Branding, Culture, Politics, and Everything in Between

Finally updated the blog’s look. Found a template that more or less fits the look and feel I wanted to convey. Maybe a bit too slick and Web 2.0, but I like the functionality and simplicity. The latest posts and comments are at the bottom now, btw. The only complaint I have is that it doesn’t separate paragraphs, but that’s not a big deal. Plus I don’t like justified text on the web. I’ll just use lists more or something.

Still having trouble with editing the templates. WordPress keeps complaining that I need to make the files editable, and as I set the read/write rights properly, the blog just freezes. So I have to keep it on pretty much default settings. That’s why you have that “your ad here” below the first post. Don’t worry, I’m not gonna start advertising anytime soon.

I’ll probably try to modify the CSS file on my computer and just reupload it. But not right now.

UPDATE: Okay, everything is the way I like it now.

Somebody at Stealthunit posted a thing called the Garfield Randomizer. Here’s a short explanation as to what it is:

..so this guy noticed that Garfield comics make just as much sense if you throw random panels together, and sometimes are actually pretty funny. He got a cease and desist letter. So he made the code available for people who wanted to try it for themselves. Here we go!

It’s addictive and a lot of fun. For example, here’s one that I cooked up in just a few minutes:

Not that good, but it shows the potential of this thing. Garfield comics ARE surprisingly modular, and it doesn’t take long to cook up a funny and sensible strip.

So what has this got to do with crowdsourcing? For one, the Garfield Randomizer is a great and fun tool for people to play with and express themselves. It’s incredibly viral. Hell, I’ve sent the link to a number of friends already and together we made a bunch of pretty darn funny comics (some of which were raunchy, I’ll freely admit). If I were Garfield’s publisher, instead of sending a cease and desist letter I would take the Garfield Randomizer right away and put it up somewhere and have people create their own comics – and share them! Imagine, a voting and commenting system for the best strips which could eventually be gathered into a book which people could buy. And the thing is, if the publisher were in control of this randomizer, they could offer links to the original strips from which the individual tiles were taken, and from there offer people the opportunity to order the original comic book on Amazon, for example. And let’s be honest, if they take this one down it’ll pop up again somewhere anyway, so might as well join the fun and get some additional benefits from it.

Spotted this at Digg. The New York Times just released another editorial piece defending the status quo, this time it’s about copyright. The Times has been vocal about how bad blog news sources are and I guess they feel threatened by them. My gut feeling is that this piece is a sort of tangent of that phenomenon, but I’m still surprised at how blatantly ignorant some of the arguments made in this piece were.

For example:

Were I tomorrow to write the great American novel (again?), 70 years after my death the rights to it, though taxed at inheritance, would be stripped from my children and grandchildren. To the claim that this provision strikes malefactors of great wealth, one might ask, first, where the heirs of Sylvia Plath berth their 200-foot yachts. And, second, why, when such a stiff penalty is not applied to the owners of Rockefeller Center or Wal-Mart, it is brought to bear against legions of harmless drudges who, other than a handful of literary plutocrats (manufacturers, really), are destined by the nature of things to be no more financially secure than a seal in the Central Park Zoo.

or:

“Freeing” a literary work into the public domain is less a public benefit than a transfer of wealth from the families of American writers to the executives and stockholders of various businesses who will continue to profit from, for example, “The Garden Party,” while the descendants of Katherine Mansfield will not.

I mean good God. If you want to use the copyright and real estate analogy ask yourself this: would it make any sense that if I were to build a house, I could thus prohibit you from building a similar house? Not on the same location, mind you, but a similar looking house? Copyright laws being as they are, that’s how it happens in the copyright world. Somebody at TechDirt did a pretty good rebuttal of this yesterday.

Copyright laws are way outdated now and it’s hurting artists more than it’s helping. When DJ Shadow has to go through a long and painful legal process to clear hundreds of samples that only around 10% would be recognizable anyway, you know something is wrong. I just can’t quite understand how somebody could argue that for example a producer sampling a long forgotten record somehow owes that original artist something. I mean if the original song is not selling anymore, shouldn’t the original artist be paying the producer something for “reviving” the old song, not the other way around? I’m pretty sure when producers sample old tunes both the new song AND the original get more airplay and sales. This happens all the time with hip hop producers and old soul, R ‘n’ B and funk song that they sample. As a funny side note, I’m pretty sure that a local black music station here in Finland called Groove FM actually goes out of its way to play the original songs when a new song becomes a hit. I guess it’s their way of paying tribute or just showing off their connoisseurism or something.

I’m pro relinquishing ALL copyright. This is not about being some sort of idealistic neo-hippie or anything, I just think it makes economical sense. People are afraid that if we don’t protect the copyright of for example songs, other bands might start recording them and playing them live. But you know what, so what? I’m fairly sure that people will reward the originators of said songs. In today’s connected society, copycats and frauds are exposed in a matter of minutes. If a band tries to steal another band’s song, mark my words, they will get caught. And bands playing other bands’ songs is just a great way to spread the message of those smaller bands. Imagine a big rock band playing a smaller indie band’s song live? Would there be a better way of spreading the smaller band’s art?

Chris Anderson wrote about this a while back, and it’s going to be the premise of his new book, due to be released in mid 2008.

My good friend Sami Viitamäki has completed his blog series detailing his FLIRT model of crowdsourcing. You can find it here, scroll down to start from Facilities (F).

Get it while it’s hot!