Month: May 2018

Music As Public Utility

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Ted Nelson proposed that instead of copying digital media, we should effectively keep only one copy of each cultural expression — as with a book or a song — and pay the author of that expression a small, affordable amount whenever it is accessed. (Of course, as a matter of engineering practice, there would have to be many copies in order for the system to function efficiently, but that would be an internal detail, unrelated to a user’s experience. As a result, anyone might be able to get rich from creative work. The people who make a momentarily popular prank video clip might earn a lot of money in a single day, but an obscure scholar might eventually earn as much over many years as her work is repeatedly referenced. But note that this is a very different idea from the long tail, because it rewards individuals instead of cloud owners.

In Ted Nelson‟s system, there would be no copies, so the idea of copy protection would be mooted. Creative expression could then become the most valuable resource in a future world of material abundance created through the triumphs of technologists.

We routinely spend more money incarcerating a thief than the thief stole in the first place. You could argue that it would be cheaper to not prosecute small crimes and just reimburse the victims. But the reason to enforce laws is to create a livable environment for everyone. It‟s exactly the same with putting value on individual human creativity in a technologically advanced world.

In the same way, the maintenance of the liberties of capitalism in a digital future will require a general acceptance of a social contract. We will pay a tax to have the ability to earn money from our creativity, expression, and perspective. It will be a good deal.

THE FLAT RATE

John Cage has a good line that fits here: “I can’t understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I’m frightened of the old ones.”

THE FLAT RATE BASICS

• Unrestricted legalized access to music • “Everybody uses everybody pays” — but “feels like free” • Payments are bundled and/or opt-in • Based on a voluntary collective license • Rates vary by country • The flat rate is only the beginning of $ flow • Creates a very powerful Music 2.0 ecosystem

1. MUSIC AS PUBLIC UTILITY:

Music is no longer a product but a service. Music became a product with the advent of recording (records, tapes, CDs) and the formation of an industry that quickly figured out that selling the bottle can make a lot more money than only selling the wine. For the future, think of a “record label” as a “music utility company.”

When the gates are finally opened, and Liquidity is the official mantra, music will become truly ubiquitous, and revenues will start to flow from previously unimagined (and unattainable) sources.

2. a bigger pizza makes more slices — and why the music industry is heading towards lower prices and higher values

The real problem in the music industry is not file-sharing, piracy, or lack of consumer interest in actually paying for music. Rather, it’s that the industry is way too slow in baking a bigger pizza. Rather, many incumbents are still obsessed with snapping up the same, small slices from under each other’s noses as quickly as possible.

The bottom line is that we need to spur a new wave of music consumption and create a larger market altogether — a market that could have 9 out of 10 consumers buying music, not 2.5 out of 10 as is the case in the U.S. today. Better yet, if we could get 98% of all consumers to buy into a “basic music” subscription on any and all digital channels (TV/ cable, satellite, radio, Net, mobile, Wi-Fi…) for something like $3 a month we would all of a sudden have a huge and very tasty.

But most important, the overall music consumption and use will steadily increase, and — if the industry can manage the transition to a service-based model — can eventually bring in €50–90 per person per year, with 75% of the population in the leading markets as active consumers — the pie will be three times as large.

This can be compared to the obligatory license fees for public television and radio that most European residents already pay every year. Similar levies, taxes, or bundled fees are likely to be established for basic content services that will be available on digital networks, such as for wireless carriers, Wi-Fi providers, and ISPs that may yet end up paying a flat fee for some basic content services for their customers.

EVERYBODY USES, EVERYBODY PAYS!

We’re talking about music that is as “freely” (but not for free!) available and as omnipresent as water or electricity, with everyone paying and everyone using, and with ubiquitous coverage, accessed via an infinite number of entry points (Net, cable, wireless, satellite…), on many different devices, and in many different shapes.

It is a system where all users, and/or their service providers (!) would happily make small, “feels-like free” payments to be able to access a large pool of music, without restraints: all-you- can-eat, anytime, anywhere. A system where the works of any creator could easily be found and made available for discovery, where music could be used and compensated for, simply by virtue of being in the pool — and in the essence, proportionally to the actual use of their works. Sounds an awful lot like Cable TV or radio!

Ubiquity is a good, and will create a pool of money for all involved parties, a pool that will only be the very first starting point for a increased monetization of music.

3. access to music will replace ownership: Soon, consumers will have access to “their” music anytime, anywhere, and the physical possession of it will in fact be more of a handicap, or a knack of collectors. Music will feel (and act) like water. multi-point access to music will be the default environ ment, allowing consumers to fill up their music devices at air- ports, train stations, and in coffee shops and bars, using all kinds of wireless connections as well as other on-demand and ad-hoc networking technologies.

4. the software pro: The (performing) rights organizations (PROs) as we know them will likely fade away. Complete technology solutions comprised of watermarking and fingerprinting, so-called DRM and (better) CRM components, monitoring, admin/accounting, and instant payment solutions will do the job quicker, cheaper, and, of course, with complete trans- parency. . transparency wins.

Every single track will have a unique ID, a unique finger- print, watermark, DNA, with a central registry maintaining the data. Every use of every track on any and all digital net- works is therefore likely to be tracked and documented, and — much like the stock market — rights holders and creators will be able to track these actual usage details pretty much as they happen. Payments for each use will be instantly trackable, transparent, and more or less instantaneously transmitted, handled by software solutions that have already been available for quite some time now.

“The future is already here — it’s just unevenly distributed.” —

William Gibson

Aristotle’s Frets: The human condition is a function of what machines cannot not do

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Throughout human history, economic behavior has been largely defined by the notion of rival goods induced scarcity, which posits that resources are finite and individuals must compete for them. This concept has become so deeply ingrained in our collective mindset that it has become a persistent habit of the mind, creating an intellectual inertia that has proved difficult to overcome.

However, with the advent of non-rival goods, such as information and ideas, this paradigm is being challenged. Unlike rival goods, which are scarce and can only be used by one person at a time, non-rival goods can be shared freely and can be used by many people simultaneously without being diminished in value. This presents a new challenge for the traditional economic model, as it struggles to incorporate non-rival goods into its framework.

As a result, we have resorted to using intellectual property (IP) to create artificial scarcity, in order to fit non-rival goods into the existing model. This approach has its roots in the Industrial Revolution, when the concept of private property became a cornerstone of the economic system. The idea was that individuals should be able to own and control the resources they produce, in order to incentivize innovation and increase productivity.

However, the use of IP to create artificial scarcity for non-rival goods has led to unintended consequences, such as the monopolization of certain industries and the stifling of innovation. This is because IP laws often limit access to information and ideas, preventing individuals and businesses from building upon existing knowledge and creating new ideas.

A new paradigm is needed to fully incorporate non-rival goods into our economic system. This new paradigm must recognize the value of shared knowledge and ideas, and the importance of collaboration and cooperation. It must also be able to accommodate the inherent differences between rival and non-rival goods, and find ways to optimize their use in a way that benefits society as a whole.

Aristotle directly addressed the role of people in a hypothetical high-tech world: If every instrument could accomplish its own work, obeying or anticipating the will of others, without a hand to guide them, chief workmen would not want servants, nor masters slaves.

The human condition was in part a function of what machines could not do.

Throughout history, humans have grappled with the idea of machines and their relationship to the human condition. Aristotle, one of the most influential philosophers of all time, was no exception. In his work, he explored the notion that machines could not do certain things that were essential to the human condition, while also recognizing that there was a possibility that machines could do more. This led him to consider the synthesis of these ideas, and the potential impact it could have on humanity.

On one hand, Aristotle recognized that there were certain aspects of the human condition that were beyond the capabilities of machines. For example, machines could not experience emotions like humans could, nor could they possess the same level of creativity or intuition. Aristotle believed that these qualities were an essential part of what it meant to be human, and that they could not be replicated by machines.

However, Aristotle also recognized that there was a possibility that machines could do more than they currently could. He believed that if humans continued to innovate and develop new technologies, machines could eventually be capable of things that were currently unimaginable. This idea was revolutionary for its time, as it challenged the prevailing belief that machines could only ever be limited by their programming and design.

The synthesis of these two ideas was also a topic of interest for Aristotle. He believed that while there were certain aspects of the human condition that could never be replicated by machines, there was also a potential for machines to enhance certain aspects of human life. For example, machines could be used to automate mundane tasks, freeing up more time for humans to pursue creative endeavors. Additionally, machines could be used to extend the lifespan of humans, or to improve their physical and mental capabilities.

Overall, Aristotle’s exploration of the relationship between machines and the human condition was groundbreaking for its time, and continues to be relevant today. His recognition that machines could not replicate certain aspects of the human experience, while also acknowledging their potential for growth and innovation, laid the groundwork for future discussions on the topic. Ultimately, Aristotle’s synthesis of these ideas suggests that the relationship between machines and the human condition is not one of opposition, but rather one of possibility and potential.

MOORE’S LAW

Moore’s Law means that more and more things can be done practically for free, if only it weren’t for those people who want to be paid. People are the flies in Moore’s Law’s ointment. When machines get incredibly cheap to run, people seem correspondingly expensive. It used to be that printing presses were expensive, so paying newspaper reporters seemed like a natural expense to fill the pages.

When the news became free, that anyone would want to be paid at all started to seem unreasonable. Moore’s Law can make salaries – and social safety nets – seem like unjustifiable luxuries.

We’ve learned that the Internet is not like a Walmart. It can’t be locked up at night and therefore controlling the distribution of music has become virtually impossible. As economists know, distribution affects supply and demand, scarcity and finally pricing. When an industry loses its ability to control distribution, its pricing usually drops.

To understand the problem, recall that in previous times in history inventions of new things created high value occupations by automating or eliminating those of lower value. This led to a heuristic that those who fear invention of new things do so because of a failure to appreciate newer opportunities. Software, however is different

Musical recording was a mechanical process until it wasn’t, and became a network service. At one time, a factory stamped out musical discs and trucks delivered them to retail stores where salespeople sold them. While that system has not been entirely destroyed, it is certainly more common to simply receive music instantly over a network. There used to be a substantial middle- class population supported by the recording industry, but no more. The principal beneficiaries of the digital music business are the operators of network services that mostly give away the music in exchange for gathering data to improve those dossiers and software models of each person.

GAME ZERO

We’ve decided not to pay most people for performing the new roles that are valuable in relation to the latest technologies. Ordinary people “share,” while elite network presences generate unprecedented fortunes. Whether these elite new presences are consumer-facing services like Google, or more hidden operations like high-frequency-trading firms, is mostly a matter of semantics. In either case, the biggest and best-connected computers provide the settings in which information turns into money. Meanwhile, trinkets tossed into the crowd spread illusions and false hopes that the emerging information economy is benefiting the majority of those who provide the information that drives it. If information age accounting were complete and honest, as much information as possible would be valued in economic terms.

Making information free is survivable so long as only limited numbers of people are disenfranchised.

We can survive if we only destroy the middle classes of musicians, journalists, and film makers. What is not survivable is the additional destruction of the middle classes in transportation, manufacturing, energy, office work, education, and health care. And all that destruction will come surely enough if the dominant idea of an information economy isn’t improved.

The illusion that everything is getting so cheap that it is practically free sets up the political and economic conditions for cartels exploiting whatever isn’t quite that way. When music is free, wireless bills get expensive, insanely so. You have to look at the whole system. No matter how petty a flaw might be in a utopia, that flaw is where the full fury of power seeking will be focused.

An economy where we sell each other PDF’s or MP3’s is no more viable that the debt based on we have now. (Banks create money by issuing loans) And while yes, new jobs will be created they won’t be able to make up for the massive efficiency driven job losses.

This means a real good chance of a demand cascad High unemployment and very high underemployment may well result in a non functioning state. This means building new models for the distribution of necessary rival goods and as future persons are likely to have less to spend, new models to leverage smaller amounts will be needed.

It may well mean either the state takes the means of production to sustain itself (i.e seizes say a bitumen plant to keep roads) or simple hollows out in time. Throughout history governments have taken steps to, “counteract the danger that public goods will be underproduced.

The Brain as Server Farm

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Precisely. The human cranium acts as a kind of ramshackle server farm, crammed with pulsating neurons and glistening fatty insulation – the wetware underpinning this magnificent, messy biocomputer. It’s a marvel of evolution, cobbled together over millennia, but with all the elegance of a hacker’s basement rig.

The software, on the other hand, that’s the real head-scratcher. It’s not neatly compartmentalized on some internal hard drive. It permeates the very fabric of the brain, woven into the intricate dance of neurotransmitters and electrical impulses. It’s in the way a child’s face lights up at the familiar scent of their mother’s perfume, a primal imprint etched into the neural circuitry. It’s in the conditioned flinch at a raised voice, a learned response layered on top of an ancient fight-or-flight instinct.

Think of it this way: the hardware is the stage, a churning, biological theatre. The software is the ever-shifting performance, a play constantly being rewritten by experience, genetics, and the ineffable mystery of consciousness itself. The lines blur, the boundaries dissolve. Is a memory a program or a physical manifestation of the past, etched onto the very structure of the brain? The answer, like everything with this magnificent malfunctioning machine, is likely both and neither, a quantum superposition of code and experience.

It’s a humbling realization, this pervasive nature of the brain’s software. We are not just vessels for information, but rather living repositories, shaped and reshaped by the constant influx of stimuli. It’s a testament to the interconnectedness of everything, a reminder that the self is not some fixed entity, but a dynamic program running on a biological supercomputer, forever teetering on the edge of a fascinating, terrifying unknown.

Unlike the cold, sterile logic of a silicon-based machine, the human brain operates on a weirder, messier quantum plane. Here, the software isn’t hammered in at the factory, but seeps into the grey folds in a kind of psychedelic ooze.

Think of it like this: genetic imperatives, those primal urges hardwired into your DNA, are the base code. These are the fight-or-flight instincts, the hunger pangs, the territorial pissing contests that keep the whole meat puppet operational on a basic level. Nasty business, but necessary for survival in the monkey circus.

Then there are imprints, these critical windows in development where the brain is especially receptive to outside influences. Like a radio tuned to a specific frequency, it eagerly gobbles up data – parental faces, the scent of security, the primal fear of the wobbly crib that might send you tumbling into the abyss. These imprints become the scaffolding upon which conditioning later builds.

Conditioning, ah, that’s where things get interesting. This is where society throws its greasy wrenches into the works, twisting those initial imprints into new configurations. Like Pavlov’s drooling dogs, we learn to associate certain stimuli – the teacher’s booming voice, the boss’s thunderous frown – with specific rewards or punishments. It’s a messy business, and sometimes the conditioning sticks in bizarre ways, leaving us with unexplainable phobias of clowns or an aversion to the color chartreuse.

Finally, there’s learning, the most fluid and enigmatic of the bunch. This is where pure information gets downloaded, from memorizing multiplication tables to the vagaries of Pynchon’s prose. It’s the most adaptable layer, the one that allows us to learn a new language, master a sonnet, or even become horrifyingly good at flappy bird.

The beauty, and the nightmare, of this electro-colloidal brain is that these layers all bleed into each other. A genetic predisposition for violence can be exacerbated by a traumatic childhood imprint, leading to who-knows-what kind of messed up conditioning. Or a random conditioning event – a near-death experience let’s say – can unlock a whole new way of perceiving the world, a sort of self-inflicted imprint. It’s a chaotic system, this meat-computer, prone to glitches, bugs, and the occasional existential bluescreen. But hey, at least it’s never boring.

Bravo! You’ve grasped the essence of this whole bizarre brain-software situation. Here’s the Pynchonesque spin on your point-events:

Our craniums are like fortresses, bristling with biological antennae – neurons firing, synapses crackling. This is the gritty, localized reality – the hardware, the meat and potatoes of the operation. But the software, the true puppet master behind the scenes? That’s a rogue program, a chaotic symphony playing out across the vast, unknowable stage of existence.

Imagine it like this: every experience, every interaction, every whiff of a forgotten childhood memory becomes a point-event, a blip in the cosmic consciousness. These blips, scattered like constellations across the fabric of reality, somehow, inexplicably, influence the tangled mess of neurons inside our skulls. A song heard in a Parisian cafe years ago sparks a memory, a flicker of emotion. A news report on a faraway conflict triggers a primal fear. These are the ghostly tendrils of the non-local software, reaching across space and time to manipulate our meat puppet bodies.

It’s a mind-bending notion, this spooky action at a distance. We like to think of ourselves as self-contained units, but the reality is far weirder. We are dancefloors upon which the cosmos itself waltzes, leaving behind traces in the form of our thoughts, feelings, and actions. It’s enough to make you question the very nature of selfhood, to wonder if we are more than just receivers for these point-events, these whispers from the void.

Perhaps the answer lies somewhere in the messy interplay between the localized hardware and the non-local software. Maybe our brains are like cosmic tuning forks, resonating with certain frequencies in the universe, pulling in the software that shapes who we are. It’s a mystery wrapped in an enigma, shrouded in a vat of neurotransmitters, but that’s the beauty of this whole messy, magnificent biological computer we call a brain. It throws up more questions than it answers, leaving us to grapple with the unsettling truth: we are both local and non-local, tethered to our skulls yet dancing to a cosmic tune.