Cory Doctorow - For The Win & Copyright Issues

Managed to see Cory Doctorow twice during a book tour promoting his latest novel, For The Win (of which I now have a signed copy), about gold farmers in a virtual MMORPG organizing as a union. The first was at a Baltimore book store where he gave a reading and then a Q&A with the audience that was highly entertaining.











The second was at the New American Foundation for a lecture on copyright and another long Q&A.

Video embed below.



Although often introduced as a prolific blogger (from Boing Boing) and novelist, his public speaking is extremely engaging. His energy when discussing issues around science fiction, copyright issues, creative commons, and corporate control of creativity is impressive.

Almost politic.

Cory for Prime Minister?

P.S. He mentioned that Fred Lohmann from EFF had moved to Google? I remember Fred's lecture on copyright issues at the 2006 New York Machinima Festival.

Now all I have to see is author Neal Stephenson and I will have seen a quartet of cool scribblers.

Play Machinima Law Conference Videos

Are now up (in Quicktime format) at the Stanford Law School. This was held last April in 2009. The notification of the conference was covered a lot, but since the videos went up months later there was little discussion on the content discussed at the conference.

If they have another, they should consider holding the conference in Second Life.

(Via MyClone).

When You Dip Your Bucket Into The Stream Of Free

This is what it takes to find the good stuff (detailed on Idiotprogrammer). Two thousand two hundred albums on Jamendo listenend to in order to find the eleven best (via Catching the Wave).

11/2200 = 0.5%

That is incredible dedication to the task, but it reflects what anyone on the net suffers through in order to find great and appealing content.

It may be free as in free money but it certainly costs a lot of time to find.

Two things:
1. What is it worth to anyone to have these kingmakers out there finding the good stuff for the rest of us?
2. Flip it on its head. If you are a content creator, how are you getting noticed if you are just 1/2200?

The articles above have links to the albums but here is a best of 2010 Sampler.

Watch RIP: A Remix Manifesto

On Pitchfork TV.



Previously discussed here.

Mucho Free Music

Stop giving the RIAA an opportunity to send takedown notices to YouTube regarding your inappropriate use of copyrighted music (funny how game companies are not worried at all) in your videos (read machinima) and start using some free music.

40 Ways to Download FREE Music Legally - at least some of these are free to listen but not use, others have Creative Commons licenses, others are in the public domain. I knew of ones like ccMixter and the SXSW torrents, but others I had never heard of.

The Best Song Ever

Nina Sings "Copying Isn't Theft" from Reel 13 on Vimeo.

What I Learned This Weekend

At the DC Independent Film Festival:

James Cameron Avatar will have a game component (separate) that players can take part in. Will it be like Enter the Matrix?

CreateSpace is cool. Amazon's Unbox might be a good idea too.

A 3D version of Nosferatu (Orlok the Vampire), utilizing the public domain footage from this and other movies, along with some technology to cleanup the film and add 3D elements and music was sort of interesting.

A demo of the new RED camera was pretty exciting. 4K here we come.

Lots of talk about open source, public domain, creative commons, and free media. Remix and rehash, interactivity, computer games, community building, etc. Only, how to make money (or even a living) when the competition is giving away theirs for free?

I Machinimate!

Therefore I am? Or something to that effect.

An exploration of augmented reality. Submitted to the Machinima Expo!

Filefront.
Internet Archive.
Vimeo.
BlipTV.