingly every week there is some report of the iPhone, iPod or Blackberry killer. The web has frequent reports of Digg, Facebook, Twitter and Google killers... and it's not Cuil. Apparently, depending on which blog you read, the new Windows killer might be Linux, OSX, or even Adobe Air. Did you know that Dyson was preparing a Roomba killer?

I suppose I'm just wondering if using term "killer" with regards to new products has jumped the shark... oh, sorry "nuke the fridge" has become the "jumped the shark" killer. With all of this attempted killing going its strange the authorities aren't involved. Who'd have thought Ice T being a "cop killer" wouldn't involve his music or bullets, but instead a slow inside job through his sub-par acting skills on Law and Order.

I've already got the new Winglet Killer. Now, while I admit the 3 mph cruising speed is a little less that than the Winglet's 3.7, my product (project name: Skipper) does not require gasoline or an electric charge, does not use any fancy gyroscopes for balancing (we've achieved perfect balance without handle bars), and we don't have factories filled with workers stamping out a carbon footprint across the land. With some clearance from Steve Jobs on naming parameters, I am boldly announcing the Winglet killer as the "I walk".

As for thing "killers"... HATE them.