A glimpse behind the curtain--Google OCRing all images on the web?

Per Google Webmaster Matt Cutts, wouldn't it be a "fun idea" to crawl around the web and OCR all the images?

Or another "fun idea", let's take a snippit from your webpage to return in search results and ignore your meta description.

Why is Hulu winning where Kazaa founders and YouTube failed?

The answer may be in the question....

Excellent piece by the erudite Saul Hansell in today's NYT: "Why Hulu Succeeded as Other Video Sites Failed"

It helps if you can identify your audience and have a well-respected and trustworthy brand.

More on Pirate Bay sale insider trading

According to Threat Level of Wired the Pure, "Insider Trading Suspected Ahead of Pirate Bay Sale" and trading was suspended in the acquirer's stock pending an investigation by officials at the Swedish AktieTorget exchange (No, that's not Swedish for "Torrents".)

The Swedish authorities "...[do] not permit criminal enterprises to trade on the exchange."

So no Yakuza companies, then.

Peace in the Valley: Pandora supports new rates

Pandora's Tim Westergren writes: "For more than two years now I have been eagerly anticipating the day when I could finally write these words: the royalty crisis is over!"

Good news all round, especially for independent artists and labels.

Outstanding analysis of Premier League class action against YouTube

Hats off to Ben Sheffner's analysis of the recent ruling regarding foreign copyrights and statutory damages in the YouTube case (which decision is likely to be appealed). Very tricky topic that is particularly hard to explain to anyone in a historical Berne jurisdiction (i.e., outside the US--although the US implemented Berne it did so in a way that many Berne folk do not quite follow).

Or to Willard.

See also CNET: "As it defends itself against allegations of copyright infringement made by at least three separate copyright owners [including the UK version of the NFL], Google's YouTube won some minor legal victories on Tuesday"

Billboard: Pirate Bay buyer under investigation for insider trading

According to Billboard, the company purportedly acquiring The Pirate Bay “...is under investigation for insider trading over some unusual moves in its stock prior to the announcement suggests the news was leaked as a way of raising cash for the transaction.”

Favorite charities

We're going to start posting charities that are exceptionally worthwhile in our opinion, particularly relatively new charities that are going to have a hard time making it in the continuing crisis.

First up is the Ann Richards School for Young Women Leaders in Austin. Not that I'm biased or anything. Oh, no.

"Absolutely Positively Free...If You Think You Can Afford It"

Outstanding review by Janet Maslin of the Chris Anderson debacle Free in the New York Times today, title "Absolutely Positively Free...If You Think You Can Afford It".

"Even when the particulars of his argument are easily assailable, the gist is clear: Now that a cornucopia of Internet material has been made available without fee, and in some cases without scruples, the smart business must find ways to adapt to that new reality."

You see, what the next Bob Dylan really needs isn't a good copyright, it's a good "Freemium".

Lessigization of Scholarship

Excellent post by Tom Sydnor, "The "Lessigation" of Copyright Scholarship".

(Thanks to Dean Kay for the tip.)

RIP Allen Klein

I have a few words to say about Allen Klein who passed. You have to be a person of a certain age to know the name, and also to understand just how much Allen accomplished in his life. It just takes a few words to say that Allen managed the Beatles and the Rolling Stones at the same time but it's hard to find a corollary to that accomplishment in the current music business.

But what I most remember Allen for was his avuncular kindness to me when kindness wasn't required and how much he cared for the legacy of Sam Cooke. People will say a lot of things about how tough and nasty Allen was, and God knows that was certanly true if you crossed him. But he was also a solid records man and will be missed.

New Music 07-06-09

Blackchords, Ocean is Theory, Montana 1948, Pictures of Then, Bat for Lashes, Bedouin Soundclash, Crystal Fighters


Help 'em out: Sweet Relief

New Yorker Review of the Chris Anderson/Wikipedia Book "Free"

An excellent review of Free by Chris Anderson/Wikipedia by Malcolm Gladwell in the New Yorker. I have always thought of the New Yorker as someone who can separate the tech from the dirt quite handily.

I particularly enjoyed this passage about my favorite catastrophe--YouTube:

"For Anderson, YouTube illustrates the principle that Free removes the necessity of aesthetic judgment. (As he puts it, YouTube proves that “crap is in the eye of the beholder.”)

But, in order to make money, YouTube has been obliged to pay for programs that aren’t crap.

To recap: YouTube is a great example of Free, except that Free technology ends up not being Free because of the way consumers respond to Free, fatally compromising YouTube’s ability to make money around Free, and forcing it to retreat from the “abundance thinking” that lies at the heart of Free. Credit Suisse estimates that YouTube will lose close to half a billion dollars this year. If it were a bank, it would be eligible for TARP funds."

I have to commend the reviewer for summarizing the obvious so succinctly, but I wish it required much greater brainpower to ascertain. YouTube's eventual failure was so obvious and so predictable that it is simply bizarre that so many apparently intelligent people COMPLETELY MISSED IT.

And yes, I know that the Credit Suisse number may have been off by a couple hundred million, but it is pretty undisputed that Hulu is outstripping YouTube in revenue and that YouTube is the bandwidth hog of all time. And it is not profitable by any measurement. This explains the premium services that are under discussion--which were also entirely predictable. It's simple--you cannot replace aesthetic judgement with a machine or a crowd.

As Eric Schmidt told Maureen Dowd: "We learned in working with newspapers that this balance between the newspaper writers and their editors is more subtle than we thought. It's not reproducible by computers very easily."

Record of the Week Club

Very cool idea: Record of the Week Club

Say goodnight Usenet.com

The creative community won its case against Usenet.com, which is somewhat ironic to me. In 1994 I asked some copyright litigators if they had focused on the binary files that were being bartered in newsgroups. I was told not to worry about it because "we have the Net covered." Well, 15 years later.... I'm so glad they had the "Net covered." It's a relief to know somebody has the point.

I particularly like this part of the news.com piece: "[Plaintiffs sought sactions against] Usenet.com [because it] destroyed evidence and prevented employees from being questioned [by plaintiffs], going so far as shipping some of them off on extended trips to Europe. Presiding U.S. District Judge Harold Baer, of the Southern District of New York, was unamused and sanctioned Usenet.com." Judges tend not to like that spoliation of evidence thing. Just ask Real.

And then there was this: "Usenet.com boasts that signing up for an account 'gives you access to millions of MP3 files and also enables you to post your own files the same way and share them with the whole world.'"

Ummmm...good thinking, Dobe. No law-hardening on this one.

So yet more bad advice. Damages come next. As an old third mate I knew used to say, "Arrgh, Cookie, make mine bloody rare."

New Music 6-27-09

The Dead Weather, The Original 007, La Roux, Dirty Projectors, Bon Iver, The White White Lights

Guilty Pleasure: The Saturdays

Michael Jackson RIP

Not much to add to what has already been said and will be said about Michael. I had the good fortune to do some work for Michael Jackson in the good times and he was kind enough to arrange for me to see a show at Wembley Arena in London when he was at the peak of his adult career.

You forget how many hits that he had until you go to a show, and you really don't grasp how much creative energy was crammed into that body until you saw him live. I realize this doesn't count for much in our technology oriented society, but that live performance simply cannot be equalled by any recording.

You get one of these artists in a generation, I think. I'm looking forward to the next one.