Drew Stephenson's Favorite BestNetTech Posts Of The Week
About a week ago I put a comment under an article about the DOJ abusing its powers mentioning that I was thinking of stopping reading BestNetTech as it was getting too depressing. However I kept reading and I’m glad I’ve done so as this week has seen some much more positive stories, and in a week of worsening recession, continuing corruption and ever escalating global violence, I’m going to focus on the good news.
We’ve got a new policy for Washington Police about how to handle photographers. It would be nice to see something similar spreading across a few more forces, both in the States and in the UK.
Over 1500 organizations and 50,000 people have signed the Declaration of Internet Freedom. I’m very interested to see how this pans out in the long term. It feels a bit like this could be a test of “The People vs The Vested Interests”, the key question being, will this document make a difference?
It’s possibly not the done thing to say that one of my favorite posts is an aggregated one, but the collection of links about the future of assisted vision was fantastic and I get the chance to link to my favorite Sheldon comic. In all these little ways, we are becoming closer and closer to cyborgs, and I for one welcome our new robot overlords…
Of course it wouldn’t be a good week on BestNetTech without a story of someone trying something new and clever on Kickstarter. In another new turn-up I think this is the first time we’ve seen something like this without the usual trolls and their “it’ll never scale / work for everyone / last / work for people without a major label background” arguments. Perhaps the message is getting through?
Staying on innovation in music, the news that an app is being developed to aggregate smart-phone concert footage shows that not everyone in the industry is trying to shut down bootleg content. Similarly the release of The Humble Music Bundle is another example of a company trying new things.
Moving back onto legal matters, and stepping away from copyright to other aspects of IP, we have two more good-news stories. The first is that Judge Posner has decided to give the patent system a kick, and the second is a simple lesson in how to send a cease and desist letter without being an asshole
I used to share a house with a bunch of Norwegians, they were all really good people as were (as far as I can tell) all their friends. So in many ways it’s no surprise that Norway continues to show us the right way to deal with terrorism.
I’m going to finish with a story that may not be an obvious candidate for a good news story, especially given some of the comments from our regular critics. However the news that Michael Rossato-Bennett is running a Kickstarter campaign to fund his film Alive Inside just serves to remind me that, despite the problems highlighted in the article, and despite this being an area of life that people still shy away from, there are people doing great work out there transforming lives.
Watch that trailer video again, go on, you know you want to.
Just popped in to say that, given the police history of surveillance abuse, calling it a Stalker is a bit on the nose.
All four factors, case by case
I'm a songwriter, previously signed to an indie, now a hobbyist but with an aim of shifting to recording and production through semi retirement. I've also long been an advocate of copyright reform and a supporter of fair use. So I've got skin in the game from both angles. And after a while I've come to the conclusion that articles like this aren't really adding much to the discussion anymore; they're too general. If you're going to talk fair use then you have to talk all four factors and that means you have to talk about the specifics. Could AI training on copyrighted works be fair use? Almost certainly? Especially if you heavily weight the first factor. Could it be infringing if the purpose of the training is to produce competing works in the same market? I would argue yes if you weight the fourth factor and consider the speed at which it can work. The only real conclusion you can draw from generic arguments is, "maybe." Case law will firm up some guidelines in due course, but until then we have to look at all four factors on a case by case basis.
Nobody broke in anywhere. Nobody ransacked anything.
UpScroller is apparently the thing the kids are talking about now...
A pedant writes...
Ahem. "Uninterested" not "disinterested". Disinterested means an unbiased interest, like a football referee. Which is clearly the last thing that springs to mind when talking about Carr.
The combination of presidential pardons and the supreme court granting immunity for all acts in office has created and uncontrollable regime.
Like everything else in life...
Coding is just a primitive, degenerate form of bending.
So much shit in such few sentences. He wasn't a cop. He had no authority to detain her. Neither training, procedures or case law says that it is legal to shoot a suspect attempting to flee.
I know sites like this and Meidas are, but I'm talking about the press in the room and on the national broadcasts. Tapper gave a half-arsed challenge back to Noem the other day but it's not enough.
Getting bored of asking this...
... But where are the journalists, interviewers and reporters calling this bullshit out? Who is actually challenging back on this?
"When an online game publisher sunsets an unsuccessful client-server game, they must publish protocol docs and open source the client and server code?" Yes, why not? The bargain of copyright is that the creator gets a government-backed monopoly for a fixed term and then the work enters the public domain. That second part is just as important as the first.
Should these devices ever actually exist, it occurs to me that they are unlikely to have had much focus on security. As a result they might be quite hackable... Apropos of nothing of course.
To be clear I have tried it, can't remember what instance, but I doubt I'll be going back. There was nothing compelling to tempt any of my existing friends or contacts over from other services, there were still technical challenges if you only used a phone to access it and there was definitely a sense that if you weren't tech-savvy enough to figure these out then you shouldn't really be there anyway. It's also the only online place I've ever had a death threat for not being left-wing enough. So in general, not a winning combo for me.
I wish I'd been able to get on with Mastodon but it was always a bit too complex for easy adoption and the purity culture (both tech and social) was aggressive and exhausting. I still miss MySpace...
Happy new year Mike! Personally I'm not convinced new alternatives can scale fast enough before they're bought out or legislated into irrelevance. But I've been wrong before, many, many times...
Connections or content?
OK, cards on the table first. I'm a song-writer / producer and I am quite strongly against the use of generative AI. Not because of copyright infringement, I've long supported BestNetTech's approach that copyright needs reform and winding back to something approaching its origins, but because of the water, pollution and energy costs of AI. No-one can confidently state what these are, so we're just collectively running up an environmental credit card bill that we have no idea how to pay, for a product that doesn't need to exist. I have some concerns around where fair use for training stops and creating a competing product starts as well but they're pretty secondary. Right, that's that bit out of the way... To me, sample size of 1, the creation of fan art is not 'connection'. Connection is a two-way thing, an interaction. Most fan art is a one-way thing, "Here is my interpretation of your creation." It may be anything from appallingly bad to brilliantly realised, it may horrifically subvert the original creator's intention or beautifully expand on their vision. But it's still one way. It's not really any different to following a creator on instagram and thinking you know them personally as a result. The Disney licensing gets close to a two-way model, the studio is providing a licence to use their content but that's really just legalising something that's already happening in the one-way world. Connection happens when the artists and creators get involved as well. If a band says, "Hey we're having a remix competition, here are the stems, knock yourselves out." Or an author says, "Show me your fanfics and I'll tell you my favourites." Or a film maker says, "What storyline would you like me to look at for the next series?" And they can choose whether to accept AI into that interaction fully, partially or not at all: - "Please no AI submissions, I want to see YOUR writing." - "Feel free to use AI tools to help, but let us know when you submit your mix." - "Want to use AI to flesh out your idea? Here's a couple of tools we'd recommend." That would be using AI to increase connection. I'm really not close enough to other fields, but on the music production side of things the only headline artist I can think of who's actually embraced that approach is Grimes - but that was strictly on a 50% licenced deal. Aside from that I'm not seeing any artists actually engaging with AI-generated fan art. And until they do it's not actually connection, it's just content. I reckon.
No-one is censoring anything. What might happen is that the community decides you're a cunt and no-one values your opinion. But that's a different thing, buddy.
I don't think Tim is necessarily right in his assumption (it could result in shorter working weeks for existing staff for example), but it is not remotely the same as the lost sales fallacy.
On the positive side...
There's a very real chance that Ellison et al. will do a Murdoch-buys-Myspace style butchering of the app and all the kids will have moved onto something else by the end of next year. There'll be nothing left but the faint sounds of brands echoing their corporate purpose into the void...
Nothing will change
Until the courts charge some people with contempt and issue some prison time.