U2 Manager Calls Google “Monopoly”, Spotify “Promotional Medium” #MIDEM – hypebot

Via Scoop.it – digital culture

Google’s role in the recent campaign against the proposed SOPA anti-piracy legislation in the US came in for a sustained attack by U2′s manager Paul McGuinness this morning, at the Midem conference in Cannes. “Why are they not trying to solve the future in a more generous way?” he asked. “Ultimately it is in their interests that the flow of content will continue. And that won’t happen unless it’s paid for. And I don’t think we can rely on politicians who are afraid of being unpopular to accomplish this without some willingness and generosity on the part of the tech area.”
Via www.hypebot.com

Julian Assange: The Rolling Stone Interview

Via Scoop.it – digital culture

“Are you fucked?” I ask. Assange pauses and looks out the window. The house is surrounded by rolling fields and quiet woods, but they offer him little in the way of escape. The British Supreme Court will hear his extradition appeal on February 1st – but even if he wins, he will likely still remain a wanted man. Interpol has issued a so-called “red notice” for his arrest on behalf of Swedish authorities for questioning in “connection with a number of sexual offenses” – Qaddafi, accused of war crimes, earned only an “orange notice” – and the U.S. government has branded him a “high-tech terrorist,” unleashing a massive and unprecedented investigation designed to depict Assange’s journalism as a form of international espionage. Ever since November 2010, when WikiLeaks embarrassed and infuriated the world’s governments with the release of what became known as Cablegate, some 250,000 classified diplomatic cables from more than 150 countries, the group’s supporters have found themselves detained at airports, subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury, and ordered to turn over their Twitter accounts and e-mails to authorities.
Via www.rollingstone.com

Yochai Benkler: Megaupload-Style Cases Will Kill Prosecuted Companies

Via Scoop.it – digital culture

(Bloomberg Law) — Last week was a busy one in digital intellectual property. In the wake of a day of online protest by technology companies and
individuals opposing the proposed federal Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA), the Obama Administration pulled its support for the measures. A day later, federal prosecutors unsealed an indictment against senior officials at Megaupload, one of the Internet’s largest file-sharing sites. The officials were arrested in New Zealand and millions of dollars in assets were seized. Bloomberg Law’s Lee Pacchia talks with Yochai Benkler, Faculty Co-Director of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, about copyright law in the wake of the developments.
Via www.youtube.com

On the long tail: Heads you win, tails you lose | Harold Jarche

Via Scoop.it – digital culture

After seven years as an independent working online and participating in online content creation, I am starting to wonder how much room there really is in pocket #2 and if it’s just a (very) short extension of pocket #1. Jaron Lanier in You Are Not a Gadget, says:
The people who are perhaps the most screwed by open culture are the middle classes of intellectual and cultural creation. The freelance studio musician, the stringer selling reports to newspapers from warzones are both crucial contributors to culture. Each pays dues and devotes years to honing a craft. They used to live off the trickle down effects of the old system, and like the middle class at large, they are precious. They get nothing from the new system.
Via www.jarche.com

PHP Zend Pulse Developer Survey | New Relic blog

Via Scoop.it – digital culture

The great folks at Zend, the PHP Company have assembled their latest “Zend Developer Pulse” Report (available for free, here). The report suggests that Developers plan to invest most of their time, talent and energy in mobile and API projects over the coming year — and will continue to code in a variety of languages. Apparently the survey itself was conducted in late November 2011; around 3,335 respondents were polled.
Via blog.newrelic.com

How Small is BigData? | meedabyte

Via Scoop.it – digital culture

Big Data was one of the most talked buzzwords of 2011 and despite there’s no lack of interesting trends for 2012 – eHealth, Collaborative Consumption, IT consumerization, Post TV era… – I think that the focus on Big Data will it’s not fade so quickly. By the way, now that we have technologies, a lack of methodologies to extract knowledge and meaning from data, keeps intuitions hidden inside them. Our ability to analyze, therefore, is likely to represent the real bottleneck to prevent a revolution waiting to be liberated.  
Via meedabyte.wordpress.com

8 Things Spotify Could Do Right Now To Show They Care About Musicians | hypebot

Via Scoop.it – digital culture

This guest post is by Gavin Castleton, a songwriter and producer from Portland, OR. 1. Promote “Buy Now” links on album pages and next to individual tracks. 2. Allow artists to edit their own profiles… Check it out!
Via www.hypebot.com

Four modes of open government. | Edgeryders

Via Scoop.it – digital culture

The Wikileaks Model (‘We Open Governments’, said the banner), The Aid Transparency Model (Open Data movement), The Star-Tides model (Civil cooperation with government), The General Model: Open Government (publish everything the government does and knows, in convenient machine-readable formats, on the basis that it is being done on behalf of the public, the same public who paid for it, the public that has a right to know. This public is poorly served by inefficient, opaque government).
Via edgeryders.ppa.coe.int

Does Online Piracy Hurt The Economy? A Look At The Numbers | Forbes

Via Scoop.it – digital culture

Julian Sanchez has an excellent piece in Ars Technica which takes a look at the claim that content creators are being discouraged from creative pursuits due to online piracy – a claim that has fueled the recently stalled anti-piracy legislation in congress. Whether SOPA and PIPA would have actually worked is an open question, but whether they were ever even necessary to begin with is even more important
Via www.forbes.com

If the feds can shut down Megaupload, why do we need SOPA?

Via Scoop.it – digital culture

For more than a year, the Motion Picture Association of America and the Recording Industry Association of America have argued that existing laws were insufficient to deal with the problem of “rogue sites” hosted overseas. They’ve been pushing bills like the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the PROTECT IP Act as essential weapons in the fight. But evidently, American law enforcement didn’t get the memo that they were powerless against overseas file-sharing services. The day after the Internet’s historic protest of SOPA and PIPA last week, the United States government unsealed an indictment against the people behind Megaupload, one of the largest sites on the Internet.
Via arstechnica.com