Sunday, August 9, 2009
Free Culture Chapter 7: Recorders
Question and Answer
1) What process did Else go through to use The Simpsons in his documentary?
Jon Else, worked on a documentary about Wagner’s Ring Cycle in 1990. The focus was stagehands at the San Francisco Opera. During one of the performances, Else was shooting some stagehands playing checkers and in one corner of the room was a television set playing The Simpsons. Else felt that a 4.5 second touch of cartoon on a tiny television set captures the flavor of what was special about the scene. The Simpsons was copyrighted and to use a copyrighted material, permission is required from the copyright owner unless “fair use” or some other privilege applies. Else attempted to clear the rights for those few seconds on The Simpsons, so he got permission from Simpsons creator Matt Groening’s and Gracie Films, the company that produces the program. When Else tried to get permission from Gracie’s parent company Fox, they wanted ten thousand dollars as a licensing fee for the use of 4.5 seconds of unsolicited Simpsons in his documentary.
1) What process did Else go through to use The Simpsons in his documentary?
Jon Else, worked on a documentary about Wagner’s Ring Cycle in 1990. The focus was stagehands at the San Francisco Opera. During one of the performances, Else was shooting some stagehands playing checkers and in one corner of the room was a television set playing The Simpsons. Else felt that a 4.5 second touch of cartoon on a tiny television set captures the flavor of what was special about the scene. The Simpsons was copyrighted and to use a copyrighted material, permission is required from the copyright owner unless “fair use” or some other privilege applies. Else attempted to clear the rights for those few seconds on The Simpsons, so he got permission from Simpsons creator Matt Groening’s and Gracie Films, the company that produces the program. When Else tried to get permission from Gracie’s parent company Fox, they wanted ten thousand dollars as a licensing fee for the use of 4.5 seconds of unsolicited Simpsons in his documentary.
2) Why didn’t Else rely just upon “fair use”?
Else did not rely on “fair use” for a few reasons. Else said he should not have asked Groening in the first place but he knew Fox had a record of tracking down and stopping unlicensed Simpsons usage. He decided to be careful because he thought it would be free or a cheap license to the 4.5 seconds of the show. The last thing he wanted was legal trouble. He spoke to a graduate of Stanford Law School who conformed it was fair use. However, Fox made it clear it would boil down to who had the bigger legal department and the most money, Else or them.
3) What’s the difference between fair use theory and fair use in practice?
In theory, fair use states there is no permission required. It supports free culture and insulates against a permission culture. However, in practice, fair use works very differently. As stated in the book, “the law has the right to aim; practice has defeated the aim.” The law started to protect publishers’ from pirates, but has turned into something completely different.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Startup.com Summary
Startup.com Summary
This interesting documentary tracks the rise and fall of govWorks.com from May 1999 to December 2000, and the challenges this business brings to the relationship of two best friends. Kaleil Isaza Tuzman and Tom Herman are friends from high school; they have an idea of creating a Web site for people to conduct business with local governments. Kaleil raises the money by pitching the dream to venture capitalists. Kaleil becomes CEO and Tom performs the function of technical chief. Venture capital comes in by the millions. They make their dream a reality by opening Govworks.com, a Web-based firm devoted to helping people deal more efficiently with local governments. The web business begins with facilitating payment of parking tickets online.As it was a unique business opportunity at that time, Govworks.com expanded rapidly, going from a one-room office with a small staff to over 200 employees and a bankroll of 50 million within a few months. Kaleil is soon on TV and magazine covers, he has the right combination of salesmanship and leadership that makes a company flourish. He even slips a business card to President Clinton. He motivates his team with little pump-up rituals. Kaleil’s partner Tom is a family man with a daughter. His daughter needs constant attention, which makes it difficult for him to work in the weekends. A third partner wants a buyout at the initial stages and walks out with good chunk of Money. Competition catches up with them quite quickly and the company is always in need of cash for improving the site to compete with other firms.
Tom’s gentle nature clashes with Kaleil's all-business approach; they lock horns as Tom wants to be a CO-CEO. Eventually Tom gets forced out of the company that he helped to start, by his long-time friend. Like many other Internet firms of the year 2000, Govworks.com did not succeed, by January 2001, the company had let nearly all of its employees go, and was eventually acquired by a larger firm. Tom and Kaleil realize the perils of going into business with their friends as they observe the rise and fall of their internet firm over the course of its first and only year.
"Startup.com" tells an amazing story of rapid rise and fall of dotcoms of that period but skips on minor details. We keep wondering how the millions got spent within that short period of Time. This documentary also leaves a few holes in the personal stories of the characters which make us wonder of their personal lives. On the whole it is an educational and entertaining documentary which will be useful for future entrepreneurs.
Free Culture Chapter 7: Recorders
Free Culture
Chapter 7: Recorders
Chapter 7: Recorders
In chapter 7 of the book Free Culture, Lessig describes that the real purpose of creating law for copyrights was to protect publisher’s profits against the unfair competition of a pirate. But today the law is used for any use, transformative or not.
Jon Else a film maker, best known for his documentaries, worked on a documentary about Wagner’s Ring Cycle in 1990. The focus was stagehands at the San Francisco Opera. During one of the performances, Else was shooting some stagehands playing checkers and in one corner of the room was a television set playing The Simpsons. Else felt that a four-and-a-half second touch of cartoon on a tiny television set captures the flavor of what was special about the scene. The Simpsons was copyrighted and to use a copyrighted material, permission is required from the copyright owner unless “fair use” or some other privilege applies. Else attempted to clear the rights for those few seconds on The Simpsons, so he got permission from Simpsons creator Matt Groening’s and Gracie Films, the company that produces the program. When Else tried to get permission from Gracie’s parent company Fox, they wanted ten thousand dollars as a licensing fee for this 4.5 seconds of unsolicited Simpsons which was in the corner of the shot.
Else didn't have the money to buy the right to replay what was playing on the television backstage at the San Francisco Opera. So at the very last minute before the film was to be released, he digitally replaced the shot with a clip from another film that he had worked on. But Else was certain that there was a mistake. So he spoke to one of the person in Stanford Law School, who confirmed that the usage of Simpsons was clearly fair use. According to law, fair use does not require the permission of anyone.
Therefore as per the author, the theory supports free culture and insulates against a permission culture. But in practice, fair use functions very differently. The law was created for the right sense, but in practice the purpose for the law is crushed.
For more details about other chapters of Free Culture, pop in to http://madnessofcrowds.wordpress.com/
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Army of Davids Summary
The greatest truth I found in this book is Technology empowers ordinary people. Technology makes life go smoother, perform tasks within short time, brings confidence in people that they can do anything they wish to, with all simple ways and in every field. In Army of Davids the author summarizes his personal experiences with the changes brought by technology in the last decade, especially those which allow ordinary people to create goods and services which were once the province of large organizations. And he investigates topics that have long held his interest: beer-making, music, the Internet and broadcast media, games, nanotechnology, politics, space exploration, and life extension.
The author says that, with the growth of computers and the Internet you don’t have to be goliaths to get along. Like David’s sling, these new technologies empower the little guy to compete more effectively. Technology will influence the world in the present and the future, nobody can deny this. Reynolds takes the time to offer suggestions on how individuals and communities can begin to protect themselves from unexpected dangers in the wider world, especially when the larger organizations of governments may be unable to provide protection and assistance. The bad news, as Reynolds touches upon, is that these tools for co-ordination can also be used for destructive purposes. It will take yet another wave of technical change, and legal/social adjustment, for open societies to adjust to malicious and dynamic free riders.
Reynolds's contribution is to show how the widespread distribution of advanced technology has profound economic and social consequences. It's not merely that the big institutions are falling apart - it's that the big centralized institutions are being replaced or at least finding competition in, huge decentralized institutions with greater power and flexibility. This book is split into two halves. The first half is to make sense of what's happening now and the second half tries to prepare us for what's coming in future (Nanotechnology, feasible space travel etc.). The analysis begins with the growing number of small businesses, specifically work-at-home jobs, in contrast to Dilbert type office jobs. Reynolds suggests that this shift will continue and will be beneficial as a crime deterrent and for more stable families.
I agree to the points when the author says that there are plenty of technology around us, even in caveman days, there is technologies like fire and clothing. Technology changed hunters to farmers, farmers to Industrialists. Doing things on large scale than a small scale made humans to live a comfortable life. It also helps individual to get what they wanted. In today’s business world, job security is not promised, people are scared that they may lose their jobs anytime. But developing technologies brings more confidence and makes it easier for people to go on with their own self-employment. The one thing which I disagree is that when the author says that Americans spending on services has increased, and at places like Target, Wal-Mart or Costco people get less service. Still these shops are always busy, and lots of customers visit there. I feel that a good service is important as well as cost counts a lot more than services.
The biggest disadvantage in self-employment is that people have to spend on their own for their medical expenses. It was interesting when I read that eBay makes health insurance available to its “Power Sellers” who sell over $1000 a month and get good customer reviews and Amazon Associates program, which pays people referral fees for sales by customers they refer to Amazon’s website. It also helps people to do what they like. These are all a kind of encouragement for self-employed people.
Technology impacts a lot in our day to day life. Five ten years ago, to get information regarding education, I have to go to library, search particular type of book, turn a lot of pages to get that information which was time consuming. Today, whatever information I want, I get it immediately with the help of Google, Encyclopedia kind of websites. With the major growth of technology, the efforts of individuals and small groups, acting sometimes on their own and sometimes in informal cooperation with others are likely to make a bigger difference in the future than they’ve made in centuries. Overall ‘An Army of Davids’ is an informative and fascinating book to read.
The author says that, with the growth of computers and the Internet you don’t have to be goliaths to get along. Like David’s sling, these new technologies empower the little guy to compete more effectively. Technology will influence the world in the present and the future, nobody can deny this. Reynolds takes the time to offer suggestions on how individuals and communities can begin to protect themselves from unexpected dangers in the wider world, especially when the larger organizations of governments may be unable to provide protection and assistance. The bad news, as Reynolds touches upon, is that these tools for co-ordination can also be used for destructive purposes. It will take yet another wave of technical change, and legal/social adjustment, for open societies to adjust to malicious and dynamic free riders.
Reynolds's contribution is to show how the widespread distribution of advanced technology has profound economic and social consequences. It's not merely that the big institutions are falling apart - it's that the big centralized institutions are being replaced or at least finding competition in, huge decentralized institutions with greater power and flexibility. This book is split into two halves. The first half is to make sense of what's happening now and the second half tries to prepare us for what's coming in future (Nanotechnology, feasible space travel etc.). The analysis begins with the growing number of small businesses, specifically work-at-home jobs, in contrast to Dilbert type office jobs. Reynolds suggests that this shift will continue and will be beneficial as a crime deterrent and for more stable families.
I agree to the points when the author says that there are plenty of technology around us, even in caveman days, there is technologies like fire and clothing. Technology changed hunters to farmers, farmers to Industrialists. Doing things on large scale than a small scale made humans to live a comfortable life. It also helps individual to get what they wanted. In today’s business world, job security is not promised, people are scared that they may lose their jobs anytime. But developing technologies brings more confidence and makes it easier for people to go on with their own self-employment. The one thing which I disagree is that when the author says that Americans spending on services has increased, and at places like Target, Wal-Mart or Costco people get less service. Still these shops are always busy, and lots of customers visit there. I feel that a good service is important as well as cost counts a lot more than services.
The biggest disadvantage in self-employment is that people have to spend on their own for their medical expenses. It was interesting when I read that eBay makes health insurance available to its “Power Sellers” who sell over $1000 a month and get good customer reviews and Amazon Associates program, which pays people referral fees for sales by customers they refer to Amazon’s website. It also helps people to do what they like. These are all a kind of encouragement for self-employed people.
Technology impacts a lot in our day to day life. Five ten years ago, to get information regarding education, I have to go to library, search particular type of book, turn a lot of pages to get that information which was time consuming. Today, whatever information I want, I get it immediately with the help of Google, Encyclopedia kind of websites. With the major growth of technology, the efforts of individuals and small groups, acting sometimes on their own and sometimes in informal cooperation with others are likely to make a bigger difference in the future than they’ve made in centuries. Overall ‘An Army of Davids’ is an informative and fascinating book to read.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
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