Derby City Derby Derby

Derby Kick-Off

2011-04-15T13:20:00.000-07:00

It's Derby time and the festivities are already beginning. Tonight I plan on attending the Disco Aliens' Landing on the Roof, downtown atop of Glassworks. With special guests Secret Beats and Double Stuff ( the two hottest female DJanes in town).

But before the sun falls behind the hills, Mancini and I will be headed off to the 15000 Farmers meeting to embark on his venture as the Mayor of Wheatgrass here in Louisville.

Check out these other interesting blogs about media & society

2008-01-16T09:19:00.000-08:00

All these links below are blogs I found interesting that deal with different aspects of Media and their effects on Society...

Elmira...Music Subcultures and Society
http://subculturalcosmopolite.wordpress.com/

Marko...Media and Democracy
http://markopolo08.wordpress.com/

Dimana...The Media and Pornography
dimana.wordpress.com

Alexander...Computer Games and Society
http://gamesmatter.blogspot.com/

Greg... Media Technology and Society
http://xgregx.wordpress.com/

Short Academic Essay on Streaming Video and Copyright Infringement

2008-01-11T05:40:00.001-08:00

According to ComScore.com, who is one of the top companies to measure the ‘digital world,’ in May 2007 nearly 75 percent of the internet users in the United States of America spent an average of 158 minutes during the month viewing streaming video with Google Video being ranked at the top. The study states that there were over 8.3 billion video streams online. This, however, are stats based only from video content sites and doesn’t take in account for video server networks. This is just a sample of the whole world population in the developed and developing worlds.

It seems that today’s illegal activities surrounding streaming video and P2P networks are fueling the market for more advanced technological entertainment devices. Or is it the other way around? Can it be that because of the technological advances, we as consumers of entertainment content, or any information for that fact, are all becoming criminals? If we share information that is readily available on the web, even though it may be under a copyright law, is it truly a crime to click on the link that leads us to the data?

As one electronics reviewer stated while testing streaming digital media players that connect your PC to your TV or stereo, “Six of the seven players support HD video to some degree, but as yet there really isn't much true, legal HD video out there.” (Spector)

So what can one do when there is a market of technology pulling us to find illegal content on the web. Are we responsible if we never physically have the content stored on our hard drives, in our personal libraries burned to a DVD disk, but briefly in our cache memory for seconds at a time depending on the hosting site that the illegal content is uploaded to.

But of course, one cannot deny the rights to the owner or author of the content that is posted and streamed. Intellectual property is the oil of the internet. Not oil as in lubricant, but as the cash cow. In the article ‘The Man who could kill YouTube’ in Esquire Magazine, Belloni states that the “American entertainment and technology industries [have created] about $5trillion worth of the country’s largest export: intellectual property.” Be it that America is an import based economy anymore, it is understandable that the large corporations such as Disney, AT&T, NBC Universal, and so on are so bent on controlling the information that is shared on the internet. The videos that people stream illegally are their bread and butter. But even the small guys are fighting against sites like YouTube. From the same article, Bob Tur, a content maker that recorded much of the Rodney King L.A. riot footage from a helicopter, has been fighting to sue Google to get his news footage removed from YouTube. His point of view is this, "If we lose [the lawsuit], what's to stop Google from setting up pay-per-view services or even exhibition halls for Web video.” Tur has lost his wife, and most of his saving for his children’s future, he says.

As much as I enjoy watching what I choose to watch through streaming video, I understand the legalities of copyright infringement and intellectual property. I do not own a television, and I plan not to. At least not to watch what is offered to me here in Czech Republic on the state television or German satellite. I will continue to view illegal content on the web until there is a better solution to the problem of time shifted content and low quality programming.

Belloni, Matthew (2007, July). The Man Who Could Kill

YouTube. Esquire, 148(1), 71. Retrieved January 11, 2008, from Research Library Core database. (Document ID: 1305842001).

Lipsman, Andrew. “3 Out of 4 U.S. Internet Users Streamed Video Online in May.”

Average American Video Streamer Watched More than 2.5 Hours of Video Online. July 17, 2007. ComScore.com. 11 Jan. 2008

Spector, Lincoln; Stafford ,Alan. (2007, August). Entertainment Everywhere. PC

World, 25(8), 92-96,98,102,104,106. Retrieved January 11, 2008, from Research Library Core database. (Document ID: 1308392221).

WORLD INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY ORGANIZATION

2008-01-11T05:32:00.000-08:00

WIPO Copyright Treaty
here is a link that send you to the

WORLD INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY ORGANIZATION

That outlines the agreement between countries on the issue of Intellectual Property.

Intellectual Property Laws are the basis of the copyright infringement actions towards people who share copyrighted material such as music and videos.

Filtering Pirates

2008-01-11T04:38:00.000-08:00

AT&T considers filtering for pirated content

This article covers AT&T's consideration of using filtering technology to filter out Pirated content within their network by working with content providers such as NBC Universal to develop such policing on a network level.
AT&T has censored live streaming content before during a webcasted concert of Pearl Jam at Lollapalooza.

"AT&T bleeped portions of the Pearl Jam song "Daughter," in which singer Eddie Vedder altered lyrics to include anti-Bush sentiments."
(Reardon, January 9, 2008 3:28 PM PST, News Blog)

These actions go not without opposition:
Internet civil rights organizations oppose network-level filtering, arguing that it amounts to Big Brother monitoring of free speech, and that such filtering could block the use of material that may fall under fair-use legal provisions — uses like parody, which enrich our culture.
(Stone, January 8, 2008, 7:07 pm, bits.blogs.nytimes.com)

This could be the first major step to truly censoring the internet in the west, in similar ways that the Chinese government are proposing to filter out questionable content (pornography and political streaming video) by controlling the network which the web is ran on and owning the sites which host video content.

Tv Licensing tax for PC's in the UK

2008-01-11T04:20:00.000-08:00

Here is an article that may give some input on the legal trends that started a few years in the UK

TV licence now needed for internet

The article covers how if a PC is able to pick television broadcast signals, which is still streaming media be it through the air of through the internet, the owner of the PC and the owner of the website that offers live streaming video of football games in the UK, must pay a TV license fee.
The article explains that also during the World Cup airing through BBC in 2006, if anyone would watch the games from their office during game time, then any office that does not have a TV license would be fined.
This throws up the debate of 'is internet streaming the same as broadcasting?'

There is a cross-over of two different media and the former regulators of are thus trying to tax the internet streamers where as the content such as the World Cup matches was freely hosted by BBC. How can the tax that covers use of television infrastructure and programming ethically charge for the telecommunication infrastructure?

Websites

2008-01-11T03:37:00.000-08:00

Break.com
Dailymotion
GodTube
Google Video
Joost
Metacafe
Netflix
Stage6
Veoh
YouTube
Zattoo
The list compiled here are examples of steraming video sites as well as live tv sites, and even e-mail ordered movies that are delivered by post to your home.
Each of these sites are slightly different in their hosting of content.
The two best known, especially for the amount of content and also becasue of the monetary value that theses sites are valued at, are Google video and Youtube which host just about everything possible without any legal ramifications to date yet for hosting illegal or copyrighted material.
Joost and Stage6, host streaming content of mainstream media but one has to download their media player to be able to enjoy the programming.
Godtube is a site based on Christianity and Christian based material.
Break.com and MetaCafe are community sites that encourage users to upload funny video inparticular
and Zatoo is a site that hosts live tv feeds from around the world, but unfortunately it is not available in Czech Republic
Netflix, is unique in that it started out as an email ordered movie site where the dvds where posted to your home. then they expanded to supply down-loadable content, and finally streaming video for instant gradification.

Illegal Streaming video Inspires Corporate Trends

2008-01-11T03:13:00.000-08:00

Down Load your TV

This is a link to another blog discussing the similar topic of Streaming Video and Trends in the Cross medium adaptations on viewers and TV providers.

Streaming media started with broadcasting radio and then television through the airways as a continuous feed of information but the viewer had no control of the time that one could view or listen to the broadcasted programs. The receiver was at the mercy of the broadcaster to be around a television or radio when their favorite program was aired.
With the invention of the magnetic tape and home devices such as audio tape recorders and video tape recorders (VCRs), consumers where then able to program and record their favorite material.
Over time, with the digital age, Tivo made it popular to be able to digitally record one's favorite television shows, leave out the commercials and save the material for when ever the had time to watch their shows.
The new trend, which has followed the explosion of streaming video over the last few years, is that many mainstream and corporate entities are adapting to the times and are offering their television shows in down-loadable and/or streaming video content.
ABC, Disney, and others many times have offered down-loadable version 24 hours after the original airing, often with a fee for some of the top rated shows. I remember episodes of 'Late night with Conan O’Brien' for sale on iTunes. but many networks are offering Streaming versions of their shows for free. the problem with this is that one must be directly connected to the internet while watching these shows. no saving for later viewing. These often come with commercials that are difficult to pass through if you do not wait for the content to buffer fully.

This is a great example of how the large media producers have to adapt to their viewing audiences through the changes of technology.

List of Defintions for Streaming Media Online

2008-01-11T03:11:00.001-08:00

Streaming Media Defintions

Most Recent Bust in Streaming Video

2008-01-04T07:23:00.000-08:00

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2007/oct/19/digitalmedia.media

Above is a link to an article covering the most recent Raid and Arrest of the proprietor of a 'Pirate' website called www.tv-links.co.uk. This particular website, which was shutdown in October 2007, hosted links that linked to online streaming video that often was copyrighted material. Tvlinks.co.uk in fact did not host any copyrighted material itself, but only linked to other sites such as Youtube/Google Video, Dailymotion, and many other websites that allow uploading of videos.

What is special about this case is that instead of the authorities going after the sites that host the copyrighted material, they went after the fact that the site did "contribute to and profit from copyright infringement by identifying, posting, organising, and indexing links to infringing content found on the internet that users can then view on demand by visiting these illegal sites."

This arrest of a 26 year old man was the first of the UK's crackdown on such a site. It is claimed that the website enabled users of the site to evade and break copyright fees and laws by hosting these links to uploaded streaming video on other sites. The real problem is that arresting an operator of such a site makes the act of "linking" illegal. The real problem with that is the fact that no one ever really knows what site and/or material will pop-up with different links especially links for porn and advertising, anything could pop up, and if it’s a site that hosts illegal material who will the authorities arrest next. Essentially, sites like Tvlinks.co.uk, in the eyes of the law, are aiding and 'embedding' ;) criminals which are the users of their site.

On the other hand, why have not the authorities gone after Gooogle for hosting the copyrighted material that is being infringed upon. Gooogle does have webmasters and editors or whatever the title is (let's call its Content Monkey) to screen and find copyrighted material that should have not been uploaded. But, the amount of material that is uploaded surely overwhelms the Content Monkeys, because I can find with just a blank search under the genre "MOVIE_FEATURE" that 7 out of the first 10 videos are copyrighted material and in full length...I didn't have to link from anywhere....Godspeed!

Don't link this...i might get arrested
http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=genre%3AMOVIE_FEATURE+&sitesearch=video.google.com

Intro duction!

2008-01-02T01:57:00.001-08:00

Good morning Worlds!

My name is Ethan Senn, AKA Ethan A.D. for reasons unknown.
I am a student @ The University of New York in Prague and this blog pertains to my Media & Society course.

This here is my introductory blog about my interests in Streaming Media Content and the trends and trials surrounding the phenomenon of digital media/technology. My main focus, even though i will try to touch on many forms of streaming media, will be on streaming video and also the legal ramifications of hosting copyrighted material and/or hosting links to copyrighted material.

My particular aims for this blog is to find current events involving the issues mentioned above, search for and link to related articles that have been published in relation to the issues, link to particular websites that host material and related to this subject, and write the why and how these are significant in these issues.

And Happy New Year from ABBA!

Intro duction

2008-01-02T01:57:00.000-08:00