Ampache adds democratic support in the latest release January 27, 2007
The latest stable release of Ampache is out with a new play method called democratic play. Ampache is a web based file manager for audio that lets you access your music from anywhere with a long list of features like play lists, album art, playback via Http, Icecast, Integrated Flash Player Vote based playback, and a zillion other things. From Digg,
“This new method allows users to vote on what songs they want to hear. The songs are then streamed based on the number of votes. So casting a vote directly influences playback by raising it.“
Ampache supports all of the common file formats including M4A/AAC/MP4 (Itunes files) as well as support for any player that support HTTP streams like XMMS. There is a cool demo of Ampache where you can see it in action. The wiki has all the info on installing, configuring, and creating custom themes.
Bill Moyers National Conference for Media Reform January 13, 2007
Bill Moyers opened the National Conference for Media Reform in Memphis Friday. During his powerful speech he praised SavetheInternet.com for their grassroots campaign to keep the Internet neutral. You can see a short clip of his speech on line;
“Free Press and SavetheInternet.com orchestrated 800 organizations, a million and a half petitions, countless local events, legions of home-made videos, smart collaboration with allies in industry and a top-shelf communications campaign“
The clip is great but the whole speech is really worth watching; it is as entertaining as educational. Watch part 1, part 2 (you tube), or download the whole thing (167Mb QT). For more info check out the conference Web site and Freepress.net for the latest information on all the weekend events. If you missed Bill Moyers program “The Net@Risk” on PBS last year you can still watch on line at PBS.org.
(edit) Download SavetheInternet.com’s “Internet Freedom Declaration of 2007” (pdf)
Making Your Documentary Matter 2007 January 10, 2007
The Center for Social Media is holding their third annual conference, Making Your Documentary Matter 2007, for documentary filmmakers non-profit communications directors, funders and students on Jan 31st and Feb 1st at the Katzen Arts Center at American University in Washington, DC.
The agenda lists some impressive speakers and panel members like Glenn Otis Brown (Creative Commons alumni and later Google), Rahdi Taylor (Sundance Documentary Film Program), Sarah Dewitt (Senior Director of PBS Kids and Parents) and many more. Registration is required and space is limited so don’t delay.
EMI dumps CD DRM January 8, 2007
BoingBoing is reporting that EMI will no longer be crippling their CD’s with digital rights management. The original announcement is in Dutch on NVPI. Could it be true, did some one at EMI finally get a clue?
John Perry Barlow, call for massive civil disobedience January 6, 2007
Netzpolitik did an interesting interview with John Perry Barlow, EFF founder and song writer for the Grateful Dead and the String Cheese Incident, following Larry Lessig’s most excellent keynote (video) from the 23C3 hacker conference in Berlin. The interview came after a debate with Lessig during the Q&A where Barlow suggested that massive civil disobedience may be the only way the public can crash the broken restrictive copyright system we have now. He does make a good point. Here is part of the transcript from the interview,
“My view is if we just keep pressing the system where it breaks, eventually the system is so broken and so obviously broken that there’s no choice but for people to start evolving another economic model. And that’s actually what’s already happening. Rather rapidly. [...] if you wanna share something – share it. If you wanna use something – use it. Try to do so ethically in the sense that, you know, don’t take things without attribution, attribute. Make sure that the people who did create actually have the opportunity to get some enhanced reputation [...]pay no attention to these people when it comes to being creative. Go ahead and do the stuff that Larry showed in the beginning of his talk and do lots of it. And every time they put a lock on – break it. And every time they pass a new law – break that. You know. Sooner or later they’re dealing with such a massive level of civil disobedience that they have to address it. And that’s where we’re headed in a, I think, a hell of a hurry.”
I don’t know for sure how to fix the serious problems with a copyright law that was bought and paid for by the entertainment industry but this just might work.
Take an MIT course, Introduction to Copyright Law January 5, 2007
Groklaw posted about a great resource for people who want to learn more about copyright law. MIT OpenCourseWare is offering this course, an Introduction to Copyright Law and American law in general, on line for free.
The course description says “Topics covered include: structure of federal law; basics of legal research; legal citations; how to use LexisNexis®; the 1976 Copyright Act; copyright as applied to music, computers, broadcasting, and education; fair use; Napster®, Grokster®, and Peer-to-Peer file-sharing; Library Access to Music Project; The 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act; DVDs and encryption; software licensing; the GNU® General Public License and free software.”
There are lots of other free MIT courses so go get yourself all learned up for free.
