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advocacy, Apple, cluetrain, DRM, iTunes, podcasting, soapbox, Web 2.0

The Big Zune Debacle

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The device isn’t out yet but it’s generating a lot of negative reaction.

Partly based on this:

Zune Insider Blog: Answers to (some) of Your Zune Questions

“I made a song. I own it. How come, when I wirelessly send it to a girl I want to impress, the song has 3 days/3 plays?” Good question. There currently isn’t a way to sniff out what you are sending, so we wrap it all up in DRM. We can’t tell if you are sending a song from a known band or your own home recording so we default to the safety of encoding. And besides, she’ll come see you three days later.

Not to blame Cesar Menendez (Robert Scoble might have done the same thing), but the answer itself really shows that there is something missing in Microsoft’s understanding of music.

This post provoked a number of comments on the same blog and elsewhere:

Medialoper » Zune’s Big Innovation: Viral DRM

Boing Boing: Microsoft Zune will violate Creative Commons licenses

 Buzz Out Loud 314 Shownotes

As a more recent post answers several questions without even paying lip-service to the issue of Digital Rights Management, Microsoft gives the impression that it’s suddenly stonewalling:

Zune Insider Blog: Introducing, and Some More Q’s Answered
Having suffered from the over-restrictive DRM of Sony’s MiniDisc recorders, I think that DRM is one of the main reasons a device might succeed or fail in the consumer marketplace. The MiniDisc had the potential to be the ideal device for those who involve themselves in music (musicians, musickers, music lovers, music researchers…). But even music you recorded yourself was tagged as restricted and required a very expensive “professional” device to transfer digitally to another device, such a computer. Sony changed this only very recently and only for recordings made with current recorders.

In the Zune case, the wireless capabilities have been dreamed of years ago. As a musician, a researcher, and a lecturer, I would be delighted to be able to distribute my own content wirelessly. Just imagine: you record your own lecture, then you transfer it wirelessly to your students. Elegant, selective, seamless, intelligent, efficient. Lecturecasts at their finest. But if that content is to be crippled with an incredibly awkward DRM system, I would much rather use the much less efficient method of posting the audio file to a central server (possibly controlled), give instructions on how to retrieve the file, and wait until the next lecture to hear the complaints.

Of course, even if the Zune did not apply over-zealous DRM on my own content, I would still have to post the file. And one (who probably never taught) might think that the three days or three times restriction is perfectly reasonable for this use. But in terms of putting a product on the marketplace, one must get more insight than this.

It just shows that people at Microsoft sees their users as mere consumers of “content” and big media companies as “owners of content.” Yet the trend now is for “user-generated content,” “social networking,” “viral marketing,” and personal interactions through electronic devices.

Despite all of its flaws, the DRM on the iTunes Store (formerly iTunes Music Store) has imposed itself as a decent enough solution for a lot of people.

activism, advocacy, Alcohol, Beer, brewing, brewpubs, Cegeps, consumerism, craft beer, craft beer culture, cuisine, culture, economics, Empowerment, food and society, foodies, geek crowd, homebrewing, humor, humour, local, market economy, marketing, mass media, media, mediascape, moral enterpreneurs, Québec, responsible drinking, social capital, social dynamics, stereotypes, taste, tasting

Alcohol Marketing, Craft Beer, and Responsible Drinking

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[UPDATE: Press release. Much clearer than the Hour article…]

This could potentially be big for craft beer. A code of ethics for alcohol adverts.

Hour.ca – News – Alcohol marketing becomes ethical

A bit like video game manufacturer who propose rating systems for their own games, members of the alcoholic beverage industry in Quebec are trying to regulate their own advertising practises. According to the article:

Under the new code, the following has been forbidden:

  • Using alcohol content as a sales argument
  • Associating alcohol with violent or asocial behaviour, or with illicit drugs
  • Sexism or the association of the product with sexual performance, sexual attraction or popularity
  • Implications that the product improves physical or intellectual capacities, or has health benefits
  • Encouraging drinking games or excessive drinking
  • Making the product particularly attractive to people under 18
  • Showing images of people who look younger than 25
  • Showing disrespect for those who choose not to drink

By proposing such a code of ethics, the industry may possibly bypass government regulation. It also shows that its members are willing to go some distance in changing their practises.

Educ’alcool‘s message, associating responsible (moderate) drinking with taste, is well-established in Quebec culture and this code goes in the same line. By contrast, in the U.S., advocacy for responsible drinking is criticized by academics and health specialists. IMHO, this criticism has the effect of encouraging younger people to binge drink, with sad consequences. Educ’alcool and Quebec’s alcoholic beverage industry are probably trying to avoid such a situation. Although it might sound counter-intuitive, binge drinking is not beneficial to their bottom line. After all, nobody wants to get sued for the death of any of consumers.

The main apparent target of this code is beer advertising, especially on television. While Quebec has its share of beer ads with scantily clad women, even ads for some of InBev’s Labatt products are somewhat more subtle. In fact, the French-speaking versions of commercials for Labatt bleue have, over the years, represented an alternative to the typical "beer gets you laid" message. As typical of Quebec culture, these ads have used humour to carry their message, often with puns and other word play. For instance, one of the most recent ads uses a zeugma and the names of several parts of Quebec (strengthening the association between the beer and Quebec cultural identity). It also describes the beer in its association with food.

Which brings me to the interesting point about craft beer. While beer advertisement is typically full of what this new code of ethics seeks to prohibit, craft beer positions itself in exactly the same line as Educ’alcool and this code of ethics: taste and responsible drinking. The only television ads I’ve seen for craft beer were made by Boston Beer company for their Samuel Adams products. These ads usually emphasize the brewing craft itself and have been discussed by many members of the craft beer crowd. An important point is that they’re quite effective at delivering the message about taste, quality, sophistication, and responsibility. (Actually, I wore a Samuel Adams t-shirt yesterday, after reading about the new code of ethics. Didn’t even notice the possible connection!)

Any craft beer person will argue that craft beer always wins on taste. So if the new marketing message needs to focus on taste, craft beer wins.

It’s quite striking that the code of ethics mentions people looking older than 25. IMHO, it’s overstating the case a bit. IMHO, nothing is to be gained by avoiding the portrayal of members of the 18-25yo age bracket in advertising for responsible drinking. This demographic is not only very important for the alcohol industry but it’s one which should be targeted by the responsible drinking movement. Educ’alcool does target people who are even younger than that, so that they "do the right thing" once they’re old enough to drink, but there’s no reason to let people down once they start drinking. Eighteen-year-olds are not only learning the value of responsible drinking, they’re integrating responsible drinking in their social lives. And they’re learning how to taste alcoholic beverages.

Apart from age, characteristics of craft beer people are usually the same as those of the target market for beer in general. But their emphasis is really: taste, distinctiveness, sophistication, and responsibility. Again, perfect for the new type of ads.

Speaking of beer marketing, the issue of Montreal’s Hour indie weekly also has a piece on the importance of beer sponsorships for the success of events in the city. Coincidence?

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Music, Food, Industries, Piracy

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000ady6y (PNG Image, 200×125 pixels)

Noticed it in Steal This Film. A very appropriate message. Process over product. Music is not a commodity. Food does not grow on profits.

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Academia, academic institutions, academic models, academic publishing, advocacy, course management systems, diversity, grassroots, openness, Teaching, textbooks

Instructors and Open Textbooks

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Freeload Press is publishing difficult-to-read textbooks as free, ad-supported downloads.

Interestingly, the Slashdot thread sparked by this news item revolves more around the issue of cost-prohibitive textbooks than around ideological issues surrounding advertisement in publication. Several of the dozens of comments in that thread are quite insightful, including some below the moderators’ radar.

Here’s my own comment on that thread, slightly edited.

My 2¢ as an instructor (cultural anthropology, African studies, linguistic anthropology, ethnomusicology).

Contrary to what some people seem to think, some of us instructors do care about the price of textbooks. Many of us see textbooks as a necessary evil and some of us get almost allergic reactions when sales representatives from publishing houses come to our offices. (Got several visits and calls myself, even as a visiting lecturer.) For those of us who care about reasonably-priced textbooks, some publishing houses’ practises are anti-competitive and unfair.
Case in point. Decided to use a short, inexpensive textbook for one of my introductory-level classes, two semesters in a row. Price and length did have an impact on my decision (the textbook was itself better than more expensive ones). It was published just in time for the first of those semesters and cost about 40$ at that point. The second semester, without notifying me, the publisher had bundled that textbook with another book. The bundle was 60$. Not that expensive. But my students still had to buy something that we never used.
One problem for an instructor, when the textbook is cost-prohibitive, is that students are more likely to complain if the course doesn’t follow the textbook very closely. Secondly, different editions are often confusing in the changes that they imply (much more so than software releases!) and it’s difficult for an instructor to keep track of all of those discrepancies. Not to mention that an expensive textbook may discourage students from buying other material for that subject.
According to someone close to me who used to work at a publishing house, textbooks are the main source of income for several publishers. A bit like “hits” for record labels, but students aren’t free to choose textbooks as they please.
Obviously, the financial model is skewed.

Those issues should be enough to encourage everyone to adopt a new model. But there’s even more.
Textbooks are typically written by a handful of authors who may be well qualified for explaining several of the issues included in those textbooks but who still have areas of limited expertise. The result in cultural anthropology, for instance, is that textbook chapters on language are usually full of inaccuracies while chapters on the authors’ areas of expertise appear quite decent. In some cases, an instructor might even end up having to “fight the textbook” instead of using it as a reference.
Online material accompanying textbooks in some disciplines generally seem like an afterthought instead of representing a central part of the approach. The ultimate effect is that students get disinterested in that material and will come to rely on other (and often unreliable) sources.
While some publishers offer instructors the possibility to use material from different books, these sources should all be from the same publisher. So an instructor can’t use Chapter 3 from Jane Smith’s textbook published by one of Thomson’s many subsidiaries and Chapter 4 from Amy Johnson’s textbook published by Oxford University Press. How can we get a diversity of viewpoints, in such a situation?

The solution, IMVHO? Open textbooks. Teaching material based on an open content model. Supported by instructors and their institutions. With a flexible, modular design.
Yes, Wikibooks may be part of that solution. But there are other issues to think about. How do we motivate instructors to contribute content to such a project? Does it count for tenure? Who will lead the effort to complete such a textbook? How can we integrate those books in our teaching? Will students use those textbooks the way they were intended or discount them based on perceived lack of quality? Are students without Internet access out of luck? Who will provide “technical” support to students and instructors? How can we produce affordable dead-tree copies for those who need them? How can we make deals with publishers to integrate excerpts from primary texts? How can we share material to instructors without giving too much away to students? How can we integrate this material with course management systems like Moodle (and, for the unlucky ones, even Blackboard)?

Still, if we get together, as students, administrators, and instructors, we can eventually solve all of these issues and, hopefully, challenge prevailing models of academic publication.

advocacy, content, Digital Life, hegemony, intellectual property, open-source, product and process, productivity, software development

Microsoft Disinforms on Open-Source and Free-Software

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Can Windows and Linux Learn to Play Nice?:

A commercial company has to build intellectual property, while the GPL, by its very nature, does not allow intellectual property to be built, making the two approaches fundamentally incompatible, Muglia said.

Interesting take on “intellectual property.’ Would benefit from a bit more of an explanation. Is “IP” the very foundation of any commercial company?
What's more awkward, though, is that Microsoft veep Bob Muglia talks about the GPL in the context of open-source. As he surely knows, this is exactly where the terms “open-source” and “free software” are not interchangeable. While the two are quite similar, “free software” refers to a movement in favour of free (as in speech) or “libre” development in direct opposition to the notion of “intellectual property.” “Open-source,” on the other hand, refers to a development process through which source code for software is shared by multiple developers in an open fashion, whether or not that code is meant to be protected as “intellectual property.” In fact, many open-source projects are not only interoperable with commercial software but do in fact have commercial licenses through which they protect their IP. Whichever model we prefer, free or open, they're models of very different things. The two models are quite compatible in practice. They are both used in resistance to Microsoft's hegemony. But confounding them serves little purpose in the discussion. It might not be a strategy on Muglia's part to confuse the two issues. Interestingly enough, the “free software” vs. “open source” issue wasn't even the main thrust of the Slashdot thread on the subject, at least in the beginning.

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