Recent Articles

How To Rescue Things from the Slush Pile

February 18, 2010 18:26

I got a very nice comment from Vincent Chandler of Slush Pile Reader, on the topic of the death of the slush pile and wanted to point those of you who are interested in self-publication to his site. Slush Pile Reader is a (still in beta) publisher that provides editing, publication, distribution,...

CCC Has More To Say On Google Books

February 18, 2010 18:20

CCC, the Copyright Clearance Center, sent me a link to another of their ongoing podcast series. This one, by Lois Wasoff , gives their take on the latest developments in the case, arguing in part that the government's support of Bush-era DOJ filings in the case is not necessarily a fatal blow to...

IFPI Commits Blogocide - Rules Be Damned

February 17, 2010 15:20

A nice piece on EFF Deeplinks yesterday by Tim Jones noting how the IFPI cause Blogger to delete six music blogs. Included in the killing was the blog "I Rock Cleveland" whose author had meticulously followed all the rules for getting permission to post or link to the music he discussed. As Cory...

Reclusive Mathematician to Crowdsourcers: Hold On There

February 16, 2010 16:38

Steven Landsburg's blog "The Big Questions" tells the interesting story of the aborted attempt to crowdsource the work of Alexandre Grothendieck. The work in question is a series of very dense volumes of fundamental, game-changing publications in mathematics. Grothendieck's work was originally...

DOJ to Google Books: "Hold On There"

February 12, 2010 21:41

I haven't posted anything in the long slog over the Google Books deal since last November. People do still send me pointers, which I appreciate, but I just haven't found any of them interesting enough. This story on CNET (by Elinor Mills) caught my eye, given that this is the new Cartel-owned DOJ...

Air Force Repeats McCain Campaign Mistake

February 12, 2010 21:35

Remember when I noted that the McCain presidential campaign was getting itself sued for using songs without permission? Well it now seems that the US Air Force Reserve appropriated (pirated? stole? covered? remixed?) the White Stripes' song "Fell In Love With A Girl" and used it in a Super Bowl...

Remix As Social Activity

February 08, 2010 20:05

Boingboing pointed to a very interesting YouTube video on "The Evolution of Remix Culture". The video is, in lovely recursive fashion, also something of a mash-up of previous videos. In a short eight minutes, the author identifies a generational change in how remixes are being used. First...

Mashup As New Music

February 01, 2010 18:26

If you don't like modern music you're probably going to hate a good chunk of what I blog about this year. I may create a new category tag so people can find or skip these as they wish. However, I think that modern dance music, particularly the mash-up, is one of the most Copyfight-challenging and...

Publishing for People Who Want to Read (Magazines)

February 01, 2010 16:41

The state of magazine publication is the suck these days. You can read it anywhere - the magazines themselves are smaller, printed on cheaper paper, and so full to bursting with ads that you get barely any content. This is in large part because the single-issue and subscription prices do not...

Scalzi on Amazon Fail

February 01, 2010 15:42

I find myself unable to add anything to the snarky but oh-so-on-point commentary by John Scalzi on just exactly how epic Amazon's fail was this past weekend in its spat with Macmillan. You'd think after the 1984 fiasco, and the gay books fiasco they would have learned something. Apparently not.