Copyright and the Real Time Microblog Phenom
May 24, 2009
Liz Gannes’ “Copyright Meets a New Worth Foe: The Real Time Web” is an interesting article. You can find it on NewTeeVee.com here. Her point is that copyright, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and other bits and pieces of legal whoopdedoo struggle with real time content from Twitter-like services. She wrote:
If you’re a copyright holder and you want to keep up with your pirated content flitting about the web — well, good luck. The way the DMCA is set up means you’re always chasing, and the real-time web is racing faster than ever before. Analytics services are only just emerging that will tell you where your views are coming from on a semi-real-time basis. That’s especially true for live video streaming sites such as Ustream and Justin.tv. Justin.tv, in particular, has come under fire by sports leagues for hosting camcorded streams of live game broadcasts. The company says it takes down streams whenever it is asked to. But the reality is, often the moment has passed.
In short, information flows move more quickly than existing business methods. An interesting illustration of this flow for video is Twiddeo here. Government officials have their work cut out for them with regard to ownership, copyright, and related issues.
But…
As I read this article, I thought about the problem Google has at this time with real time content. Google’s indexing methods are simply not set up to handle near instantaneous indexing of content regardless of type. In fact, fresh search results on Google News are stale when one has been tracking “events” via a Twitter like service.
As important is the “stepping back” function. On Google’s search results displays, how do I know what is moving in near real time; that is, what’s a breaking idea, trend, or Tweet? The answer is, “I don’t.” I can hack a solution with Google tools, but even then the speed of the flow is gated by Google’s existing indexing throughput. To illustrate the gap, run a query for American Idol on Google News and then run the query on Tweetmeme.com.
Two different slants biased by time. In short, copyright problem and Google problem.
Stephen Arnold, May 24, 2009
Time Magazine, Owner of AOL: Google Has Won
May 23, 2009
Short honk: Article in Time Magazine called “What Will the World Do with More Search Engines?” here. Author: Douglas McIntyre. The quote that speaks for itself:
Creating a new search engine is a tremendous risk at this stage because it’s remarkably expensive to build and market one that has any chance in the mass market. To make the proposition harder, not only do people prefer Google to other products, but also most people are not able to tell whether a search product coming to market now is better. Good is so excellent that it is not good anymore.
Translation: Google wins. That’s what makes traditional journalism so darned wonderful.
Stephen Arnold, May 22, 2009
Journalists Heal Thyselves
May 21, 2009
The Christian Science Monitor’s “Why Journalists Deserve Low Pay” here may disturb the “we don’t get no respect” crowd. Now this is an opinion piece, so the Monitor’s editorial staff is not writing this heretical essay. The author was Robert Picard, who may be in for a verbal tar and feather wardrobe. He asserted:
Today all this value is being severely challenged by technology that is “de-skilling” journalists. It is providing individuals – without the support of a journalistic enterprise – the capabilities to access sources, to search through information and determine its significance, and to convey it effectively. To create economic value, journalists and news organizations historically relied on the exclusivity of their access to information and sources, and their ability to provide immediacy in conveying information. The value of those elements has been stripped away by contemporary communication developments. Today, ordinary adults can observe and report news, gather expert knowledge, determine significance, add audio, photography, and video components, and publish this content far and wide (or at least to their social network) with ease. And much of this is done for no pay.
Maybe a stronger union will help? Maybe journalists like MBAs are remnants of an older, more naive era. Doth marginalization cometh? For sure, unemployment, smaller expense accounts, and a different occupation may be just around the corner where the news paper stand used to be.
Stephen Arnold, May 22, 2009
Google Books: Peace, Capitulation, or Tactic
May 20, 2009
My newsreader spat Miguel Helft’s “Google Book-Scanning Pact to Give Libraries a Say in Prices”. You can read the story here. Mr.. Helft reported:
In a move that could blunt some of the criticism of Google for its settlement of a lawsuit over its book-scanning project, the company signed an agreement with the University of Michigan that would give some libraries a degree of oversight over the prices Google could charge for its vast digital library.
Mr. Helft does not tackle the strategic implications of this deal. I am not going to tackle them either. I want to ponder whether this means peace, capitulation, or another tactic.
Stephen Arnold, May 20, 2009
Wired Fraying and Shorting Out
May 19, 2009
Making money with electronic information is tough. Making money writing about the wired world is also difficult. Joel Johnson’s interesting “Welcome, Wired. We Call This Land Internet” here provided me with a useful anecdote for an upcoming talk I will be giving at an NFAIS conference at the end of June 2009. Mr. Johnson informed me that Wired Magazine may be killed off. No surprise. The magazine business was challenging when readers did not worry about dead trees and the chemicals in ink, distribution costs, and the millions of direct mail solicitations required to build a subscription list. In May 2009, the magazine business is different from those salad days between the late 17th century and 2008. Mr. Johnson wrote:
Wired is great print, but if the magazine can’t make money and is shuttered, taking the website down with it, I’m going to be livid. Not that making money online is easy—it’s not, especially without sacrificing your ethics and your voice—but if any mainstream outlet should be able to make the transition, it should be Wired. I fear that may be impossible, not just for Wired but for all these old brands, because they can’t accept that the work at which they have excelled for years will be just as important when it’s online—and online only.
I bought two magazines at the airport news kiosk this morning. The total price was about $14. I paid for them, but I was the only person in the shop in Washington Reagan Airport buying magazines. With buyers like me in short supply and advertisers trying to figure out how to maximize their ad dollars, Wired is not the only traditional publication to face a problematic future.
I also thought about the Wired wizards who described the brave new digital world. It is one thing to write about electronic information. It is quite another to make money from a print publication that contains information about online. I don’t think the Wired Web site can survive in its present form, regardless of the fate of the print publication.
Again. That pesky writing and doing problem.
Stephen Arnold, May 19, 2009
Stating the Old and Obvious: Google Makes Book Grab
May 19, 2009
In this morning’s Washington Post (May 19, 2009), I was captivated by an essay called “A Book Grab by Google.” You can find the online version of the story here, hiding behind an annoying pop up add with the close button tucked in the upper left hand corner. Like this is going to make me buy whatever was on the annoying red ad thing? Mr. Kahle is a computer legend of sorts, and at the Library of Congress he has a killer rep. He provided the LoC with a copy of the Internet to tuck into its treasure trove of books, manuscripts, and fungible artifacts that jam its warehouses.
The trigger for the write up is an impending court decision about Google and its now-contentious deal to scan books. In the essay, Mr. Kahle stated:
If approved, the settlement would produce not one but two court-sanctioned monopolies. Google will have permission to bring under its sole control information that has been accessible through public institutions for centuries. In essence, Google will be privatizing our libraries. It may seem puzzling that a civil lawsuit could yield monopolies. Traditionally, class-action lawsuits cluster a group of people who have suffered the same kind of harm as a result of alleged wrongful conduct. And under this settlement, authors who come forward to claim ownership in books scanned by Google would receive $60 per title.
He concluded:
This settlement should not be approved. The promise of a rich and democratic digital future will be hindered by monopolies. Laws and the free market can support many innovative, open approaches to lending and selling books. We need to focus on legislation to address works that are caught in copyright limbo. And we need to stop monopolies from forming so that we can create vibrant publishing environments.
Several thoughts flapped through the addled goose’s mind this morning; namely:
- There’s been a whole lot of scanning going on over the years. University Microfilms, now reincarnated as ProQuest, owned by Cambridge Scientific, has been processing dissertations, newspapers, and other publications. Similar digital collections have been built by companies with an earthworm-like profile. For examples, sector leaders include Ebsco, Thomson Reuters, Reed Elsevier, and dozens of others. None has fired anyone’s imagination yet one might view each of these collections as expensive and quasi-monopolistic. Google ignites considerable discussion; its fellow scanners elicit a bored “who” and “what”?
- The Google Book gig has been cranking along for years. The scanning project is not new, and I recall hearing that some, maybe all, of the participating libraries get a copy of the data for their archive. With amalgamated online public access catalogs, the libraries have a door through which those interested in the scanned material can walk. Unless I am missing something, I can visit most university libraries in Kentucky, use the facilities, and pay not a cent for the access. I like visiting libraries in person and online access is more of a pre-research step for me, not the main deal. My Kindle hurts my eyes, and I have to put rubber shelf liner on my chest when I prop my Dell Mini 9 under my chin to read much more than a screen of content in the evening. I don’t even print out my own books. I wait until the publisher sends me a hard copy, I buy one at the bookstore, or I order an out of print item from the world’s smartest man’s Amazon service.
- Microsoft and Yahoo jumped into the scanning game and then jumped out. Libraries are not rolling in dough, and I don’t see any of the commercial database outfits stepping forward with the moxie and the money to do a better, quicker, or more thorough job than the Google. Do library associations have the cash? Do government agencies have the cash? Does your university have the cash and management expertise to lead a consortium to scan books? Do publishers have the cash and the technical acumen to scan their books? No, no, no, no. A part of me is grateful that Googzilla is funding this initiative. Most libraries with which I am familiar face serious financial challenges. When libraries close, where to the books go? To yard sales and to second hand dealers. Not students or researchers I assert.
- I am not sure this book controversy is about books. After a decade of viewing Google as an online advertising agency and the focal point of the search engine optimization scamorama, pundits, wizards, and mavens want to play catch up. Google—as I have documented in my three Google studies—has been plodding forward a couple of inches at a time for quite a while. In fact, Google Books is not a main event. It is a side show.
I find it amusing that books, not Google’s other and more significant initiatives, has drilled into the incisors of the informed. In my view, books are, like video, in the process of change. Perhaps because books are cultural totems, the scanning project captures headlines.
Google is a new type of enterprise, and it operates on a level and in a dimension that will disrupt more than the book sector. More about these disruptive forces appear in my Google trilogy: The Google Legacy (2005), Google Version 2.0 (2007), and Google: The Digital Gutenberg (2009). More info here.
Stephen Arnold, May 19, 2009
Harvard Journalism Majors Unhappy with Job Prospects
May 19, 2009
The story in PaidContent.org did not ring true for me. You will have to judge for yourself. Read “Harvard Students Now Embarrassed to Say They Want to Go into Journalism” here. These future Web loggers and Tweet producers seem to feel uncomfortable at job fairs. I thought the Harvard seal of approval granted prompt employment regardless of major. The story originated with the Harvard Crimson, a publication that should know what’s up with journalism majors.
Stephen Arnold, May 19, 2009
SEO Guru Reveals His Inner Self
May 18, 2009
I found the article “Dammit, I’m A Journalist, Not A Blogger: Time For Online Journalists To Unite?” here quite interesting. The reason? It makes clear that “real journalists” want more respect than a “real blogger” gets. The schism will ignite a firestorm of Tweet and probably lead to the formation of a not-for-profit organization, a certification program similar to that required of medical doctors and air craft pilots, a Web site, and maybe a movie deal.
The author of the “Dammit” essay is Dan Sullivan, who is the oft-quoted expert in search. The distinction between search as in marketing and search as in the enterprise is not usually made. I have seen Mr. Sullivan’ statements about Google, online marketing, and other aspects of the online world, I associate him with search engine marketing, conferences chock full of ad executives and stressed Web site managers, and newsletters that explain the intricacies of getting a Web page to be trim and fit for indexing.
You real digital journalists, fall in, hustle, hustle, hustle.
The “Dammit” essay turns on a different color spot light. Mr. Sullivan wrote:
Bloggers got bumpkiss. We have no lobbying group. We have no organization designed to help members learn the intricacies of uncovering government documents. We can’t get government agencies to call us back at all, at times (I know, been there and done that). And we’ve got a newspaper industry increasingly portraying us as part of an evil axis that’s killing them. Blogs steal their attention, and Google steals their visitors.
But the gravel in the craw is that existing associations are not doing what needs to be done to preserve the reputation, professionalism, and statute of digital journalists. He asserted:
I want online journalists to get organized. Yes, there’s the Online News Association, but that seems an extension of “traditional” journalists working in mainstream organizations with digital outlets. I think we need an “Online Journalists Association,” or a “United Bloggers” or whatever catchy name you come up with.
The author of “Dammit” then shifted into what struck me as “plea bargaining mode”. He wrote:
But while I love newspapers, came from them and hope they continue to find a place (more on their future later, short story, expect 4-5 “nationals” to survive), I’m begging them to stop seeing bloggers as enemies. Many bloggers are journalists, part of the news ecosystem, colleagues that are entitled to respect.
Yes, I shouted. Yes, bloggers deserve respect.
Respect, digital journalists deserve respect.
Well, some bloggers. There are the bloggers who write about their cats, personal tastes in breakfast food, long form bloggers, and the newer microbloggers. My thought is that bloggers have to be separated into the ones who are “digital journalists using the Web log form” and the run-of-the-mill millions who start a blog, quit, or rant and foam in a manner that often surprises me.
XML as Code and Its Implications
May 11, 2009
I read Tom Espiner’s ZDNet article “EC Wants Software Makers Held Liable for Code” here. I have been thinking about his news story for a day or two. The passage that kept my mind occupied consists of a statement made by an ED official, Meglena Kuneva:
If we want consumers to shop around and exploit the potential of digital communications, then we need to give them confidence that their rights are guaranteed,” said Kuneva. “That means putting in place and enforcing clear consumer rights that meet the high standards already existing in the main street. [The] internet has everything to offer consumers, but we need to build trust so that people can shop around with peace of mind.
Software makers for some high profile products shift the responsibility for any problems to the licensee. The licensee is accountable but the software maker is not. I am not a lawyer, and I suppose that this type of thinking is okay if you have legal training. But what if XML is programmatic? What does that mean for authors who write something that causes some type of harm? What about software that generates content from multiple sources and one of those sources is defined as “harmful”?The blurring of executable code and executable content is a fact of online life today. Good news for lawyers. Probably not such good news for non lawyers in my opinion.
Stephen Arnold, May 11, 2009
New Media, Old Media Spoofed
May 7, 2009
The story “Student’s Wikipedia Hoax Quote Used Worldwide in Newspaper Obituaries” here underscored for me the precarious nature of “information” in today’s world. The Irish Times reported that a fake quote in Wikipedia popped up in newspapers around the world. New media and old media both fell into the comfortable assumption that if it is online, information is correct, accurate, true, and well-formed.
At a conference yesterday, I spoke with a group of information professionals. The subject was the complexity of information. One of the people in the group said, “Most of the technical information goes right over my head. At work, people turn to me for answers.”
I don’t want to dip into epistemological waters. I can observe that the rising amount of digital information (right or wrong is irrelevant) poses some major challenges to individuals and organizations. The push for cost reduction fosters an environment suitable for short cuts.
Last Sunday, one of my publishers (Harry Collier, managing director, Infonortics Ltd.) and I were talking about the change in how large news organizations operated. He had worked from book and newspaper publishers earlier in his career as i had. He noted that the days of investigative reporting seem to have passed.
I had to agree. The advent of online has made research something that takes place within the cheerful confines of the Web browser. Interviews I once conducted face to face, now take place via email. Even the telephone has fallen from favor because it is difficult to catch a person when he or she is not busy.
A number of companies involved in content processing are experimenting with systems that can provide some clues to the “provenance” or “sentiment” of information. The idea is that tireless software can provide some guideposts one can use to determine if a statement is right or wrong, hot or cold, or some similar soft characteristic.
The quote story from the Irish Times highlights the pervasiveness of online short cuts. In this case, the quote is unlikely to do much lasting harm. Can the same be said of other information short cuts that are taken each day? Will one of these short cuts trigger a chain of unexpected events? Will the work processes that encourage short cuts create ever more chaotic information systems that act like a brake on performance? Who is spoofing whom? Maybe ourselves?
Stephen Arnold, June 8, 2009
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