YouTube "clarifies" something about Music Publishing Rights, Right?

Sadly, it's still not all that clear. And it seems to reinforce a sense that (generic) music publishing rights collecting societies will try to collect a pound of flesh wherever they can find one undefended.

Then again, we live in a really imperfect world, and the alternative might be worse. Keep telling yourself that and maybe your grandchildren will be the ones who finally have to take the action needed to make copyright law remotely address the realities of current technologies.

in reference to:

"We apologize for the confusion regarding recent claims labeled as "CS." We have now changed "CS" to "Music Publishing Rights Collecting Society" to better describe the nature of the claim. These are claims to musical compositions made on behalf of  Collecting Societies which represent music publishers in certain territories."
- Content owner, who is CS??? - YouTube Help (view on Google Sidewiki)

After Last Night's Show

I decided to take my "doctored" summary of the Stewart v. Cramer bloodbath and turn it into a video commentary. This was the result.


The Game (Commentary) from Toomb Paine on Vimeo.

I've replaced the YouTube version here with a more updated vimeo version, containing substantial if possibly subtle-to-some changes. Since I can update my vimeo channel's videos this seemed like the best choice here, so that updates can reflect any feedback that might cause me to revise this piece.

I feel like I'm looking for a dialogue that may never happen, given the preoccupations and sheer velocity of life in 2009. This also has me thinking about the UBIK project that I've been mulling over, mostly quietly, ever since discussions at Velvet Fridays led to some conversations about filmmaking based on Phillip K. Dick novels and stories. It has to do with conformity, in art as well as life, and how (don't hold me to this) UBIK in particular seems to be, at least in part, about the absurdities of conformist behavior -- all the while that its visual sensibility (as I imagine it) would seem to be about aesthetic chaos and disorder.



I posted this to Daily Kos and my Facebook account... It might as well be here too.

Nominations: Best YouTube Tech Support

Maybe not. But I just wrote what has to be my personal favorite reply to a technical question so far. And I don't want to risk it being nuked, so I'm going to save it here for as much eternity as we have left.

The post should appear in context at this YouTube address.

If it's missing, or you just don't want to go to YouTube support, read it below the fold.


The post should appear in context at this YouTube address.

On Jan 1, 9:38 pm, anmoose wrote:

> I swear... We live in a society that's completely eaten up with
> instant gratification. If things don't happen two seconds after we
> click a mouse, then it must be broken. Jeez!

> Read up on the word "patience." It used to be a fairly common word.
> Then, if you can figure out how, try exercising a bit of it. In the
> real world, it can take a full day or two for search databases to
> update. Under heavy loads, it might even take three.

Well, I think these newfangled Babbage Engines did a lot to undermine
that whole "patience" concept. Personally I'm calling the War on
Instagrat over with the win totally for the Instas, d00d. ("Instagrat"
-- because Instant Gratification is just WAAAY too much to type in the
Wrld o Lulz).

Be that as it may, and feeling a Burgess Merideth librarian episode
coming on too ... I suggest instead looking up the term "propagation"
because some huge percentage of posts here (of a number that I'm just
too darn impatient to estimate) seem to be about a concept that many
of us Instanauts don't yet fully grasp, but one that will make our
lives all thrills, sparkles and pixie dust, once we do wrap it around
our heads, like a fetching headscarf.

In short, the series of Tubes that is just the YouTube is composed of
not one but many "databases" that I prefer to call magical bit-
piles. A change to one usually sends out an entrancing sparkle of
fairybyte dust that mesmerizes the worker ants and sends out a
pheremone signal to tell them to get their ant butts in gear and come
grab some of these bits, and make some copies (using methods that are
illegal to show in many countries, and most southern states).

The controlling mistress fairy, Lady Latexia, then sends them out to
all the other good little fairy princess anthills, otherwise know by
their cover identities as "databases" -- this "database" is a word
chosen for its magical power to lull most people to sleep or at least
to have them tune in the shopping channel and save the economy while
the magical anthill fairies do their strange and dangerous dances.

Sometimes fairies get lost. Sometimes pirates in Yemen run over a
magical fairy dust trunkline at the bottom of the Straits of the Gaze
and billions of fairies drown in salt water, providing the secret
ingredient for salt water taffy. Sometimes things go along being very
complicated and logical [and then a miracle happens] and then things
are more or less the way you expected them to be a few days ago and
Bruno the memory mopper runs over your head with a tow truck, spilling
memory-muddling salts all over the place. This is where that whole
"sandman" story comes from. And thus all is right in the world.

I hope you've enjoyed this episode of Sister Mary Explains the
Intertubes. I know I have.

Aren't you glad now that you followed below the fold?

détourne, détourne, détourne...

This is sort of fascinating.


There's also a much longer video that breaks all the "rules" of YouTube but is an amazing discourse on the uses of anonymity, and the late 18th century nature of the anonymous author. I know that sounds elitist and such, but give it a few minutes at least before you change the channel.



See, that wasn't so bad. I've long been fascinated with Lewis Hyde's writings on property and creativity. Take a look at his books where you can find them. Especially, The Gift: Creativity and the Erotic Life of Property.