The Frame

Book Notes: Remix by Lawrence Lessig

I found Remix more engaging, though less informative than Code. A different book, to be sure. Where Code focuses on the ‘architecture’ of innovations, Remix makes a mainstream appeal to renovate the copyright code and end the ‘war’ on piracy. In Lessig’s view, the battle between the RIAA and file sharing is not a zero-sum game. There are many ways to go about reform that would increase the public’s ability to engage with copyrighted content without harming the owners of the intellectual property.

Lessig’s problem is that his presentations are so effective that people are going to stop reading his books. Watching this video gives you all the highlights in less than an hour.

I do have one challenge to his argument. A large section of the book is about what it takes to succeed—or profit—in a “hybrid” culture. Lessig praises companies like Flickr for catering to their customers, for offering content freely and engaging a community. Because of Flickr’s willingness to offer a free product, his argument goes, they have built a valuable community and is able to profit while maintaining an enthusiastic community. But how much money are these companies really making? He throws youtube in the same category, omitting the fact that youtube has yet to turn a profit for google. For the most part, Lessig remains grounded in his optimism for the web, but when youtube is an example of success in the hybrid economy, perhaps we should curb our enthusiasm.

I Contain Multitudes | The Weekly Pile-Up (4/10/09)

• The New York Public Library Digital Gallery presents a collection of author portraits: Authors: Photographs from the Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature. A lot of Walt. I like the Conrad bust. (via: Readerville)
• This week in fear-mongering: Mark McKinnon blames the conficker virus on p2p networks. The article sounds more like a paid advertisement by the RIAA: “Whatever the girls were downloading for ‘free,’ it’s a pretty safe bet that it could have been bought for less than two grand [the amount of a tax refund the girls’ family lost due to a p2p networking leak].”
• Apparently, journalists are not expected to practice journalism, as demonstrated in this article where ‘Fox & Friends’ reporters were not held liable for reporting an obvious satire—from a website that lets anyone write news stories—as real news.
• William H. Gass’ library. (via: The Rumpus)

Tucker "Bow-Tie" Carlson Weighs In On Stewart, Reminds Us All Of His Humiliating Crossfire Encounter

Tucker Carlson, obviously still sore from being called a “dick,” attacks Jon Stewart. His charges? That Stewart simultaneously takes himself too seriously, but fails to do serious journalism. What Carlson doesn’t understand is that Stewart defies traditional categories of a comedian or reporter. Live with it.

While Carlson says that earnestness and comedy don’t mix, what he doesn’t understanding is that Stewart is different: what’s funny about Stewart is that a comedian could put on more relevent news than professional journalists. Its a balancing act: as soon as Stewart stops being a comedian, then he is just a bad reporter; as soon as he stops making relevent news, then he is just a bad comedian. Stewart succeeds because of this balance of earnestness and theatre.

The more Carlson insists that Stewart needs to categorize himself as comedian or journalist, the more irrelevent and bitter Carlson appears. Stewart “stuck in lecture mode”? He obviously doesn’t watch the Daily Show.

(PS: Nice try Carlson but if you really were “baffled” by Stewart’s critique of Crossfire, you were the only one.)

How Jon Stewart Went Bad - The Daily Beast

On the Cramer/Stewart Interview

• If you haven’t seen it already, here is the complete, extended and unedited interview between Jon Stewart and Jim Cramer.
• Glenn Greenwald gets it right: Jim Cramer is not an aberration. It’s easy to view this interview and think, ‘Wow, Cramer is dumb,’ but, as Greenwald points out, it’s not just Cramer—it’s the entire press corps that too often takes officials’ words at face value.
• I can’t help but recall Neil Postman’s point in his critique on television, Amusing Ourselves to Death, that the best possible television program would intend “not to get people to stop watching television but to demonstrate how television ought to be viewed, to show how television recreates and degrades our conception of news political debate, religious thought, etc. I imagine such demonstrations would of necessity take the form of parodies…the idea being to induce a nationwide horse laugh over television’s control of public discourse.” I can’t help but think that the Daily Show is doing exactly that: showing us how to view television. In the context of the Daily Show, the “In Cramer We Trust” promo (aired in the interview) comes off like a joke, even though it is a straight-faced ad on CNBC.