Stowe Boyd delivers at Ignite.
Berlin’s incarnation of the Web 2.0 Expo is up and running at Messe Berlin, and I feel as if I learned more yesterday than I did during my entire undergrad. Here’s a quick roundup of the good, bad and ugly for day one.
The Good: Kathy Sierra. Chock full of useful info and spunk, Kathy is one helluva engaging speaker, a kept the audience fully engaged for the course of her three hour workshop, “Creating Passionate Users”. I’ll definitely be popping into her keynote this afternoon. Bonus: The post-keynote kegs of beer.
The Bad: Lunch. Not that it was bad, because I wouldn’t know. They ran out before the workshop I was attending even finished.
The Ugly: Spotty Wifi. They apparently ran out of IP addresses. Botching lunch is unfortunate; fumbling wifi is a cardinal sin.
Update: This entry was posted after my initial exchange with The Mirror’s art director, who told me to work this out with the artist, where it turns out they got the image from. Since writing this, Mirror editor Alastair Sutherland contacted me to explain the situation, and assured me that barring proof that I allowed free use of this image for publicity purposes, they will indeed pay a proper licensing fee. For the record, I do not believe that The Mirror intentionally “stole” my image, or acted in bad faith. Rather they violated my copyright out of negligence, which is unfortunately all too common as fact checkers and the like are becoming increasingly scarce in today’s newsrooms.
Would you steal this image? Didn’t think so.
On the drive down to Vermont Thursday I was leafing through the pages of The Mirror, one of Montreal’s weekly newspapers. I was surprised to see one of my photographs—a shot of spoken word artist Alessandra Naccarato performing at our Art Threat launch party—peering out at me from the newsprint. Surprised, because I had no idea my photo was going to be published. The Mirror simply used this image without my permission. Not cool, or legal for that matter.
So I sent a courteous email off to The Mirror’s art director notifying him of the issue, requesting that the publication print a correction and send fair payment for use of the image. Standard stuff. Today I received a response that apologized for the “inconvenience”, but did not entertain the notion of properly licensing the photo. They laid the blame on the artist depicted in the image, who presumably told The Mirror where to find the photo sent The Mirror a jpg of the photo (as is available on Flickr). Unfortunately for them that doesn’t relieve them of their obligations to ensure they have the permission of the copyright holder before publishing an image.
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Downtown Burlington might not allow unattended dogs, but they sure know how to talk to them. This morning I packed my bags and headed to Vermont’s tiny international airport, from which I will eventually take off across the Atlantic to Berlin, site of the Web 2.0 Expo next week. I say eventually because my flight has been delayed for at least two hours due to “weather”, despite the beautiful conditions here amongst the Green Mountains.
In any case, while roaming downtown with my dear friends Aisling, Colleen, and Matt the comics genius, we came across this sign, which is good as any other image to get this latest stint of blogging rolling. As I head to Europe’s biggest geekout (or, in light of these thrashers, the second largest) I’ll be blogging more than usual on all things related to technology, politics, and crisp yet tender pils. Those intent on stalking me even closer may do so through Flickr, Twitter, and Facebook.
The intricacies of intellectual property law baffle me, in their often convoluted and retrograde manner of dealing with digital information. I can’t even imagine how a young child might begin to understand the legal “rights” and “wrongs” of file sharing, and the possible repercussions of downloading the latest Shayne Ward album.
Fortunately there is no longer a need to guess, as TorrentFreak has posted an illuminating interview with “Hannah”, a nine-year-old girl, in which they talk about downloading music, lawsuits, and what pirates are (answer: “they have parrots”).
Here’s a choice excerpt:
TF: Do you think its legal or illegal to copy a CD or DVD?
Hannah: Some men right, they sell you a DVD at the market but when you get home it doesn’t play, that’s illegal.
TF: Why is it illegal?
Hannah: Duh!! Because they tell you it works and when you get it home it’s rubbish and jumps in the middle and its a waste of money!
Via Kottke.org.
This month’s issue of Canadian Dimension features an interview with yours truly about Art Threat, a political art magazine edited by myself and published by überculture. Writer Ed Janzen suggests that Art Threat might be the best remedy for “culturally deprived politics and political deprived culture”, a prescription that I hope can be of use to an increasingly growing chunk of web surfers.
The interview took place several months ago, shortly after CBC Radio got me into the studio for a chat about the project. Since then, we’ve decided to focus more on the website and less on the periodical, although we are planning a anthology-type publication for Fall 2008.
Download the article (PDF)
Image: Araphat by Ed Janzen. See the artist’s statement and a larger image in the Art Threat Gallery.
