This year’s HyperKult Conference at the Leuphana University of Lüneburg focuses on “The Cloud”. As more and more data gets stored and processed on non-local storage and computing systems, conventions of usage and strategies for cultural practice are set to change dramatically. The conference aims to shed a light on very different practices that are affected by this development. Fields as diverse as artistic work and geological surveys are represented with presentations and papers.
Conference Website (in German)

Wired Magazine’s latest cover story “The New New Economy” includes an article “Socialism Revisited” by author Kevin Kelly that outlines online collaborative work and creative commons licensing as comparable, though not identical, to socialism as political/economical idea. The descriptions in the article hint at a detached economy that has reached a certain mass to become important even in the work market of the networked society.

However, this description of a no-state, detached, grass-rootsy economy leaves room for doubt in two areas. First of all, at least in Europe, many of those careers take place in a state of precariousness that is only possible because of a state subsidies for start-ups in what’s still being referred to as “New Economy”, as well as subsidies for the arts, grants for research projects etc. This would still account for a significant attachment to the existing political structures.

Secondly, the question whether or not this “New New Economy” does indeed have the chance to overcome the era of industrialization has not been decided yet. After all, the technological basis for this economy – network servers, routers, mobile computers, cell phones, digital cameras, etc. – is being produced in economies of scale in countries that are just entering the age of industrialization. Without China’s low-wage, low-standard workforce, there would be no $300 netbooks.

In the end, even the whole idea of socialism as a role model for the next New Economy is questionable. So far, the economical ideas are not creating an egalitarian mass, but an audience that knows what to pick for which purpose and that requires diversity, at least in content. Socialism as an image to reach beyond industrialization seems improbable at this point in time.
Full article

Internet activist Cory Doctorow has published an idea on how Creative Commons licenses could be amended to account for actual license fees the moment the original work is used commercially. A simple addition to the CC license text could ask a certain percentage out of the revenue generated by a product based on the original creative work that was released under this license. This approach would leave the benefits of CC licenses – free distribution, unlimited noncommercial use – untouched, and could therefore leverage the potential of a product that people can try out and use (noncommercially) freely without any limitations. Just when they start to generate money for themselves do they have to actually pay for the material they use.

The downside of this idea is of course that it depends on people’s willingness to obey the license, as they don’t gain anything from paying for the product and/or material at the time they’re required to pay. Enforcement of the license is expensive, and depends on whether or not the user can be dragged into a court at all. On the other hand, it certainly would not hurt to add license fees for commercial use to the license text itself, therefore making the terms clear on which people can work with the material.
Full Article at Internetevolution.com

The European Parliament has re-adopted a part of a law that describes having access to the internet a fundamental right. Thereby, the representatives have voted against approaches that are known as “Three Strikes” legislation, where anybody caught three times conducting illegal acts such as sharing copyrighted content would essentially be thrown off the grid by authorities and their ISPs. French President Sarkozy is one of the primary advocates of such legislation.

The vote of the European Parliament is not legally binding, but the acknowledgement at least strengthens the position that internet access is not some negotiable “nice to have” matter, but should indeed be seen as a basic right for everyone, completely independent of questions on how to police law infringements.
Full article at La Quadrature du Net 

All currently available multitouch technology relies on hand-eye coordination to interact with objects on the screen. For this reason, real-world applications are limited to gadgety interactions, e.g. on the iPhone. In such situations, the user generally wants to see what is happening graphically on the screen.

In other applications, the setup looks quite different. In a music performance, staring at the screen while manipulating parameters is not the best way to appear in front of an audience. Here, tactile control has to work without always having an eye for the on-screen object, because the eye tends to be needed for the crowd.

For this reason, the good old-fashioned machine-control paradigm still dominates the interface market for music applications. Knobs, buttons, and faders are still the mainstay on today’s stages for electronic music. But the versatility of multitouch screens is no less desirable in music equipment design. Attemps to match the benefits of both approaches are scarce. Just recently, though, a new and promising approach has surfaced, as published in MIT’s Technology Review.

This technological concept uses a latex screen with multitouch capability and a set of pneumatic pumps able to create small air pockets underneath the screen. These dynamic buttons can be either positive or negative, and the pressure when pushing them can be recorded as well. This looks very interesting for dynamically changing music composition and improvisation systems, although the proof-of-concept implementations are mostly about telecommunication.
Full article
Video

Supporters of the strike on a map of Germany

Germany’s #1 blog Spreeblick has entered a demonstrative strike against the online censorship legislation that was just passed by the federal government. Notably, the strike is not against the cause, which is to prevent people from entering child pornography websites, but rather against the amateurish belief that a simple list with URLs and IPs to be blocked will actually prevent the proliferation of such abominable content, and also against the very real possibility that the small effect such a blockade might have will be used politically in the future. Here is the original statement from Spreeblick:

Spreeblick.com, a german weblog, is on a demonstrative strike today.

The reason: Today, the german federal cabinet passed a new law to filter websites based on a secret list compiled by the Federal Criminal Police Office. The Federal Ministry for Family Affairs communicates the law as a remedy for the prevention of child pornography. While we strongly support any attempt to stop the abuse of humans and children in particular, we doubt that this is the real reason for the law.

For months, experts of all fields have impeached the facts and figures that were communicated by the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs as well as the technical implementation of the filtering process. We mistrust the planned non-transparent process, we regard it as ineffective and amateurish and we believe it is counterproductive and a possible thread to democracy.

Since illegal sites on a list must be known beforehand, we urge the government to shut those sites down and prosecute the operators of those sites.

In times of a nationwide election campaign, we regard political populism as highly inappropriate when it should be about the fight against the abuse of minors.

Time Magazine has an article about a similar approach that backfired on the Australian Government a few months ago.

Video courtesy The Blimp Pilots

With the arrival of distant shore for the iPhone, there’s finally a distinct alternative to the Facebook style of this secong-gen web of our lives. While Facebook tries to achieve full inclusion of its users under their real names, Distant Shore’s design is just as utopian, but takes an entirely different route. There, the high-profile, involved communication scheme of mixed up privacy and business agency, here the ultimate laissez-faire of an empty beach. In an endless summer, you walk the endless shores, collecting shells and the occasional message in a bottle from the sand. Messages do not contain any information about their sender, and one’s answer is transmitted in the same anonymity. Five collected sea shells earn one sending of a message by throwing a bottle into the water. But it is still a web, for answers will indeed reach the correct recipient.

Distant shore is an experience of complexity, stripped down to a relaxing core. You can ask everyday or philosophical questions, without involvement and virtually “no strings attached”. The form of communication offered by Distant Shore might just be the right way to spend a mellow night after a long hard day over at Facebook.
Distant Shore

I recently had the opportunity to interview Takeshi Nishimoto, a great musician and good friend, here in Berlin. His specialty is the seven-string guitar, which he plays with mastery both in the context of electronic projects such as I’m Not A Gun (with John Tejada), as well as with his solo setup.
Full interview

Image courtesy Nine Inch Nails

Nine Inch Nails’ four-part album “Ghosts I-IV” took the crown in Amazon’s 2008 sales ranking for mp3 albums. Taking into account that Amazon’s mp3 store positioned itself against iTunes in terms of revenue, this placement would mean a considerable earning on the band’s side. What makes this interesting is the fact that the very same album was released for free under a Creative Commons license directly from the band’s website. However, people chose to pay for this album. This may seem special, but considering basically all music is still available for free illegally, the same could be said for almost every sale of an mp3 album. People choose to pay because they value the artistic work and the convenience offered by second-generation online stores like Amazon and Beatport. DRM-free offerings may play a significant role in this.

Nine Inch Nails apparently understood this and took the straight approach: Don’t make free downloads illegal; those downloaders are still your fans, and they may well pay for a concert. Maybe because they were given the free option, so many people felt enticed to pay for the download in the end.
Via Chris Anderson’s Long Tail Blog

As the “music only release” business model becomes more and more unattractive, especially when a physical medium is involved, the year 2009 may bring a lot of success stories around interactive releases that are not seen as mere “records”, but rather as games or applications. There are two main reasons why such concepts may play a bigger role in the future of releasing music:

- New distribution concepts for regular album releases are great if you already have a big name. Then, you can custom-tailor your release strategy to fit the needs of your project and your fans, while receiving a lot of attention from the public and press on the way. This worked well for Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails, but would probably not help an unknown producer in Kreuzberg get her name out.

- The app store concept goes hand in hand with the proliferation of ever more powerful, yet more or less closed systems. The ways to get new software onto any regular PC are so diversified, an app store for Windows Vista or Mac OS probably doesn’t have much impact in terms of revenue. However, on platforms that are either closed entirely, like most game consoles or an un-jailbroken iPhone, or that focus on convenience in getting new software onto the device, app stores will likely be the main portals you turn to for new software. And on these platforms, consumers are used to paying money for products. That’s one of the main reasons why they’re so attractive for music releases. Here, control is possible and its exertion doesn’t even bother the end consumers.

There are two sides to this story, really. On the one hand, any system that will help musicians pay their rent (not get insanely rich) with their artistic work should be welcomed, especially in these recessionary times. At the same time, though, we should worry when whole new macro-economies build around a technological platform that is controlled by one company – such as Apple, Sony, RIM, and Nokia, to name only a few. The way to go would be an open standard, a cross-platform application format that would be accepted in the app stores for mobile phones, game consoles, and netbooks alike.