- Deptford.tv

ISBN: 978-1-906496-05-0
First edition
Published in October 2007
Printed with Openmute
Supported by Hi8us / Inclusion Through Media,
partially funded by the European Social Fund
Design by Jonas Andersson
converge: online video
contents
converge: context
1. Intro .............................................................................................. 7
Foreword by Dean Jansen (Participatory Culture Foundation) ....................................... 7
2. Now deal with it! by Adnan Hadzi....................................................... 9
2.2. The future of online video by Nicholas Reville ....................................................... 15
2.3. Free media vs. free beer by Andrew Lowenthal ..................................................... 19
2.4. Video, education, and open content by Peter B. Kaufman ...................................... 25
2.5. A better way forward by The Electronic Frontier Foundation ................................ 41
converge: manual
3. Manual........................................................................................ 51
3.1. How to publish and view video on the Internet ..................................................... 51
3.2. Watching video and subscribing to video feeds ..................................................... 53
3.3. How to prepare your video .................................................................................... 73
3.4. How to publish your video ..................................................................................... 81
converge: data
4. Converge projects & participants ............................................... 135
4.1. FreqOUT! ............................................................................................................. 135
4.2. UNDP ACT YFP ..................................................................................................... 139
4.3. FOMACS .............................................................................................................. 141
4.4. Dublin Institute of Technology ............................................................................ 142
4.5. The Roma Support Group ..................................................................................... 143
4.6. Chew TV .............................................................................................................. 145
4.7. Digital Women’s Club .......................................................................................... 147
4.8. PVA MediaLab ..................................................................................................... 148
5. About Converge ......................................................................... 151
5.1. About Converge ................................................................................................... 151
5.2. About these tutorials ........................................................................................... 152
5.3. Contact Converge ................................................................................................ 153
5.4. Free Documentation License ................................................................................ 154
5.5. Copyrights ........................................................................................................... 159
converge: context
1. Intro
Foreword by Dean Jansen (Participatory Culture Foundation)
I have long been fascinated with media, especially video, created outside of the
‘professional’ sphere. I’ll leave the distinction between professional and nonprofessional purposefully vague; the core difference seems to be the motivating
factors surrounding the creators’ decision to produce the media. What I’m thinking
of is usually non-commercial and often amateur — and of course it is becoming
increasingly common. Whether it’s meant to entertain, inform, convert, or offend,
this media is nearly always imbued with a wholly different spirit than its professional
counterpart.
The raw energy that creates this spirit can’t be pinned down easily. Again, it’s the
motivating factors that produce this effect, and the motivators can differ greatly from
one creator to the next. Various motivations may make the energy materialize in
different ways, but there is always a shared base that remains constant and vibrant.
I first became aware of this energy when watching public access cable TV (public
access exists in many cities in the US; it is a forum where any citizen is empowered
to broadcast their video over the cable system). This energy is perhaps even more
abundant on the Internet, manifesting itself in wikis (the most notable example here
being Wikipedia), videos, blogs, personal websites... the list goes on. The media
that incubates this energy is becoming increasingly common, and thus the spirit is
growing.
The core of this shared energy is difficult, if not impossible to pin down. It would be
convenient (and romantic) to ascribe it to the human quest for truth and the drive
to share knowledge, but it seems deeper and more mysterious than that. I won’t
pontificate further on its relationship to human drive and our need to communicate,
but that seems to be closer to the source than anything else.
A lot of my life has been spent chasing this ephemeral and undefinable thing.
Currently, I am involved with Free Culture and the Participatory Culture Foundation,
and see it as my charge to encourage and empower others to chase alongside me. I
suspect that many folks will identify with this sentiment and are already nodding
their heads, especially those who create media in their personal time. If you’re not
as experienced, I encourage you to find your reason to create a piece of media, and
then make it.
Share your creation with others — this spirit is infectious.
7
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2. Now deal with it!
by Adnan Hadzi
Collaborative projects are co-shaped by all the people taking part in them in
terms of not only expertise and fields of interest, but also cultural backgrounds,
viewpoints, personalities and temperaments. The following book, a presentation of
research in converging forms of media distribution at the Department of Media
and Communication at Goldsmiths College, University of London, focuses on video
distribution online.
The Converge project generates an online public space where contributors can
discuss the the tools, technologies and experiences gained through the workshops
held during spring and summer 2007. This online public space exists as a wiki on the
website: http://www.converge.org.uk.
In relation to the use of online (found) footage the term ‘collective documentary’ becomes highly relevant, on the one hand emphasizing the intention of telling something significant about real life events, on the other
hand telling that the work is made as a result of several people working
together, not as an organized team defined by a given task, but rather as a
small community with shared interests. (Hoem, 2004:6)
Jon Hoem goes on to argue that blogs provide “an individual base for entering
a community” (2004:7): on the one hand maintaining a blog is an individual
activity, whereas on the other hand the process of blogging often becomes part of
a collaborative effort where diverse people contribute different types of content in
multiple ways and on different levels. According to Hoem blogs are blurring “the
boundaries between production, distribution and consumption” (2004:7), whereas
they necessarily redefine notions of media literacy so as to “reflect(s) an awareness
of both the consuming and the producing aspects of media technology.” (2004:7)
The most successful online environments seem to be those which are designed in order to make it possible to post information at different levels,
socializing new users into the systems publishing-culture. Blogs provide
some of these socializing effects providing an individual base for entering a
community, blurring the boundaries between production, distribution and
consumption. [...]
It is important that our notion of media literacy reflects an awareness of
both the consuming and the producing aspects of media technol- ogy.
This is an area where textual blogging already seems to prove its potential.
Maintaining a weblog is primarily an individual activity, but since production
is closely connected to media consumption blogging often becomes part of a
collaborative effort where a number of people might contribute in a multitude
of ways. [...]
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When making video online the most important aspect of collective
documentaries is that the raw material is provided by a number of persons
and the collective editing-process where the concept of re-editing is essential.
Before we look into the different stages of the videoblogging process we have to
consider the basis for an online community fostering the kind of collaboration
needed in order to promote media literacy through the making of collective
documentaries. We may consider collaboration as communication where
there are no clear distinction between senders and receivers of information.
Nevertheless, all communication has to begin with individual producers
who provide some kind of context, transforming data into information by
creating relationships between data (text, images, video and sound). Through
our experience of different sources of information we construct knowledge in
interac- tion with others by sharing and discussing the different patterns in
which information may be organized. In the end knowledge is the basis for
wis- dom, the most intimate level of understanding. Wisdom can be reckoned
as a kind of “meta-knowledge” of relationships achieved through personal
experience. (Hoem 2004: 7)
The Converge project requires that each individual contributor undertake part of
the responsibility. This means that ‘amateurs’ are taking control of domains that
were strictly reserved for the professional ‘classes’ of media-producers. “Whether in
music file-sharing, radio broadcasting or the writing of fanzines, the amateur media
producer is intimately involved in dominant cultural practices, at the same time as
they transform those practices through their own ‘autonomous’ media” (Atton 2005:
15).
Society got familiar with mass media as a one-way channel of communication.
Nevertheless radio, the first mass medium, originally was a two-way communication
channel. In the early 1920s Berthold Brecht saw the potential of radio as a medium
that could support a two-way political discussion program format. Brecht believed
that the collective approach to production could be applied to both radio and film.
Berthold Brecht was enthusiastic about the potential of radio as a liberating medium
when this was first invented in the early 20th century. For Brecht radio was a twoway communication device: a receiver as well as a transmitter. The first radio sets
were indeed designed as both receivers and transmitters. In his letter to the German
Director of Radio Broadcasting in 1927 Brecht wrote:
In my view you should try to make radio broadcasting into a really democratic thing. To this end you would already achieve much, for example, if you
were to cease production only on your own for this wonderful distribution
apparatus you have at your disposal and instead allow it to make productive
topical events simply by setting up and in special cases perhaps by managing it
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in a skillful, time-saving way. [...] In other words I believe that you must move
with the apparatuses closer to the real events and not simply limit yourself to
reproducing or reporting. You must go to the parliamentary sessions of the
Reichstag and especially to the major court trials. Since this would be a great
step forward, there will certainly be a series of laws that try to prevent that.
You must turn to the public in order to eliminate these laws. (Silberman 2001:
35)
Brecht wrote the radio play Lindberg’s Flight for an interactive many-to-many radio
event, which opened at the Festival for German Chamber Music in Baden-Baden
on 27 July 1929. The play’s subject was the first flight over the Atlantic Ocean by
pilot Charles Lindberg in May 1927. Lindberg’s Flight pictured the flight as a struggle
of technology against nature, and as an achievement of a collective rather than
an individual. The audience was participating in the role of Lindberg. Brecht was
showcasing “how the medium itself can transform social communication through
its technological advantage: the ear is to become a voice.” (Silberman 2001: 41)
Brecht’s vision never materialized. Instead, radio became a one-to-many medium,
distributing content controlled by centralised radio stations to the masses of
audiences.
Today, digital networks provide new possibilities for liberated media practices
through the use of Free Software. Since art and ideas never develop within an arthistorical vacuum but always feed on the past, free culture ideals promise to make
our cultural heritage accessible to everybody to re-read, re-use and re-mix as they
like. According to Armin Medosch: “Without open access to the achievements of
the past there would be no culture at all.” (2003: 15) His project Kingdom of Piracy,
a book and a CD software package, was released under Open Content licenses and
it was free to use, share and edit. One of the pieces of software found on the CD is
the Dyne:bolic, a Linux distribution used for the Deptford. TV project, as discussed
later on in this book. An ever increasing amount of recent and current art projects
require that artists work collaboratively with programmers in order to create such
projects. They also often require the use of controversial technologies such as filesharing or concepts of computer viruses. Such projects are of course, more often
than not, criticised by the media industry as giving ground to piracy.
This is not piracy, as industry associations want us to believe, but the creation
of open spaces in a number of different ways; they facilitate freedom of
expression, collective action in creation and political expression and the
notion of a public interest in networked communications. (Medosch 2003:
18)
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The Internet is not simply a more efficient way of maintaining subcultural
activity, it is potentially a space for its creation and recreation on a global
scale: it remains an invitation to a new imaginary. (Atton 2005: 8)
Over the last few years Free / Libre / Open Source software (FLOSS), a form of
collaborative software development, has grown rapidly over the digital networks.
“Free software” is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you
should think of “free” as in “free speech”, not as in “free beer”. The users have the
freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and im- prove the software. Linux is
one of the most famous FLOSS developments. Linux is a computer operating system
which can be installed for free on any computer without having to pay for it, unlike
the commercial mainstream operating systems like Microsoft Windows or Apple
Mac OS. All its source code is available to the public and anyone can freely use,
modify, and redistribute it.
The Open Source and Free Software movements share the source code of their
programs under a copyleft license. In the same way, collective filmmaking through
web interfaces will share the film ‘source code’, that is, the rough material plus the
metadata created by logging and editing this material. Such web-interfaces and
technologies like File-sharing challenge the notion of traditional broadcasting: on
the one hand the production and distribution processes merge together; on the
other hand the audiences can participate actively by undertaking a role that has
always, within the frame of traditional media production, been exclusively reserved
to producers. These changes have come to challenge expectations of film as a
finished, linear product, and of audiences as passive consumers of culture and/or
entertainment.
File-sharing is thus seen as controversial because of its key role in this
blurring of old concepts; what was earlier seen as stable commodity forms
and circuits of distribution are now turned upside down, what was once seen
as a delineation of stable roles for the human actors involved is now severely
called into question. Why would mp3 files necessarily replace retail CDs, for
example? Wouldn’t they rather replace radio? Why would avi files replace
retail DVDs? Wouldn’t they rather replace a visit to the video rental shop, or
two hours of Sky Movies, or — for that sake — the free DVD that came with
Sunday’s newspaper? (Andersson 2006)
We could stretch these questions even further: Why shouldn’t the public broadcasting
services be accessible to and circulated by the file-sharers, as the TV license or tax
payers have already paid for the material to be as widely accessible as possible? This is
certainly political ground, yet the argument that the proponents of ‘free content’ can
use in their defense is remarkably simple, and democratic: it is all about widening
participation, and tuning in to a changed technological landscape which allows for
an even more radical participation than before.
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The end of this text is a remix of the collectively written reader Deptford.TV diaries, the
original text can be found at http://deptford.tv with many thanks to Jonas Andersson,
Maria X, Andrea Rota, James Stevens and all the collaborators:
Nowadays, everyone knows that anyone could copy that file, yet the industry persists
with even more vitriolic rhetoric. The genie is doubtlessly out of the bottle, and we
are faced with a public which is more aware than ever of the controversies at hand,
whilst being increasingly skilled in getting what they want — for free.
Communality, collaboration and public sharing here constitute a living, longestablished, interesting challenge to the conventional financial system — and a
sphere which can still promise profit and growth. The Asian counterfeit economy
(real piracy!) is a thriving, semi-hidden counterpart to the corporate economy
— and the gains from this pirate economy are often more beneficial to the world’s
poor. When it comes to copying of so-called ‘immaterial’ produce, the collective
gain is so high that also those with modest margins of sustenance can afford to
share that which is only multiplied and never reducible: culture, ideas, knowledge,
information, software.
It is, however, illusory to believe file-sharing is entirely altruistic. It is highly motivated
by personal gratification and notions of comfort and instantaneity. Scratching the
veneer of most human behaviour this is of course a far from unexpected finding. Still,
most people would argue, through the simple physical phenomenon of aggregation
sharing generates something which could certainly be described as a ‘greater good,’
something which the agents involved can make continuous use of and take pride in
— in fact, they often even describe it as altruism.
When we freely share content on the Internet, we are currently bypassing the
established forms of the marketplace — generating, in effect, new systems of
exchange. Appropriation and consumption are just that; it is all about the uses of
media content; turning it into something else, or using it beyond the means dictated
by the producer. We could therefore ask ourselves: is cultural appropriation piracy?
Rasmus Fleischer and Palle Torsson — the authors behind the influential ‘grey
commons’ speech — insist on talking about file-sharing as a horizontal activity;
Digital technology is built on copying bits, and internet is built on filesharing. Copying is always already there. The only thing copyright can do
is to impose a moral differentiation between so-called normal workings and
immoral. (Fleischer and Torsson 2006)
To put it bluntly: People collaborate, copy and share because they can. Now deal
with it.
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Bibliography
Andersson, Jonas (2006) “The Pirate Bay and the ethos of sharing” in Deptford.TV diaries. London:
Openmute
Atton, Chris. (2005) Alternative Internet. Edinburgh: University Press.
Critical Arts Ensemble. (1996) The electronic disobedience. New York: Autonomedia
Fleischer, Rasmus and Torsson, Palle. (2005) ‘Grey commons’ speech at Chaos Communication
Congress 22C3 in Berlin.
Hoem, Jon. (2004) “Videoblogs as ‘Collective Documentary’”. Vienna: Blog Talk conference.
Medosch, Armin. (2003) Piratology. In Kingdom of Piracy (ed. Dive). Liverpool: Fact. pp. 8-19.
Silberman, Marc. (2001) Brecht on Film. London: Methuen.
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2.2. The future of online video
Openness Matters. RSS Can Help by Nicholas Reville, September 14, 2006
I want to convince you that if you care about open standards, open source, deep
linking, and all the other things that make the internet wonderful, you should care
about where video online is headed.
We are living at a moment when media is converging rapidly onto the internet. Will
television move online in an open and accessible way? Or will it remain centralized
and controlled by a few large corporations? So far, things aren’t looking good.
1: The Two Key Questions
This essay started as an email to Mike Hudack at Blip.tv. Blip is an excellent video
blogging / video hosting service. My goal was to convince Mike that they should
feature RSS subscribe buttons more prominently on their site and that they should
explicitly encourage their viewers to watch videos via RSS feeds. Of course, I would
be especially pleased if Blip promoted watching RSS with Miro (which is developed
by my organization, the Participatory Culture Foundation), but any support for
video RSS is good. Good for my organization and, I believe, good for the future of
media.
As I was writing to Mike, I realized that there were a lot more people that I wanted
to say this to, so I decided to turn the letter into a public essay. I’ll start with the two
questions that I think will define the future of video online:
Question 1: Will internet video viewing be primarily webpage-based or will it be
primarily RSS based?
Question 2: Will internet video be centralized in huge services like YouTube or Google
Video, or will it be more broadly distributed (like blogs and web pages are), with huge
(youtube), big (blip), medium (rocketboom), and small (average video bloggers on
their own site) players?
These are not entirely distinct questions, and that’s a central message of this essay. If
video online is mostly web-based (question 1), the biggest centralized services have
huge advantages (question 2). If centralized services win, many of the wonderful
things that can come from TV meeting the internet will evaporate.
2: Are We Moving in the Wrong Direction?
So far, the answers to both of these questions have gone mostly in what I believe is
the ‘wrong’ direction: towards two huge centralized services (YouTube and Google
Video) and towards browser-based viewing.
15
That’s not to say that video RSS isn’t doing well. It is. We’ve seen the number of
channels in the Miro Channel Guide increase 6 fold in the past year and channels
are getting created faster and faster every day. But there’s big and then there’s BIG.
YouTube is gigantic in a way that video RSS doesn’t approach right now.
YouTube doesn’t need defending, but I want to to be clear about exactly where
my concerns are focused. As a service and a universe, YouTube is amazing. It has
become a visual search engine of human experiences. So far, YouTube has done
more to democratize video online than my organization or any of the companies,
organizations, and advocates that are working for open access and open standards.
But — and this is crucial — YouTube is spending money like crazy. At some point,
they’ll need to make it all back. I’m nervous about how they will do that. Do YouTube
executives have any option other than to hold viewers and creators hostage to ads
on videos?
Furthermore, I worry that the near-monopoly strength of YouTube’s network effect is
dragging along people who don’t actually want to use the service — “If my video isn’t
on YouTube, how will anyone find it??” In the social networking domain, MySpace
is the best example of this unresistable social pressure in action — how many web
2.0 gurus cringe everyday when they try to login and update their MySpace page?
MySpace, by the way, is trying to be the next YouTube (if you’re looking for a real
dystopia for online video, it’s that).
The network effect of online video services doesn’t just endanger creators and
viewers, it also stifles competition. Smaller web video services that don’t have
YouTube’s network effect will become backwaters.
3: Put Viewers at the Center, Not Companies
How do you avoid a world where YouTube is the arbiter of all video content? You
do it by centering the video experience around viewers rather than around video
hosting companies. That’s not what the venture capitalists want, but blogs aren’t
what they wanted either (they wanted web portals).
Putting viewers at the center means giving everyone who wants to watch video a
homebase where they can access videos from any hosting service or website. For
miscellaneous videos, like the ones that have made YouTube so popular, this means
a search engine that gives results from any service and let’s you watch what you find
without jumping around from site to site.
For more serious videos — stuff that’s produced by known creators on a regular
basis (like a daily or weekly show) — the best homebase is an RSS aggregator. The
can be a desktop application (like the one we make) or a web-based aggregator. The
16
important thing is that viewers can pull together video from anywhere on the web.
This separation of hosting services and viewing services is crucial: viewers could
care less where the video is hosted, as long as they can watch it. A separation leaves
publishers free to choose the hosting service that fits their needs best. If they like the
elegant user interfaces of Blip or Vimeo, they go there. If they like the opportunity
to earn money with Revver, they go there. If they want to offer ultra-high resolution
video, they might host torrents on MoveDigital. Or maybe they want to control
their videos even more closely and host them on their own website (as Rocketboom
appears to do). With RSS, publishers can be in control.
All that said, I understand why services like Blip have been reluctant to push feeds.
Websites are the bread and butter of most internet companies and page views are
next to godliness. Promoting your RSS feeds is counterintuitive: why would you
encourage users to leave your website? You should, because small services can’t and
won’t beat YouTube and Google and MySpace at the web game. Those companies are
too big, too well funded, and have hired too many talented people that will continue
to improve their service. You are better off getting your viewers to subscribe to your
content while you have them. In this way, video RSS lets hosting services innovate
to attract publishers.
This is not strictly an either/or choice. Smaller hosting services and individual video
creators can start pushing video RSS while still offering a great user experience on
the web. In the long run, however, video RSS will be the key to success for small and
mid-sized hosting companies.
Here’s one more way to look at it: most viewers will go to YouTube if they are just
looking for something to watch. It makes sense — YouTube has the most stuff. So
when you, a video hosting service, do happen to get a viewer on your site (because
they followed a blog link or someone emailed them a video) you want to try to keep
them connected, even if you don’t expect them to spontaneously come back to your
website. Getting them to subscribe to a feed is the best way to do that. 4: How You
Can Make the Future of Television Open and Awesome
If you cringe at the thought of online video becoming a ‘walled garden’ like MySpace
is or dial-up AOL was and YouTube wants to be, start pushing things in the right
direction it.
Viewers: try a video RSS application like Miro or FireANT. Both have BitTorrent
support, can show high-resolution video, and have built-in video search. This isn’t
just good medicine, it’s honestly the best online video experience you can find.
Creators: no matter where you host your content, encourage your users to subscribe
to your video RSS feed. That way, they don’t have to remember to check your
17
website, they’ll get your stuff delivered right to their desktop — you’ve got them for
good. Serious video creators need rss because it lets them connect directly with their
audience.
Hosting Companies: create RSS feeds for everything (users, tags, popular videos, etc).
Put RSS subscribe buttons prominently on every page and explain to your viewers
what it means and why they would enjoy watching with a video application.
Advocates: video online has had a 2nd rate reputation with the tech elite. It seems a
little trashy and has tended to appeal to the lowest common denominator. But that’s
changing. Truly excellent video channels are poppingup. Don’t forget that television
is the most important mass medium in our culture — when you talk about Open
Source, open standards, Firefox, net neutrality, xhtml/css, blogosphere and netroots,
you should also be talking about video over RSS.
Nicholas Reville is Executive Director of the Participatory Culture Foundation, which
makes the Miro platform (http://www.getmiro.com).
Contact: [email protected]. For more, read the Miro blog (http://www.getmiro.com/
blog/).
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Public Domain License. Please use it
as you’d like, with or without attribution.
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2.3. Free media vs. free beer
by Andrew Lowenthal
The free beer Richard Stallman loathes is everywhere. Media companies are currently
falling over themselves to produce the new hive for user generated content. The names
have rapidly become common place — YouTube, MySpace, Flickr — and their affect
has been enormous, dramatically changing the production and distribution of media
globally. Free beer pours from the taps of these new hubs of participatory media
as they clamor to get you in the door. But free beer, as Free Software Foundation
founder Richard Stallman has always emphasised, is not the same as freedom. The
Free Software Foundation has a stock standard one liner about what free software
is and is not: “free as in free speech, not as in free beer”. That is free software is
not about price, but liberty. Free software is software that may be freely shared and
modified, generally on the basis that those modifications also be made available to
others. The defining document for free software is the GNU General Public License
(GNU GPL).
Free software is the philosophical Genesis of a much broader set of practices that
seek to empower the user and challenge the limitations of the proprietary model
in the realm of software, culture, media, politics, science and more. The model and
ethics of free software production can be ported to a range of other realms. I will
explore two activist media and software projects I am involved with that attempt to
embody free software principals and challenge the proprietary model.
They are; EngageMedia.org (http://www.engagemedia.org) — an Australia-based free
software project and video sharing site for social and environmental justice film
from Southeast Asia, Australia and the Pacific. Transmission.cc (http://transmission.
cc) — a new global network of social change online video projects co-founded by
EngageMedia. But first...
What’s not free about free beer? The spread of affordable media production equipment
combined now with a global online distribution network provides grassroots
media makers with an amazing opportunity. This ground breaking shift cannot be
understated, however many of these new distribution networks are a double edge
sword, on one side liberating, on the other representing a new nexus of control.
Many of the new commercial media sharing sites offer highly restrictive terms and
conditions on their user contributions. The most dubious is that of YouTube who
state
“…by submitting the User Submissions to YouTube, you hereby grant YouTube
a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicenseable and transferable
license to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, and
19
perform the User Submissions in connection with the YouTube website and
YouTube’s (and its successor’s) business… in any media formats and through
any media channels.”
By uploading to YouTube you grant them the right to do near anything with your
video, including modifying and selling it, as long as your submission stays on their
site.
Even as it appears the big players are giving up control by opening their sites to
user contributions there remains a strong desire to control the content as much
as possible. There are some exceptions, Flickr for example does allow you to add
Creative Commons licenses to your photos.
Creative Commons is a form of ‘Open Content Licensing’ that derives its roots
from the principals of free software. Creative Commons allows users to specify on
what basis their work may be shared, for example whether or not the work can be
modified, used for commercial purposes or only non-commerical purposes. Whilst
more conservative than the GNU GPL, Creative Commons situates itself as part
of the ‘free culture movement’ and seeks to lessen the restrictions of traditional
copyright by creating a more ‘flexible’ copyright regime. Communities for Sale The
acquisition of YouTube by Google in 2006 for 1.65 billion US dollars highlighted just
how much money is at stake in this arena and just how big the gap is between those
making fortunes and those making media. The work of the founders and employees
of YouTube, whilst responsible for creating the infrastructure that allowed others to
publish, represents only a fraction of the work that made the site such a wild success.
Literally millions of people added videos, comments, promoted the site, built profiles
and more, all creating value for the company and enhancing the experience of other
users. All of these users should be paid for their contributions given the wealth they
generated, none have, though YouTube has recently announced plans to create some
kind of revenue sharing model. It’s either this or lose market share.
Up until a few years ago the idea of building a site based on user generated content
was a fringe idea that worked counter to the ‘in control’ philosophy of most business
practices. Additionally there was no ‘business model’ for this type of site. How
could you make money providing free hosting and distribution for other people’s
content?
One of the key business models for these “Web 2.0” start ups has been the basic idea
of providing an infrastructure and technology for users and then selling those eyes
to advertisers and the contributor community to a larger company — it happened
with Flickr, YouTube, MySpace and more. There is a huge rush of companies trying
to create the next big site to bring in the people and make their pot of gold. Users
need to become far more savvy as to the imbalance in power that is being generated
and who they are helping make millionaires.
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Most of these platforms offer a simple trade off, distribution, storage, membership
in a community and an audience in exchange for advertising next to your content.
You provide the reason for coming to the site, they provide the infrastructure. This
situation however mirrors the current exploitation of artists in many other fields;
you get an opportunity at a slice of the pie but you must provide your work for free
or almost nothing just to prove yourself. It’s like being on permanent provisional
employment. “We (might) make you famous, just give us your talent and we’ll see.”
If we think of online media in terms of the public sphere we can see that it has very
quickly become ‘mallefied’, that is public debate has moved, just like the town square
to the shopping centre, to a privatised and commercialised space.
Sites like YouTube, Google Video and MySpace employ a ‘hoarding architecture’
that provides only a form of fake sharing.These sites severely limit what you can
and cannot do with the media you upload and view. For example YouTube doesn’t
enable you to download the videos on their site (there’s a small hack you can get
that will allow you to do this but it isn’t official), only embed them in your blog with
YouTube branding. As such you can only share through YouTube and the videos are
of such low quality they are almost useless offline. You can’t control how your video
is encoded and instead get left with a generic low resolution Flash Video version, a
proprietary codec that Macromedia control. You can’t subscribe to feeds of other
users videos off-site (video podcasting) only through the YouTube site — where
you’ll of course get to view many ads.
Added to this, and this applies to even the more ‘progressive’ companies, the software
used to run the site is entirely proprietary and not available to you the user to share
and improve upon lest you go and build your own site.
With all these limitations why do people publish to these sites rather than ones that
are more likely to respect their rights? One key reason is the ubiquity they’ve been able
to establish — YouTube and MySpace are the names that get thrown around most in
mainstream media and as such many people just don’t know about the alternatives.
They’ve reached such a scale as to be able to offer potentially huge audiences, if
you dont get lost in the noise every other contributor is making. Additionally the
massive resources these companies command means they can offer features many
smaller initiatives can’t, and implement them much more quickly.
What’s concerning and puzzling however is the apoliticism with which many
independent media creators approach these sites. Even with the knowledge that
Rupert Murdoch owns MySpace somehow it doesn’t seem as corporatised and
controlled as the ‘old media’.
The degree to which people’s critiques of these new media corporations have
been disarmed is highly alarming. People are happy to make the compromise for
21
the additional features and the larger audience — it’s hard to blame them and we
shouldn’t make apologies for badly designed but politically correct sites. All this adds
up however to a more subtle form of control that is in many ways more exploitative
than the passive consumerism of television — online video demands your creativity,
thoughts and feelings, and then sells them — television just asks you to be a passive
receiver of information and sells you to an advertiser. With media sharing sites you
become an underpaid (if paid at all) precarious contractor who produces content
while others make millions.
When is there going to be a stronger reaction to it all? One could imagine unions
of media makers going on a content strike, demanding pay increases — or any
kind of payment — for their work. It sounds unrealistic in many senses but not
unwarranted. Unfortunately the major players have such massive audiences that the
balance of forces is squarely in their favour, especially until people realise the bad
deal they are getting. Resistance currently takes place within the framework of the
market; those unhappy with the current state of affairs move to friendlier spaces, or
if they have the skills and energy, to produce their own sites that promote a different
ethic of collaboration and sharing.
Free Media Models For many years one of media activisms cornerstones was the
idea that dissenting and minority voices were denied the ability to have their issues
heard due to their exclusion from mass media channels. The answer was to build
alternative media infrastructures — magazines, newspapers, radio and television
stations, that would act as ‘the voice of the voiceless’ or to campaign for space within
the mainstream. Access was the panacea for injustice — if only people could have
their voices heard society would change.
This idea was pushed to it’s limits with the birth of the Indymedia network and
it’s open publishing philosophy which stated “Open publishing is the same as free
software” — the title of the seminal article written by Sydney based Indymedia
activist Maffew.
In late 1999 when Indymedia was born there were few places that allowed non-geeks
to publish their content online. Open Publishing was a radical idea that aimed to
bridge the divide between the have and have nots by democratising media access.
Using a piece of free software called “Active” suddenly anyone with net connection
could publish their thoughts to thousands of others with little or no editorial control.
The possibility for making your own media and reaching a large audience at zero
cost was suddenly available.
Indymedia’s tagline of ‘don’t hate the media, become the media’ has now been
realised. Apple, MySpace, Google, YouTube and more all want us to ‘become the
media’ — and they want us to buy their products to create it and put their advertising
next to what we create.
22
The web itself has become ‘Open Publishing’ and access is no longer the issue. Those
using media as a tool for social change need to start asking new questions. How
does community and activist media define itself now that one of it’s core aims has
been fulfilled? How are the processes of production different or antagonistic to the
commercial sphere? What social relations are being sought between users and how
do they translate to the offline world? How can these ‘free media’ projects directly
affect social change, or support work towards it?
The issue now is ‘who controls this media, this community, the money it generates,
its infrastructure and its technology’? Fundamentally the question is one of selfmanagement and democracy. As the old saying goes, “‘we don’t want a slice of the
cake, we want the whole bakery.”
Some basic principals for “free media” If we are looking to create media and
infrastructures that are free as in freedom, not as in beer, what core principals do we
need? The list below shouldn’t seen as an exhaustive however they might be useful
to assess how much any given project seeks to control it’s users, and how much it is
controlled by its users.
Those key elements are ability to add open content licenses to your work transparent
and democratic editorial processes. use of free software to run the website with the
code available for others to make improvements to. use of free software codecs
revenue sharing if the initiative is a for-profit entity. ability to download, redistribute,
screen and remix works, including the ability to download and share via open source
protocols such as p2p networks. a guarantee not to sell you and your community
to the highest bidder. Practical Examples Within EngageMedia we are attempting
to incorporate most of the above principals. As a small group of just four people
initially and having no budget we immediately went looking for some free software
to run the site we wanted. We found very quickly however that the software that did
exist either had very few features, a small or non-existent developer community or
had not yet been customised to really handle video. As such we set out to adapt a
free software Content Management System (CMS) — Plone — to be able to handle
video. We soon discovered others doing the same thing and were able to join forces
and share code which gave momentum to our respective projects.
Inadvertently we found ourselves spending the first 1.5 years as software developers,
rather than running a video sharing website. Building the system from scratch
however would have taken years longer, making the code we wrote closed would
have meant others couldn’t build on and improve our work. Despite taking so long
to launch our site we now have a ‘free’ system we can offer to other video projects.
The software is by no means perfect but the more people that use it the better it gets
and the more quickly the problem of producing a sophisticated video CMS is solved.
To control it means only slows it’s evolution.
In the course of looking for software to adopt we noticed another thing; almost
23
every activist online video project was using a different CMS — and most of them
were written from scratch. With little collaboration going on they were able to offer
very few features to their users and improvements were very slow. People weren’t
communicating, everyone was re-inventing the wheel and we were all being less
effective.
On this basis in June 2006 EngageMedia collaborated with the Italy’s CandidaTV
to put on Transmission — a gathering of around 40 people from 25 different free
software activist video projects from Korea, Australia, Argentina, the US, Malaysia
and a range of European countries, at the Forte Prenestino Social Centre in Rome.
For four days we discussed ways in which we could collaborate better and attempted
to find common ground. At the end of the four days we agreed to form an ongoing
network and to work on a range of common projects that would take us all forward
collectively.
Those projects included among others creating a common meta-data standard
to allow greater sharing of content between projects a wiki based common
documentation repository where organisations could work together to create open
content licensed tutorials on online video closer collaboration on some of the CMSs
currently in use a global database of video screening organisations development of a
collaborative subtitles and translation tool the development of tools to facilitate the
uptake of free software codecs The social relations built on by these projects through
there use of free software and open content licensing are dramatically different to
their commercial counterparts. Instead of dependence and control we have free
collaboration, sharing and a true many-to-many model. But the benefits are not just
ethical. Beyond a close affiliation between free software principals and progressive
politics, this type of collaboration also makes sense for groups with limited means
as a more efficient mode of production, the ethics do not sit outside the form of
production but are integrated within it: sharing is not a moral imperative but a
better way of doing things. Competition and selfishness work are counter-intuative
in this context, collaboration and solidarity become the principals that spur on
improvement and build different social relations in the here and now.
The explosion of user generated content is a major crack in the passivity that has
been fostered by both governments, media, political parties and business over the
last 100 years. The one-to-many model is being usurped by the many-to-many, the
masses are replaced by the network, command by collaboration. We are only just
scratching the surface, the desire to control and exploit has certainly not ended, but
has shifted to a new phase. New antogonisms emerge in this space, demanding the
abilty to participate meaningfully in the construction of everyday life, not just to
choose between a series of choices. The future remains open.
This essay was commissioned by d/Lux/Media/Arts 2007 as part of the Coding Cultures
Handbook. CC license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
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2.4. Video, education, and open content
Notes toward a new research and action agenda by Peter B. Kaufman
This paper puts forward some ideas about the new energies now visible at the
intersection of moving images, education, and open content. In this paper, I provide
an outline for a strategic research and action agenda for the academy, librarians,
curators, producers, distributors, and others stakeholders — including stakeholders
focused on open content — in this curious age of YouTube.
Relevant global trends
In 2005 and 2006, national governments and multilateral governmental institutions
began to engage in massive digitization and preservation efforts meant to affirm
the centrality of moving images and recorded sound for understanding modern
society. This point is vital: it contextualizes what detractors might characterize as the
ostensibly parochial preservation activities of libraries and cultural and educational
institutions around moving images and recorded sound. The BBC Creative Archive,
for example, launched in April 2005 to provide the U.K. public with access and
rights to digitized BBC material, and then joined forces with other innovative U.K.
institutions — Channel Four, the British Film Institute, the Open University, others
— contributing moving image and recorded sound material. The BBC Archive,
an older repository of some one million hours of television and radio programs,
announced in December 2006 the launch of its larger-scale “consumer trial,” set to
provide the British public in early 2007 with access to digitized collections of legacy
recordings. In late 2006, the Dutch government launched a massive digitization and
preservation initiative comprising almost 300,000 hours of film, television, and radio
recordings and three million photographs in its so-called “Images for the Future”
program — with a Creative Commons licensing aspect, like the BBC Creative
Archive, and a similar collective approach involving the Netherlands Institute
for Sound and Vision, the Film Museum, Nederland Kennisland, the National
Archives, the Centrale Discotheek Rotterdam, and the Netherlands Association of
Public Libraries. In late 2006, the European Commission launched the ambitious
VideoActive project (http://videoactive.wordpress.com) involving 11 archives across
Europe that together represent collections of over 4.5 million hours of audio and
video from 1890 to the present.
The Japanese government is supporting far-reaching digitization and preservation
initiatives around audiovisual assets at state broadcaster NHK. Brazil, too, has joined
the cause. The Canadian government has done likewise with Canadian assets. Tens
of millions of people are expected to interact with these assets in the coming years
[1].
And what interaction. After what is already a breathtaking patch of time — Internet
25
Map of the archives involved in VideoActive. Source: http://videoactive.wordpress.com
years, in which scholars have begun to envision creating “an integrated, networked
cultural record”; librarians, curators, archivists, and the private sector have joined
forces with the objective of “creating universal access to knowledge anywhere and
everywhere”; librarians have begun speaking of building the “global digital library”;
and, museum curators have spoken of “heading toward a kind of digital global
museum” [2] — cultural and educational institutions are increasingly moving to
embrace even more remarkable social media and the power of what the technology
world calls Web 2.0 [3]. Path-breaking efforts such as JSTOR and ARTstor which
have brought text and images to millions of users are now being enhanced by
initiatives that permit educators and the public not only to access digital cultural
heritage material but to clip it, tag it, store it, and post it — or in the BBC Creative
Archive’s imperative slogan, “Find it. Rip it. Mix it. Share it. Come and get it.” [4]
The Smithsonian Institution, with 13 million photographs across 700 collections,
has launched (also in 2006) an online initiative to enable the public to copy, clip,
and manipulate classic images, and museums with equally (if undeservedly) fusty
reputations — the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Guggenheim Museum — have
joined in a new collective project (launched in 2006) meant to allow the public to
catalog museum art online with folksonomies that the public itself develops; open
source code underlies this avant-garde “Art Museum Social Tagging Project.” [5]
26
The longstanding Victoria and Albert Museum, if the point were to require any
reinforcement, has developed a database of more than 25,000 of its images to be
downloaded in similar fashion starting in 2007 [6]. The National Archives and
Records Administration, also in Washington, has launched the National Archives
“Experience,” opening up newly named “public vaults” of about 1,000 documents
(out of the Archives’ 10 billion paper records, 30 million photographs and three
million total maps and charts) to physical and online visitors in much the same vein
[7].
In this context, the demand and usage statistics for online video are astounding.
Over 100 million videos are watched on YouTube alone, every day [8]. The top
10 video-streaming sites (Fox Interactive [including MySpace], Yahoo, Google/
YouTube, Viacom, Time Warner, etc.) stream some four billion videos a month
[9]. More than half of today’s teenage population in the United States is regularly
producing and posting rich media online [10]. BitTorrent, the Internet protocol that
facilitates online sharing and distribution of video and audio, is the number-one file
format in use on the Internet worldwide today — accounting for an estimated 50
percent of internet use at any given moment in China, for example, and as much as
30 percent here at home [11].
In August 2006, Stanford Law School professor and social activist Larry Lessig, in
an almost Lutheran moment, declared that text — text, on which most of us were
raised and through which most of us communicate — is ... dead, that the written
word has become the “‘Latin’ of our modern times”; that the ordinary language,
the “vulgar” or vernacular language, the new language of the street is video and
sound; that the software suites that facilitate video and sound editing — Apple’s
iMovie, Adobe’s Premiere, Avid’s Pinnacle Studio, Yahoo’s Jumpcut, Sony’s Grouper,
Eyespot, VideoEgg, and a set of open source video editing tools, including Audacity;
Assemble; Cinelerra; GStreamer; Jahshaka; KinoDV; Linux Video Editing; and,
Pitivi — are essential “tools of speech” in the digital age [12]. What Lessig called a
shift in production and use — from “read-only” to “read/write” engagements with
source video — now includes millions of original new videos and mashups of classic
material posted on MySpace, YouTube and Google Video, AOL Video, Facebook,
and newer sites and platforms such as Revver [13]. It also includes so-called “remix”
initiatives that take expansive liberty with filmic media whose producers and
owners do not yet (maybe even ever) intend for that content to be ripped and mixed
and posted for free [14]. Journalists, investors, the academy, media companies, and
trend-trackers all have begun to chronicle, each in his own way, the public’s almost
insatiable demand for accessing and — equally — producing moving image content
[15]. Indeed, according to one estimate, almost half of all video online today is usergenerated [16].
With this veritably Sumerian numerology of Internet video — billions of videos,
27
tens of millions of users, thousands upon thousands of producers, not to mention
billions of dollars being paid to acquire online video companies [17] — it is becoming
clear that digitization and preservation initiatives for cultural materials are taking
place in the context of a new, exhausting cultural expectation: people believe they
have an access mandate, a new, almost inalienable right to work with video, as with
text, online. They have come to expect it. Producers and distributors of television
and films are now, necessarily, caught feeding this monster. Responses are visible
everywhere. In 2006, Nickelodeon, for one example, launched “TurboNick” and
other user-generated interactive/read-write video environments for the youngest
of the youngest of the young. The newly rebranded CW channel has launched the
“CW Lab” for users to create video mashups. In February 2007, for another, Conde
Nast will formally launch Flip.com, an online forum for girls (millions of them) to
create multimedia “flip books” full of video, photos, and other postings — mirroring
the looks of their school lockers and MySpace pages. Disney.com is revamping for
its early 2007 relaunch, readying mashup sites and other environments that take
full advantage of broadband distribution and social networking [18]. The New York
Times — the “old grey lady” of the media business — has begun to allow its leading
journalists to post their text, photos, and video reporting online and invite the
public to remix these articles [19]. Not to be outdone, non-media businesses such as
General Motors and Wal-Mart are sending their own camera crews into the field. As
a result of all this producing and hosting and sharing of video, the market for videoservice providers such as Cisco, Comcast, Akamai, and others, according to the Wall
Street Journal, is expected to grow tenfold over the next five years [20]. Now with
the arrival in January 2007 of Joost — “infinite choice ... combining the best of TV
with the best of the Internet,” from the founders of Skype and Kazaa — it may well
be “fair to say,” as one analyst put it, “that the democratization of video delivery is
officially under way.” [21]
In the field of culture and education, on which this essay focuses, it is clear that
librarians, curators, and educators generally who control access to moving images are
also throwing meat into the cage. In the United Kingdom, the British government is
digitizing explicitly for teaching, learning, and research 3,000 hours of television news
and cinema newsreels from the ITN Reuters Archive. “Newsfilm Online,” scheduled
to be completed and released in 2007, features downloadable moving image content
under licensing schemes allowing users to edit material to suit their own purposes.
These resources are being encoded simultaneously as Windows Media, Apple
QuickTime, and MPEG-2 files, supported by an extensive — and easily searchable
— database and supplemented by 450,000 pages of newsfilm bulletin scripts. This
is happening with the explicit goal of “mak[ing] the use of newsfilm as easy and
intuitive as it is for the written word.” [22] With the support of the William and Flora
Hewlett Foundation, Open University launched “OpenLearn” in October 2006 — to
make its video and other rich-media resources, many of which were produced in
association with the BBC, freely available online alongside learning-support and
28
social-media collaboration tools [23]. In the United States, universities from Yale
to UC Berkeley, Stanford, MIT, Arizona State, Duke, Michigan, Penn State, and the
University of Illinois (the list is lengthening) have launched a significant effort to
post new video of classes, lectures, and legacy holdings online, free [24]. American
television producer/broadcaster WGBH is now exploring an educational venture
to bring into fuller public access many of its productions, including the classic 13hour series “Vietnam: A Television History,” from 1983. WGBH owns the rights to
the material in 85 storage cartons, containing the original series plus over 600,000
feet of 16-mm film and corresponding sound track outtakes produced over six years
by the project in the United States and around the world, and also including stock
footage from 65 sources worldwide. The Special Collection Division of the Libraries
at Washington University in St. Louis, with 35,000 items in its Henry Hampton
collection, is now exploring new experiments with its 1,000 hours of film and video
from the public broadcasting documentaries — including 1987’s “Eyes on the Prize”
— that the legendary producer made for PBS in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s [25].
The National Archives in 2006 launched a pilot project to digitize and post online
historic public domain moving images from the Archives [26]. In late 2006, the
Corporation for Public Broadcasting issued a call for new “experiments” in the
realm of online video and education [27]. Public TV producer-stations ThirteenWNET and KQED are now launching educational experiments to explore how its
assets (programs on history, nature, and international affairs) can be deployed more
fluidly and systematically in the classroom.
Why is this important? Because students, faculty, museum visitors, library users and
others will be able to access all of this media, and work with it, and contribute to it
on an accelerating basis — the race, in fact, has started. Google’s Director of Content
Partnerships Jim Gerber puts it best. Since 1982, computer processing performance
has increased by a factor of 3,500; computer memory prices have decreased by a
factor of 45,000; and computer disk storage prices have decreased by a factor of 3.6
million. If this trend continues, as it surely will, then an iPod, or a device its size,
will be able to hold a year’s worth of video (8,760 hours) by 2012, all the commercial
music ever created by 2015, and all the content ever created (in all media) by 2020.
In other words, today’s children will be able to wear all of the media referenced
above — indeed, all the media ever created — around their necks when they reach
college. And whatever that device is, it’ll probably have a camera and microphone
to go with it. The portability of media archive and display and production devices
by that time will represent a technology shift as radical as that from the scroll to the
modern codex some 1,800 years ago [28].
Defining stakeholders
Libraries will be leading the broader movement of, and setting many of the
best practices and standards for, the collection, preservation, digitization, and
29
dissemination of these and other audio-visual resources, around the world. Indeed,
the Librarian of Congress has referred to the Library’s “awesome responsibility”
as the “world’s largest storehouse of knowledge,” the “mint record of America’s
creativity,” and the “strategic reserve of the world’s knowledge and information.” He
has told the Congress that the Library will create, early this century, a “plan for a
distributed national network for preserving and making accessible digital material.”
The Library is the world’s largest repository of knowledge and creativity, and a grand
symbol of American democracy. But as a twenty-first century Library publication
has pointed out, it is, at the same time, also the research arm of Congress; a protector
of creativity; a site on the Internet; an archive; a performing arts center; a reading
and literacy center; an exhibition gallery; a publisher; a conservator of national
traditions; and, a preservation lab [29].
In coming years, both the National Audio-Visual Conservation Center (NAVCC)
of the Library of Congress and the National Television and Video Preservation
Foundation (NTVPF) will represent the vanguard of the Library’s future achievements
with rich media, alongside other Library institutions such as the Office of Strategic
Initiatives and the National Digital Information Infrastructure Program (NDIIPP).
The mission statement of the NAVCC allows that the Center “develops, preserves,
and provides broad access to comprehensive and valued collection of the world’s
audiovisual heritage for the benefit of Congress and the nation’s citizens.” [30] With,
soon, over one million moving image collection items, including theatrical films
and newsreels, television programs, and educational, industrial, and advertising
material; nearly three million audio collection items, including commercial sound
recordings, radio broadcasts, and voice recordings of historical figures; and, over 1.7
million supporting documents, screenplays, manuscripts, photographs, and press
kits, it is essentially our national memory bank for the twentieth century — the first
real century of sound and movies.
Like the Library itself, the NAVCC is multifaceted and will serve multiple communities
simultaneously. It will be a service facility, where new conversion procedures will
be demonstrated, where new technologies can be tested, where service offerings
in digitization and preservation to other libraries and archives and commercial
companies in film, television, radio, and advertising can be developed and marketed;
a research and development lab, a kind of Xerox PARC for our audiovisual history,
where curators and scholars at the Library will continue to collaborate with
computer and information scientists in the academy and industry; a campus for
learning and teaching, where media use and media preservation programs will be
developed, tested, and taught with the physical and digital artifacts right at hand;
an exhibition center, where the Library will build on its tradition screening films
and other media; a publisher, bringing content out online and in physical media; a
production center and co-production partner two hours from the Capitol; even a
programmer/broadcaster, because in this world of new distribution networks such
30
as the Research Channel and the Science Channel, it will not be long before the
Library has its own digital channel (or channels) [31]. The dynamic language that
describes the NAVCC in official library documentation at the end of 2006 suggests,
and rightfully so, that this initiative is smarter than your average bear. The NAVCC
will, it is true, “provide collections access via electronic transmissions from Culpeper
to Capitol Hill,” but it also will broaden public accessibility and extend the Library’s
outreach to the public, partners, and customers through “innovative access models.”
It will provide a “test bed for the development of large-scale mass digital archiving
systems for sound and video collections”; it will incubate “cooperative ventures with
laboratories and archives”; indeed, it will be a “partnership factory for acquisitions,
preservation, and access.” [32]
The National Television and Video Preservation Foundation is “an independent,
non-profit organization” — a legal entity exists, but the thing is still being established
— “created to fulfill a long-standing need by raising private funds and providing
grants to support preservation and access projects at institutions with television
and video collections throughout the United States.” Work to secure the future the
NTVPF is being conducted through a collaborative effort involving public and
private sector individuals and institutions. Its creation was a key recommendation
in the Librarian’s landmark report, Television and Video Preservation 1997: A Study
of the Current State of American Television and Video Preservation. Its mission,
as defined on its Web site, is to “solicit and accept funds or in-kind preservation
services on behalf of non-profit and public archives expressly for American television
and video preservation and access; award funds or in-kind preservation services
through a grant program for worthwhile preservation and access projects, and
projects beneficial to the field and in the public interest; and conduct and coordinate
outreach activities to increase awareness of the importance of television and video
as a national resource and as an integral part of our cultural heritage.” [33]
For both institutions, representing as they do the future of moving images in the
United States and the world, it may be fair to say that parties currently interested and
possibly interested in their success will come from all walks of life. It would be fair
to say that every educational institution, cultural institution, business enterprise,
government agency, foundation, newspaper, blog, and magazine cited in this report
so far could be — should be — considered a stakeholder in their success. Generally
speaking, any company, any enterprise, and any venture fund with a screen to fill, an
engine to search, a pipe to send bytes down, or a chip to sell is a current or potential
stakeholder in the digitization and distribution, broadly defined, of the sorts of
materials that both these institutions focus on. This is especially true the more both
institutions promote experimentation and innovation [34].
To date, efforts to attract these stakeholders, especially those in education, media,
and technology, have been incomplete, hampered by a lack of resources and the
31
prevalence of tactical rather than strategic visions. While much excellent work has
been done has focused on communicating the message and objective of library
institutions to key constituencies [35] and audiences [36], a more expansive approach
to involving institutions in the ongoing work of cultural and educational institutions
may be one key to securing the commitment of all or most relevant stakeholders in
this busy time of change.
This is because the demand for learning and community is greater than ever, and
likely to be everlasting. Search YouTube for “House of the Rising Sun” (the hit
song performed by the British group The Animals in the 1960s), for example. Of
the 315 results accessed on 21 January 2007, some have been accessed more than
70,000 times, some more than 90,000 times, such as a classic video ripped from
U.S. cable station VH1 (at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPznuQb2VjI&mode=rela
ted&search=). Some video clips have about 100 comments; some have none; some
have been rated as a favorite by hundreds of viewers. Some people will, for free,
teach you, in their videos, how to play the song on the piano and the organ (http://
www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPsQ30JjO8M&mode=related&search=) and on the acoustic
and the electric guitar (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2smyS60VSm8; http://www.
youtube.com/watch?v=O0goQO6vvE8) some will just want to show you their artistry on
these instruments, or on the pedal steel guitar, the banjo, violin, ukulele, or just
with the vocals. Others will remix the tracks with pictures of hurricane-devastated
New Orleans (the song is set there) and add global warming-related images of Al
Gore (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgFPIeQRX-o) or just basic animation. Others
will post covers of the song by bands like Frigid Pink or singers like guitar legend
Chet Atkins, balladeer Tori Amos, reggae artist Gregory Isaacs (http://www.youtube.
com/watch?v=KQnyunGnvwY), and the Low Strung Cello Choir at Harvard’s Dunster
House (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vAE8mFfr5w), or from a “jam session as the
Pederson’s after Thanksgiving dinner” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Un3-FXORuA).
Some people will tell you Bob Dylan rendered it better than The Animals, others
will back Joan Baez; YouTube will allow you to see the three and compare (at http://
www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvPv85LnnKA and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDwKZir8ls). Some people will tell you lead singer Eric Burdon was too short; others will
(rightfully) swoon at his voice; some will debate over whether the song is an allegory
about various social issues or about New Orleans specifically; some will provide the
lyrics and the sheet music; and some will ask and argue over what kind of organ
keyboardist Alan Price was playing. You will learn about the likely provenance of the
song — theories range from a slave spiritual to an old English ballad to a folksong
from Kentucky. “JimWayne61” from Texas (apparently) tells us, in text accompanying
video of his playing it (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O84lmsFMA14) that:
Many people familiar with the song falsely believe that House of the Rising
Sun was written by The Animals. Small text inside their album “The Best of
the Animals,” released in 1966, reveals that it was only arranged by them.
32
The truth is Alan Lomax, in his 1941 book Our Singing Country, identifies
the authors as Georgia Turner and Bert Martin of Kentucky, though the true
history of the song dates back much further.
The debate will continue over whether the song was meant to be sung by a woman,
rather than a man (watching Baez is instructive on this point: “it’s been the ruin of
many a poor girl,” she sings; Lomax, indeed, field-recorded it as such); and people
will take issue with instructors over how many chords, in fact, there are. As the
comments — English, Greek, German, Italian — and clips (from German television
network NDR, home movies, clubs in Spain and Texas and New York and living
rooms and bedrooms) wash over you about one piece of a piece of a piece of culture,
you can’t help but think that this force is teaching you something about the power
of self-expression, the power of the crowd that Wikipedia [37] has begun to show us
— and that the demand for consuming and sharing moving-image information is
now fundamentally unstoppable.
A strategic agenda
With all this momentum behind the moving image, it is worth beginning to set
out a range of recommendations for video, education, and open content that could
involve the constellation of existing and potential partners from public institutions
and private enterprise — including all or most of those discussed here so far. The
opportunity to seize upon these connections, for the benefit of universities, etc.,
at this historic moment should not be squandered. Technologists, educators, and
media all have a stake in the success of video use in education in particular, and
especially as regards experimentation and innovation in this domain. But in many
cases they will need to be shown their own self-interest. This is especially true when
it comes to the sometimes counterintuitive universe of open content.
1. Establish a research center for the future of the moving image in education. A
research institute on the future of the moving image for education, culture, politics,
and the human condition generally could serve many of the interests below. Models
for innovative laboratories dealing in questions of the moving image range from
CBS Laboratories under General Sarnoff to Xerox PARC to Yahoo! Research Labs,
which Yahoo! established in association with UC Berkeley [38]. Such a facility would
require only modest investment, but could serve as a catalytic engine for progress
and networking with stakeholders at the cutting edge of technology, education, and
media. They would tie into research and activities around preservation and access
issues in the academy and other centers of learning. And the model of the think
tank may be a useful, flexible, and harmless way of involving select groups and
individuals to engage in (and invest in) this work while allowing them to benefit
from the prestige of engaging in an institute.
2. Launch new, self-consciously high-quality educational productions in television,
33
film, video, and radio. This will be useful to the field for three reasons. First,
productions in which cultural and educational institutions are involved from the
start will help the institutions develop strategies for the long-term preservation
of digital video, specifically as concerns so-called the “submission information
package” (or SIP) central to the NDIIPP projects (and future, more generic, projects)
on “Preserving Digital Public Television” and “Preserving Creative America.” (As
WNET/Channel 13’s Ken Devine has put it, one of the goals of these projects is to
create a “model archive” for public television. [39]) University of Virginia Libraries’
Robertson Media Center director Judith Thomas has written in a 2006 background
paper for one such new production involving a producer and a library: “Th[is] project
demands that the library no longer play a static custodial role, accepting ready-made,
complete collections, but rather an active participatory role, fully engaging in the
process of content creation. Issues affecting the actual collection of the content must
be resolved at the point of production and must inform technical and workflow
decisions from the outset.” [40] Second, as the Smithsonian’s Dan Sheehy noted at
a December 2006 Library of Congress hearing, when institutions become involved
in producing material with assets that are in their collections or ultimately reside
there (the Library’s Veterans History Project and NPR’s StoryCorps are two cases in
point), they increase the general public sense of value about these collections and
the importance of preserving them [41]. Third, it is a natural next step in the active
production initiatives of the Library exemplified today in the work of the Veteran’s
History Project, StoryCorps, and the folklorists at the American Folklife Center,
but also with older Library traditions in field recordings and oral and film history
projects — “audiovisual activism,” it has been called — when, for example, Library
folklorist and division chief Alan Lomax set out to record and produce histories
of black culture in the South in the 1930s, or when Librarian Archibald MacLeish
dispatched teams of producers to interview survivors of the attack on Pearl Harbor
and later sent his staff out into war with recorders to capture the sounds of battle.
It is the natural next step in the collaborative efforts that cultural and educational
institutions — and especially libraries — have engaged in with publishers of text,
images, sound, and video. These experiments could explore models of creative
underwriting and financing more generally — on the model of investment packages
that are built every day in the film industry [42]. To the extent these productions can
be coordinated and rationalized through a single studio, so much the better.
3. Develop a strategy for privileging library-, museum-, and university-sourced
moving images in the online chaos of the YouTube world. Associate Librarian of
Congress Deanna Marcum has noted that the “sheer volume” of digital material
on the Web is actually a barrier to progress. The Librarian of Congress has been
supporting the establishment of so-called “Knowledge Navigators” to help users
through the You zoo [43]. In the era of Yahoo Answers and Ask.com, what could a
video Knowledge Navigator look like? Imagine Knowledge Navigators locating and
annotating a piece of sound or video for institutional constituents online.
34
4. Support a research fellows programs, bringing specialists to cultural and
educational institutions to work with video in particular. The range of disciplines is
broad (it can even include lawyers).
5. Publish research papers systematically on these topics — those geared to specialist
communities such as ones served by the Council on Library and Information
Resources as well as newer groups such as the Journal of Digital Information [44]
and then also public interest magazines, blogs, and video.
6. Design college-level and K-12 courses around these initiatives.
7. Launch standards and best practices workshops for moving image questions,
on the model of what the Colorado Digital Preservation initiative does with its
workshops in text, images, and now audio (see http://www.cdpheritage.org/workshops/
workshopDetails.cfm?all and http://www.cdpheritage.org/index.cfm).
8. Explore experimentation around with large data sets or digital material, possibly
partnering with governmental agencies like the National Science Foundation and
schools such as the University of Illinois’ Graduate School of Library and Information
Science (the research agenda is online at http://www.lis.uiuc.edu/research/areas.html).
The Librarian of Congress indicated to Congress, for example, that the NAVCC will
present to the world a “new paradigm of producing and managing computer-based
digital data.” [45]
9. Support the establishment of the American Archive — a new initiative now being
born in a partnership between the Library of Congress and public broadcasting. The
“American Archive” — not unlike the British “Creative Archive” equivalent — will
be built out of a legislative proposal now in development to preserve by digitizing,
cataloguing and clearing programming content so the American public will have
much greater access to it. The project avowedly has “enormous implications for
education.” [46]
10. Last, but immediately, release moving image and recorded sound material for
the public to engage with. By engaging the public in producing material, from a
short mashup — such as those that the BBC Creative Archive, WGBH’s Sandbox
initiative, and Creative Commons sponsor — to fuller pieces, the institutions cited
in this essay will help to generate an awareness by all key communities that they are
now among the hippest institutions online [47].
These recommendations are set forth to sound appealing, to interlock and be crosspollinating. In conclusion, the opportunity is ripe at the start of 2007 to embark
on a bold strategy of envisioneering in this area. The unifying concept behind all
of the initiatives remarked upon above — whether they are test beds, R&D efforts,
innovations, laboratories, factories, task forces, commissions, working groups, study
35
groups, projects, institutes, initiatives — is that the future is unknown, and we have
to try to understand it. We have to encourage experimentation in the library, in
the academy, in business, in publishing, in the museum — in short, everywhere —
involving video and recorded sound. Media scholar Lev Manovich has written that
there is a profound need today for more “rational experimentation” on the order of
what Bauhaus and the Russian constructivist media avant-garde conducted with the
new media of their time — photography, film, new print technologies, telephony
— back in the 1920s. Manovich’s calls for “systematic, laboratory-like research” into
new media elements and their “basic compositional, expressive, and generative [one
might add production] strategies” warrant an answer [48].
To reemphasize one part of a point from the discussion above, “scholarly
communication may well stand to lose more by failing to experiment than from
experiments that fail.” [49]
Peter B. Kaufman is president and CEO of Intelligent Television (http://www.
intelligenttelevision.com) and associate director of Columbia University’s Center for New
Media Teaching and Learning (http://ccnmtl.columbia.edu). This essay draws upon his
work as an expert consultant to the Library of Congress’s Moving Image, Broadcast,
and Recorded Sound Division and as a member of the American Council of Learned
Societies Commission on Cyberinfrastructure in the Humanities and Social Sciences.
Notes
1. For the BBC, see http://www.bbc.co.uk/thefuture/pdfs/bbc_bpv.pdf; http://creativearchive.bbc.co.uk/; and http://
www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2006/12_december/15/archive.shtml; for the Netherlands, see
http://www.beeldenvoordetoekomst.nl/home.html; for VideoActive, see http://videoactive.wordpress.com/2006/
09/10/6/#more-6; for Japan and Brazil, see http://www.ptvdigitalarchive.org/; and for Canada, see http://
archives.cbc.ca/info/apropos_en2.shtml.
2. All quoted in Our Cultural Commonwealth: The Report of the American Council of Learned Societies
Commission on Cyberinfrastructure for the Humanities and Social Sciences (New York: American
Council of Learned Societies, 2006), pp. 11-12.
3. See Tim O’Reilly, “What is Web 2.0? Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation
of Software,” at http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html.
4. See http://creativearchive.bbc.co.uk/index.html (emphasis added). For more on this theme, see Peter B.
Kaufman, “Creative Fuel for the Nation: Unlocking Television, Film, and Radio for the Public,”
remarks at the launch of the BBC Creative Archive (13 April 2005), at http://creativearchive.bbc.co.uk/
news/archives/2005/04/transcript_pete_1.html.
5. For the Smithsonian’s Photography Initiative, see http://photography.si.edu/; for the Steve Museum
project, see http://www.steve.museum. The Smithsonian as a whole is redefining the museum-goer
experience as a “conversation.” The director of the National Portrait Gallery, Marc Pachter, speaks
of the portraits being collected today as “delivery systems of personality.” “I think of coming to the
gallery as an encounter between lives,” Pachter says. “You’re not coming just to look at brushstrokes.”
See Arthur Lubow, “Speaking of Art,” Smithsonian, volume 37, number 4 (July 2006), p. 52.
6. See “Image Is Everything,” Chronicle of Higher Education (15 December 2006), p. A17. The
Museum of Modern Art in New York has put images of 5,600 works — out of a total of 150,000
36
— online. To give some sense of impact and receptivity, the Museum’s online gallery had some
two million unique visits in 2006 — only 500,000 fewer than the number of actual visitors to the
physical museum on West 53rd Street in Manhattan. See “Downloads,” Wall Street Journal (30-31
December 2006), p. P2.
7. See http://www.archives.gov/national-archives-experience/ and http://www.archives.gov/historical-docs/.
8. Sara Kehaulani Goo, “Google Gambles on Web Video,” Washington Post (10 October 2006), at http://
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/09/AR2006100900546.html. For examples, see
Paul Boutin, “Videos that Put YouTube.com on the Map,” NPR (19 October 2006), at http://www.
npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6289141.
9. Out of seven billion total. See Comscore’s newly launched “VideoMetrix” service results at http://
www.comscore.com/press/release.asp?press=1035 and “Comscore: MySpace Leads in Video” (19 October
2006), on the “Lost Remote” blog online at http://www.lostremote.com/2006/10/19/comscore-myspaceleads-in-video/. Internet Archive Board of Directors Chairman Rick Prelinger asked on the AMIA
listserv: “How is this being collected? How can it? ... Will some civic-minded Fox Interactive
employee call a messenger and truck a bulging video server farm over to UCLA for safekeeping
on a bright morning in 2018?” Fox is concerned with monetizing this material. See Georg Szalai,
“Chernin: Online Already Off Charts,” Hollywood Reporter (10 January 2007).
10. See Lee Rainie (founding director of the Pew Internet & American Life Project), “Life Online:
Teens and Technology and the World to Come,” speech to the Public Library Association, Boston
(23 March 2006), at http://www.pewinternet.org/ppt/Teens%20and%20technology.pdf; and Henry Jenkins,
“Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century”
(Chicago: The MacArthur Foundation, 2006), at http://www.digitallearning.macfound.org/atf/cf/
%7B7E45C7E0-A3E0-4B89-AC9C-E807E1B0AE4E%7D/JENKINS_WHITE_PAPER.PDF.
11. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitTorrent.
12. Lessig is founder of Creative Commons. For video of Lessig’s speech, see http://video.google.com/
videoplay?docid=-1926631993376203020. For more on this trope, see Peter B. Kaufman, “Teaching
in the New (Video) Vernacular” and Mark Phillipson, “Teaching in the New Vernacular: Video
as a Participatory Medium,” remarks presented at the Coalition for Networked Information Fall
Forum 2006, Washington, D.C. (5 December 2006), at http://www.cni.org/tfms/2006b.fall/abstracts/PBteaching-kaufman.html. I am indebted to Jonah Bossewitch for the initial reference and to Bossewitch,
Frank Moretti, Anders Pearson, Mark Phillipson, and Michael Preston at Columbia University’s
Center for New Media Teaching and Learning for intensive discussions of this issue. See also Scott
Kirsner, “Camera. Action. Edit. Now, Await Reviews,” New York Times (15 June 2006). Kirsner’s
“CinemaTech” blog is at http://cinematech.blogspot.com/.
13. See Wired’s May 2006 “Guide to the Online Video Explosion,” at http://www.wired.com/wired/
archive/14.05/guide.html and especially what Wired calls its “Mee-Vee Guide” in “The New Networks,”
at http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.05/networks.html.
14. The Free Culture initiative at New York University, for example, has posted links to the shops selling
film DVDs of The Matrix, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and Harry Potter — four trilogies — and
encouraged users to purchase these properties and then rip and mash up the contents in ways that
they see fit. The point is to use parody to illustrate tensions and ambiguities in the 1976 Copyright
Act, 1996 Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and 1994 Supreme Court case Campbell v. AcuffRose Music concerning “fair use.” “Brokeback to the Future” is worth watching. See http://www.
freeculturenyu.org/filmremix/.
15. See, for example, Bear Stearns’s analyst Spencer Wang, “The Long Tail: Why Aggregation and
Context and Not (Necessarily) Content are King in Entertainment,” at http://www.bearstearns.com/
bscportal/research/analysts/wang/112706/Slide1.htm.
16. See Reuters, “User-Generated Web Sites in Clicks-to-Cash Dilemma” (15 January 2007), at http://
today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=businessNews&storyid=2007-01-15T162549Z_01_L1564948_
RTRUKOC_0_US-VIDEO-EARNINGS-OUTLOOK.xml&src=rss.
17. While much attention was paid to Google’s purchase of YouTube for approximately US$1.65 billion
in 2006, the real 2006 deal involving online video was Cisco Systems’ closing the acquisition of
37
Scientific Atlanta for US$6.9 billion. See Marguerite Reardon, “Cisco Closes Scientific Atlanta Buy,”
at CNET’s News.com (http://news.com.com/Cisco+closes+Scientific-Atlanta+buy/2110-1036_3-6043542.
html). James McDonald, Scientific Atlanta’s CEO, has described the “typical” American home as
one with “three or more televisions, one or more PCs, and a variety of stereo, DVD, and videogame
products.” No wonder U.S. households “requested more than one billion video sessions” in 2005.
See his essay, “The Intelligent Video Network,” at http://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/tln/newsletter/2006/june/
index.html. See also Tech Trader, “Why It’s Too Early to Walk Away from Cisco,” Barron’s (15-19
January 2007).
18. See http://www.nick.com/turbonick/ and the new CW Mash Maker at http://lab.cwtv.com. News of Flip.com
came the same year that Time Inc. closed the print edition of Teen People and Hachette Fillipacchi
Media shut down ELLE-Girl. See Sarah Ellison and Emily Steel, “To Lure Teens to Its Latest Web
Site, Conde Nast Turns to the ‘Flip Squad’,” Wall Street Journal (19 December 2006). Also in 2006:
Hearst Corp., publisher of Seventeen, Cosmogirl, and Teen, launched Mypromshopper.com — a
similar thing. See also Merissa Marr, “Updated Disney.com Offers Networking for Kids,” Wall
Street Journal (2 January 2007). In the fall of 2006, 30 million viewers clicked on online television
shows at Walt Disney’s Web site. See Emily Steel, “A Guide to Watching Network TV Online,” Wall
Street Journal (11 January 2007).
19. Two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Nicholas Kristof writes: “Here’s a link to a collection of columns,
videos, and photographs from my recent trip to Chad to covering the spread of the genocide in
Darfur. Take a look at the material and, if you’re interested, I’d like to see how you would’ve told
the story. Use some of the quotes, the stories, the facts and weave together your own column, essay,
article — or some other kind of quilt. I can imagine someone writing a poem, a song, a map, video
or audio slide show. Don’t let convention get in the way of your storytelling. And don’t feel as if
it needs to be long; hey, a haiku is sometimes more effective than an epic. I’m eager to see how
you’d approach things — what you’d do differently. I hope you do better — these stories are too
important to be told only once ... .” See “Your Turn to Tell the Story: Chad,” quoted in Jeff Jarvis’s
blog “BuzzMachine,” at http://www.buzzmachine.com/index.php/2006/12/22/the-remixed-times-thanks-tokristof/. Thanks to Peter Brantley for the reference.
20. From US$237 million in 2006 to US$1.87 billion in 2011. See Bobby White, “Firms Take a Cue from
YouTube,” Wall Street Journal (2 January 2007).
21. See Joost at http://www.joost.com. Analyst Colin Dixon is quoted in Chris Nuttall, “TV Viewers Poised
to Learn about Internet Protocol,” Financial Times (10 January 2007).
22. See http://newsfilm.bufvc.ac.uk/.
23. See http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/. Open University’s “LabSpace” is the “experimental zone” where
riveting new tools are being tested and demonstrated. See http://labspace.open.ac.uk/.
24. Berkeley’s leadership position on this front is evident at http://itunes.berkeley.edu/ and http://video.google.
com/ucberkeley.html. Obadiah Greenberg, a force behind this effort, kept a blog of his activity at http://
obie.wordpress.com/ (before Google hired him away in December 2006). Many of these university
initiatives are funded by the Hewlett Foundation. See a listing of many of them (including the
Open Education Video Project, based at Columbia University’s Center for New Media Teaching
and Learning) at http://www.hewlett.org/Programs/Education/OER/OpenContent/oerProposalsForReview.htm.
25. See http://www.lib.umb.edu/archives/wgbh.html and http://library.wustl.edu/units/spec/filmandmedia/hampton/
index.html. Fourteen hours of “Eyes on the Prize” were recently re-cleared for broadcast with support
from several foundations. See http://www.pbs.org/aboutpbs/news/20060114_eyesontheprize.html.
26. In partnership with Google Video. See http://video.google.com/nara.html and http://www.google.com/press/
pressrel/video_nara.html. “Heart of the Confederacy” from 1937 (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1361815282366651231&q=owner%3Anara+type%3Aparks) is priceless.
27. See “Public Television’s Approach to New Media,” at http://www.current.org/pbpb/documents/digitalrights-Sept06.pdf. PBS initiatives in 2007 are being watched closely at http://www.itvt.com/.
28. Gerber’s remarks were delivered the New York Public Library (18 January 2007); see http://www.
google.com/intl/en/events/unbound/index.html.
29. See “Testimony to Congress: Statement of James H. Billington, the Librarian of Congress, before
38
the Subcommittee on Legislative Appropriations, Committee on Appropriations, U.S. House of
Representatives, FY 2005 Budget Request, February 25, 2004,” at http://www.loc.gov/about/welcome/
speeches/budget/request2004.htm. See also The Library of Congress: Strategic Plan, Fiscal Years 20042008 (Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, 2004) and The Library of Congress: It’s More Than a
Library (Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, 2000). Emphasis added.
30. Gregory Lukow, “National Audiovisual Conservation Center,” presentation at AMIA annual
meeting, October 2006.
31. For more, see Peter B. Kaufman, “On Marketing the National Audio-Visual Conservation Center,
2007,” a paper prepared for the Library of Congress (5 June 2005).
32. Gregory Lukow, “National Audiovisual Conservation Center,” presentation at AMIA annual
meeting, October 2006 (emphasis added).
33. See http://www.ntvpf.tv/. For the Librarian’s 1997 report, see http://www.loc.gov/film/tvstudy.html.
34. See Peter B. Kaufman, “Marketing Culture in the Digital Age: A Report on New Business
Collaborations Between Libraries, Museums, Archives and Commercial Companies” (August
2005), at http://www.intelligenttelevision.com/marketingculture.htm. As the American Council of Learned
Societies recently put it, “Received wisdom on the limits of the market for ideas has been radically
reoriented by the rise of networked communities, and, at this point, scholarly communication may
well stand to lose more by failing to experiment than from experiments that fail.” See Our Cultural
Commonwealth, p. 26. On the impact of networked communities generally, see: Yochai Benkler,
The Wealth of Networks (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2006), at http://www.benkler.org/
wealth_of_networks/index.php/Main_Page. Video of Benkler presenting these ideas at a 2006 Intelligent
Television symposium is available at http://forum.wgbh.org/wgbh/forum.php?lecture_id=3005.
35. See in particular the research and publications from the Council on Library and Information
Resources, at http://www.clir.org/.
36. Jean-Noël Jeanneney, Google and the Myth of Universal Knowledge. (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 2006), writes: “After the collapse of Marxism, we have learned that cultural forces
weigh more heavily than material interests on the course of history ... .”
37. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_House_of_the_Rising_Sun.
38. A relevant November 2006 posting by Peter Brantley about the work of Yahoo! Research Labs is
here — http://ono.cdlib.org/archives/shimenawa/2006/11.html. In February 2007, Brantley assumed the
directorship of the Digital Library Federation.
39. Quoted in the reports from NDIIPP “wrapper roundtables,” at http://www.ptvdigitalarchive.org/ourwork/.
40. See Judith Thomas and Kimberly Tryka, “‘The South’: Bringing Production Footage into the Digital
Library” (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Library, November 2006), at http://www.thesouth.tv.
This is an Intelligent Television co-production. Another model involves Columbia University, at
http://ccnmtl.columbia.edu/harlemarchive/. See also other library productions sponsored by Intelligent
Television, at http://www.intelligenttelevision.com/productions.htm.
41. Dan Sheehy, testimony before the National Recording Preservation Board, New York (19 December
2006), at http://www.loc.gov/rr/record/nrpb/. Annette Melville, director of the National Film Preservation
Foundation, also has discovered this to be so. See Peter B. Kaufman, “Marketing Culture in the
Digital Age: A Report on New Business Collaborations Between Libraries, Museums, Archives and
Commercial Companies” (August 2005), at http://www.intelligenttelevision.com/marketingculture.htm.
42. “Song-hunting,” Lomax called it. See Alan Lomax, The Land Where the Blues Began (New York:
The New Press, 2002 [reprint]), p. 3, and the Library’s own account of Lomax, MacLeish and
others in Motion Pictures, Broadcasting, Recorded Sound: An Illustrated Guide (Washington, D.C.:
Library of Congress, 2002). For more on this vision, see Peter B. Kaufman, “The Educational
Television Studio,” remarks presented at the Hewlett Foundation’s “Advancing the Effectiveness and
Sustainability of Open Education” conference, Utah State University, Logan, Utah, (28 September
2005), and “Building a New Educational Television Enterprise,” presentation to the Coalition for
Networked Information Fall 2005 Task Force, Phoenix (6 December 2005), at http://www.cni.org/
tfms/2005b.fall/abstracts/PB-building-kaufman.html.
39
43. Marcum quotes Jane Greenberg of the School of Library and Information Science at UNC Chapel
Hill: “Never has there been such a wealth of valuable information accessible to the global public as
there is with the World Wide Web. It can also be argued, however, that never has there been such
an abundance of easily accessible information that is factually incorrect, misleading, and lacking
authentication.” See Deanna Marcum, “‘Whither Thou Turbid Wave?’ Digital Library Collections
and Consortia,” address to the annual meeting of the Triangle Research Libraries Network, Chapel
Hill (28 July 2006).
44. A perfect example is Jeff Ubois, “Finding Murphy Brown: How Accessible Are Television
Broadcasts?” Journal of Digital Information, volume 7, number 2 (2006), at http://journals.tdl.org/jodi/
article/viewArticle/jodi-177/0.
45. See “Testimony to Congress: Statement of James H. Billington, the Librarian of Congress, before
the Subcommittee on Legislative Appropriations, Committee on Appropriations, U.S. House of
Representatives, FY 2005 Budget Request, February 25, 2004,” at http://www.loc.gov/about/welcome/
speeches/budget/request2004.htm.
46. See “APTS Preps Proposals for American Archive,” at http://www.current.org/federal/fed0702apts.shtml.
47. Hip is cool. See John Leland, Hip: The History (New York: Ecco Press, 2004) and Henry Jenkins,
Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide (New York: New York University Press,
2006). WGBH’s Sandbox is at http://streams.wgbh.org/sandbox/.
48. Lev Manovich, The Language of New Media (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2001), pp. 15, 30.
Russian constructivists particularly appreciated what Manovich calls “factory logic” when working
with their new media. See also Christina Kiaer, Imagine No Possessions: The Socialist Objects of
Russian Constructivism (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2005).
49. Our Cultural Commonwealth, p. 26.
License: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
Originally published as “Video, education, and open content: Notes toward a new
research and action agenda” by Peter B. Kaufman, First Monday, volume 12, number
4 (April 2007), http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue12_4/kaufman/index.html.
40
2.5. A better way forward
Voluntary collective licensing of music file sharing; “Let the music play” white paper by The
Electronic Frontier Foundation
The current battles surrounding peer-to-peer file sharing are a losing proposition
for everyone. The record labels continue to face lackluster sales, while the tens of
millions of American file sharers—American music fans—are made to feel like
criminals. Every day the collateral damage mounts—privacy at risk, innovation
stymied, economic growth suppressed, and a few unlucky individuals singled out
for legal action by the recording industry. And the litigation campaign against music
fans has not put a penny into the pockets of artists.
We need a better way forward.
The Premises
First, artists and copyright holders deserve to be fairly compensated.
Second, file sharing is here to stay. Killing Napster only spawned more decentralized
networks. Most evidence suggests that file sharing is at least as popular today as it
was before the lawsuits began.
Third, the fans do a better job making music available than the labels. Apple’s iTunes
Music Store brags about its inventory of over 500,000 songs. Sounds pretty good,
until you realize that the fans have made millions of songs available on KaZaA. If the
legal clouds were lifted, the peer-to-peer networks would quickly improve.
Fourth, any solution should minimize government intervention in favor of market
forces.
The Proposal: Voluntary Collective Licensing
EFF has spent the past year evaluating alternatives that get artists paid while making
file sharing legal. One solution has emerged as the favorite: voluntary collective
licensing.
The concept is simple: the music industry forms a collecting society, which then
offers file-sharing music fans the opportunity to “get legit” in exchange for a
reasonable regular payment, say $5 per month. So long as they pay, the fans are free
to keep doing what they are going to do anyway—share the music they love using
whatever software they like on whatever computer platform they prefer—without
fear of lawsuits. The money collected gets divided among rights-holders based on
the popularity of their music.
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In exchange, file-sharing music fans will be free to download whatever they like,
using whatever software works best for them. The more people share, the more
money goes to rights-holders. The more competition in applications, the more rapid
the innovation and improvement. The more freedom to fans to publish what they
care about, the deeper the catalog.
The Precedent: Broadcast Radio
It has been done before.
Voluntarily creating collecting societies like ASCAP, BMI and SESAC was how
songwriters brought broadcast radio in from the copyright cold in the first half of
the twentieth century.
Songwriters originally viewed radio exactly the way the music industry today views
KaZaA users—as pirates. After trying to sue radio out of existence, the songwriters
ultimately got together to form ASCAP (and later BMI and SESAC). Radio stations
interested in broadcasting music stepped up, paid a fee, and in return got to play
whatever music they liked, using whatever equipment worked best. Today, the
performing-rights societies ASCAP and BMI collect money and pay out millions
annually to their artists. Even though these collecting societies get a fair bit of
criticism, there’s no question that the system that has evolved for radio is preferable
to one based on trying to sue radio out of existence one broadcaster at a time.
Copyright lawyers call this voluntary collective licensing. The same could happen
today for file sharing: Copyright holders could get together to offer their music in an
easy-to-pay, all-you-can-eat set. We could get there without the need for changes to
copyright law and with minimal government intervention.
The Money: Collecting It
Starting with just the 60 million Americans who have been using file-sharing
software, $5 a month would net over $3 billion of pure profit annually to the music
industry—no CDs to ship, no online retailers to cut in on the deal, no payola to
radio conglomerates, no percentage to KaZaA or anyone else. Best of all, it’s an
evergreen revenue stream—money that just keeps coming, during good times and
bad, so long as fans want digital music online. The pie grows with the growth of
music sharing on the Internet, instead of shrinking. The total annual gross revenues
of the music industry today are estimated at $11 billion. But that’s gross revenues. A
collective licensing regime for file-sharing can promise $3 billion in annual profits
to the record labels—more than they’ve ever made.
How do we get filesharers to pay up? That’s where the market comes in—those who
today are under legal threat will have ample incentive to opt for a simple $5 per
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month fee. There should be as many mechanisms for payment as the market will
support. Some fans could buy it directly through a website (after all, this was what
the RIAA had in mind with its “amnesty” program). ISPs could bundle the fee into
their price of their broadband services for customers who are interested in music
downloading. After all, ISPs would love to be able to advertise a broadband package
that includes “downloads of all the music you want.” Universities could make it
part of the cost of providing network services to students. P2P file-sharing software
vendors could bundle the fee into a subscription model for their software, which
would neatly remove the cloud of legal uncertainty that has inhibited investment in
the P2P software field.
The Money: Dividing It Up
The money collected would then be divided between artists and rights-holders based
on the relative popularity of their music.
Figuring out what is popular can be accomplished through a mix of anonymously
monitoring what people are sharing (something companies like Big Champagne and
BayTSP are already doing) and recruiting volunteers to serve as the digital music
equivalent of Nielsen families. Billions in television advertising dollars are divided
up today using systems like this. In a digital environment, a mix of these approaches
should strike the right balance between preserving privacy and accurately estimating
popularity.
The Advantages
The advantages of this approach are clear:
Artists and rights holders get paid. What’s more, the more broadband grows, the
more they get paid, which means that the entertainment industry’s powerful lobby
will be working for a big, open, and innovative Internet, instead of against it.
Government intervention is kept to a minimum: copyright law need not be amended,
and the collecting society sets its own prices. The $5 per month figure is a suggestion,
not a mandate. At the same time, the market will keep the price reasonable—
collecting societies make more money with a palatable price and a larger base of
subscribers, than with a higher price and expensive enforcement efforts.
Broadband deployment gets a real boost as the “killer app”—music file sharing—is
made legitimate.
Investment dollars pour into the now-legitimized market for digital music filesharing software and services. Rather than being limited to a handful of “authorized
services” like Apple’s iTunes and Napster 2.0, you’ll see a marketplace filled with
competing file-sharing applications and ancillary services. So long as the individual
43
fans are licensed, technology companies can stop worrying about the impossible
maze of licensing and instead focus on providing fans with the most attractive
products and services in a competitive marketplace.
Music fans finally have completely legal access to the unlimited selection of music
that the file-sharing networks have provided since Napster. With the cloud of
litigation and “spoofing” eliminated, these networks will rapidly improve.
The distribution bottleneck that has limited the opportunities of independent artists
will be eliminated. Artists can choose any road to online popularity—including, but
no longer limited to, a major label contract. So long as their songs are being shared
among fans, they will be paid.
Payment will come only from those who are interested in downloading music, only
so long as they are interested in downloading.
How does this help artists?
Artists benefit in at least three ways. First, artists will now be paid for the file sharing
that has become a fact of digital life.
Second, independent artists no longer need a record deal with a major label to reach
large numbers of potential fans—so long as you have any fans who are sharing your
music online, others will be able to access your music on equal footing with major
label content. In other words, digital distribution will be equally available to all
artists.
Third, when it comes to promotion, artists will be able to use any mechanism they
like, rather than having to rely on major labels to push radio play. Anything that
makes your works popular among file sharers gets you paid. There would still be a
role for the record industry—many artists will still want help with promotion, talent
development, and other supportive services. With more options for artists to choose
from, the contracts will be more balanced than the one-sided deals offered to most
artists today.
What about antitrust?
Because a collective licensing solution will depend on a single collecting society
issuing blanket licenses covering all (or nearly all) music copyrights, there will need to
be some antitrust regulation of the collecting society to ensure that it does not abuse
its market power. Both ASCAP and BMI, for example, have been subject to a courtadministered antitrust consent decree for many decades. The regulation need not be
extensive, as the collecting society will essentially be selling only a single product at
a single price to all comers. Regulators will keep a close eye on the collecting society
to make sure that it deals fairly with artists and copyright holders, most of whom
44
will rely on the collecting society for compensation for noncommercial filesharing.
How do we ensure accurate division of the money?
Transparency will be critical—the collecting society must hold its books open
for artists, copyright holders, and the public to examine. The entity should be a
nonprofit, and should strive to keep its administrative costs to a minimum. There
are examples of similar collecting societies in the music industry, such as ASCAP
and SoundExchange. We should learn from, and improve upon, their example.
Giving artists a bigger voice should help ensure that their concerns with the current
collecting societies are addressed.
When it comes to actually figuring out relative popularity, we need to balance the
desire for perfect “census-like” accuracy with the need to preserve privacy. A system
based on sampling strikes a good balance between these goals. On the one hand, in
a public P2P network, it is relatively easy to find out what people are sharing. Big
Champagne already does this, compiling a “Top 10” for the P2P networks. This kind
of monitoring does not compromise user privacy, since this monitoring does not tie
songs shared to individually identifiable information. At the same time, this general
network monitoring can be complemented by closer monitoring of volunteers who
will serve as the “Nielsen families” of P2P.
By combining these two methods, it should be possible to attain a high degree of
accuracy, protect privacy, and prevent “cheating.”
What if the music industry won’t do it?
The music industry is still a long way from admitting that its existing business
models are obsolete. But the current effort to sue millions American music fans into
submission is destined to fail. After a few more quarters of lackluster sales, with filesharing networks still going strong and “authorized services” failing to make up for
sliding revenues, the music industry will be needing a “Plan B.” We hope they will
see that voluntary collective licensing is the best way forward.
If, instead, they continue their war against the Internet and continue inflicting
collateral damage on privacy, innovation and music fans, then it may be time for
Congress to take steps to force their hand. Congress can enact a “compulsory license”
and create a collecting society to move us toward a sensible solution. Government
involvement, however, should be a last resort—the music industry has the power to
implement a sensible, more flexible solution right now.
What about artists who won’t join? How do we gather all the rights?
Artists and rights holders would have the choice to join the collecting society, and
thereby collect their portion of the fees collected, or to remain outside the society
45
and have no practical way to receive compensation for the file sharing that will
inevitably continue. Assuming a critical mass of major music copyright owners
joins the collecting society, the vast majority of smaller copyright owners will have
a strong incentive to join, just as virtually all professional songwriters opt to join
ASCAP, BMI or SESAC.
The complexity of music industry contracts and history make it very difficult for
record labels and music publishers to be sure what rights they control. Accordingly,
by joining the collecting society, copyright owners will not be asked to itemize rights,
but will instead simply covenant not to sue those who pay the blanket license fee.
In this way, music fans and innovators are not held back by the internal contractual
squabbles that plague the music industry.
What about file sharers who won’t pay?
The vast majority of file sharers are willing to pay a reasonable fee for the freedom
to download whatever they like, using whatever software suits them. In addition to
those who would opt to take a license if given the opportunity, many more will likely
have their license fees paid by intermediaries, like ISPs, universities, and software
vendors.
So long as the fee is reasonable, effectively invisible to fans, and does not restrict
their freedom, the vast majority of file sharers will opt to pay rather than engage
in complex evasion efforts. So long as “free-riding” can be limited to a relatively
small percentage of file sharers, it should not pose a serious risk to a collective
licensing system. After all, today artists and copyright owners are paid nothing for
file sharing—it should be easy to do much better than that with a collective licensing
system. Copyright holders (and perhaps the collecting society itself) would continue
to be entitled to enforce their rights against “free-loaders.” Instead of threatening
them with ruinous damages, however, the collecting society can offer stragglers the
opportunity to pay a fine and get legal. This is exactly what collecting societies like
ASCAP do today.
What about other countries?
Non-U.S. rights holders would, of course, be welcome to join the collecting society
for their fair share of the fees collected from American file sharers. As for file sharers
in other countries, there is every reason to believe that if a collective licensing
approach is successful in the U.S., it will receive a warm welcome and enthusiastic
imitation abroad.
A relatively small number of countries today account for almost all of the revenues
of the music industry. So establishing a collective licensing system in just a few
countries could turn around the downward spiral in music industry revenues. The
46
music industry already has an international “clearing” system for apportioning
payments between countries.
What about the authorized music services?
The “authorized music services” like Apple’s iTunes and Napster 2.0 would be free
to compete against the P2P services, just as they do today. In addition, they could
themselves adopt elements of P2P architectures, thereby dramatically expanding the
music inventories they could offer music fans.
What’s to stop the music industry from charging sky-high fees?
The enforcement costs faced by a collecting society for file sharing will keep prices
in line. After all, if the society attempts to charge too much, intermediaries won’t
be able to bundle the fees into the cost of their products ($5/mo. license on a $50/
mo. broadband account makes sense; trying to tack $100/mo. license, in contrast,
won’t work) and file sharers will likely rebel in droves. For example, when movie
studios charged $90 for a VHS movie, they faced widespread piracy. They learned
that, by lowering prices, they made more money and eliminated much of the piracy
problem. In other words, reasonable pricing makes the system work for everyone.
What about movies, software, video games, and other digital content?
The music industry is the only industry that appears to be unable to adjust their
business models to take file sharing into account. And it is the music industry that
has been leading the way in suing ISPs, software companies, and individual music
fans.
The movie industry, in contrast, is having its most profitable years in history. The
software and video game industries also continue to show strong growth and
profitability. Each one of these industries has taken steps to adapt their business
models to the realities of file sharing.
Of course, if other industries want to form voluntary collecting societies and
offer blanket licenses to file sharers, there is nothing to stop them from doing so.
Individuals would then be free to purchase the license if they were interested in
downloading these materials from the file-sharing networks.
This document is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs
license.
47
converge: manual
3. Manual
This manual has been compiled by Mick Fuzz (3.2.1; 3.2.2; 3.2.4; 3.4.1; 3.4.4; 3.4.5;
3.4.6; 3.4.7) and Adnan Hadzi (3.2.5; 3.3.1—3.3.6; 3.4.2; 3.4.3; 3.4.8; 3.4.9; 3.4.10),
and part-edited by Jonas Andersson.
3.1. How to publish and view video on the Internet
This guide has been created aimed to help people and groups distributing their own
audio-visual material for networking, public screening, redistributing via low tech
public video servers. These guides are task based rather than being based only on one
software application with the focus on explaining the use of the FLOSS (Free/Libre/
Open Source) software. This manual is remixed with manuals created through the
transmission network (http://www.transmission.cc) in collaboration with flossmanuals
(http://www.flossmanuals.net), ourvideo (http://ourvideocms.sourceforge.net), and Make
Internet TV (http://www.makeinternettv.org).
This chapter will outline tutorials by the following three categories:
• Watching video (section 3.2)
• Preparing video for the Internet (section 3.3)
• Publishing video with Internet-based distribution methods (section 3.4)
These categories form the backbone of these tutorials, as we felt that there was a
lack of clear documentation that didn’t take a certain level of user understanding for
granted in the area of digital distribution of video content.
We acknowledge that the categories are not exclusive and that some tutorials do
not fit neatly within the category in which they have been placed. The tutorials have
been written with an aim of being self-contained chapters. Where it is possible to
break up a work process into stages we have tried to do that. The reason for this is
so you can remix the tutorials and create PDF documents which you can print off in
your own order. This is ideal for training purposes when you need documentation
for one part of this process but not others.
You may wish to look at the Flash-based Tutorial finder mind map. It asks you diagnostic
questions and suggests a tutorial which should help you achieve what you want to
do if you are stuck.
If you have the means you may employ people who use commercial tools to do
the job. We hope that by providing clear documentation on how to do it yourself
without corporate tools that more of your budget can go towards production of
media rather than its distribution.
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In addition to new technological possibilities offered by some of the tools described
in these tutorials, there is also a need among video producers who want fill the
gap for socially conscious communication of non-corporate media. We hope these
tutorials can help this happen. Video material is tactically distributed to achieve
positive social change, especially if used as part of an interesting programme of
events, festivals, screenings talks etc. We have new technology which makes the
digital distribution of it unlimited by the cash resources you have. It’s limited only
by the time people put in to make it happen.
You can download the converge manual as a PDF file. As the converge project finished
by September 2007 it makes sense to keep updated over the collaborators’ webpages
flossmanuals (http://www.flossmanuals.net), transmission (http://www.transmission.cc),
and Make Internet TV (http://www.makeinternettv.org).
In chapter 2, Now deal with it!, you can find information on the discussion and use
of FLOSS. In chapter 4, Converge projects & participants, you can read about the groups
that participated in the Converge pilot project.
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3.2. Watching video and subscribing to video feeds
This section guides users how to watch video files, how to download them from
the Internet and how to play video and audio content on a computer. The chapter
is divided into the following sections, each focusing on a specific application or
method:
•
•
•
•
•
Miro
iTunes
Video Syndication Network
BitTorrent
YouTube
Miro
Aim: Subscribe to a video Podcast to get new videos from that source automatically
downloaded when they are released.
Task: Subscribe to video podcasts using Miro player.
Tools: All operating systems, Miro
iTunes
Aim: Subscribe to a video Podcast to get new videos from that source automatically
downloaded when they are released.
Task: Subscribe to video podcasts using iTunes
Tools: Mac OSX and Windows, iTunes
Video Syndication Network and BitTorrent
Aim: Download a video file from the Internet using the BitTorrent (http://www.
converge.org.uk/mm/bittorrent) system (and more specifically, finding files distributed
over the Video Syndication Network).
Task: Install and use a BitTorrent client to download a video file via the BitTorrent
system.
Tools: All operating systems, Azureus Vuze
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3.2.1. Subscribe and view video channels
How to subscribe to a media RSS feed and view its content using Miro player
Overview
Tools: All Operating Systems, Miro
Aim: To subscribe to a Video Podcast in order to get new videos from that source
automatically downloaded when they are released.
To do this we could also use iTunes, but Miro offers a number of advantages over
iTunes and it is also an Open Source application. Miro can download BitTorrent files
and it plays many different types of video files, as it has the VLC player built-in. It
can download files from YouTube and has a built-in channel guide.
Install Miro
Go to http://getmiro.com and the page should recognise your operating system and
offer you to the relevant download option in the green download box.
If this is not the correct version — i.e. if you are using a Mac and it suggests a
download for Windows, you can select the download tab in the top menu.
If it is the right version click on the green box.
54
You will be offered to save the file on your computer (or your browser may be set up
to download it automatically to your desktop or a folder you have chosen).
Choose a location to download your Miro install file to.
55
Windows: When the file has been downloaded, double-click on it.
You will see this installer window. Follow the instructions you are given.
Choose the language from a list of 15 or so that you want to use for the application
menus and messages.
Click “Next” when you see “Welcome to the Miro Set up page”
Click “I agree” when you are happy with the license. It is a GNU GPL license.
Then you will see a window asking you to “Choose components”. If you don’t have
VLC player installed then you may wish to make it your default for various video
and audio files. But because Miro has a lot of features it might take longer to start up
and be a bit less responsive than VLC player. If you are unsure about this box leave
it as it is and click “Next”.
56
Next, choose install location. Leave this as it is if you have no strong preference and
click “Next”.
For “Start Menu options”, once again leave this as it is unless you have a specific
preference. Click “Next”.
Using Miro to subscribe to video podcasts
There is an guide for using Miro at http://www.getmiro.com/help. You can click on the
“Miro Guide” in the top left to browse for channels to subscribe to.
We are going to focus on how to subscribe to a video channel that isn’t included in
the channel guide.
To do this we need to find out the URL, the web address of the video podcast/
channel we want to watch. Technically, this is called an RSS feed. You find RSS feeds
on video blogs or news sites. They are normally identified by a graphic which links
to a text file.
Here are some examples:
What we need to do is to Right-click (Ctrl + click on Mac) on these graphics and
copy the URL into the computer’s memory by selecting “Copy Link Location” or
“Copy Shortcut”.
57
Now we have the URL of the Channel in the memory we can return to Miro and
Select Channels > Add Channel from the Menu
When the “Add Channel” box appears, you may see the URL of the channel already
in it.
This is because Miro knows that if there is something in the memory buffer of your
computer when you open this box it is probably the URL of a channel. If it doesn’t
appear then try pressing (Alt + v) or (Apple + v) on a Mac to paste in the address of
the channel.
Click OK when you have done this.
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Viewing video from a channel
You can click on your new channel on the left of the screen and in the main window,
after Miro has time to go and read what is on the channel, you should see a list of the
new videos on that channel.
In the screenshot above you can see four videos which have a blue arrow icon and
one with a green play icon. The video with blue arrows hasn’t been downloaded yet.
You can click on the image or the film or the screenshot to start downloading. When
the film has been downloaded you can click on the green play icon and it will start
to play in the window.
If you decide you like the channel after watching a few videos from it you can set
up Miro to automatically download any new videos that get published on that
channel.
59
If you click on the button next to “Auto-download” you get three choices.
Choosing “All” will download all the videos in a channel. Choosing “New” will get
new videos published when ever you start Miro or when you ask Miro to check
for new videos. Choosing “Off ” lets you decide which videos you want to do
download.
Playing video full screen
You may wish to view a video full screen. If so you can either select Playback >
Fullscreen. Or you can press Alt + Enter on the keyboard.
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Or you can click on the button to the right of the Play/Pause button.
To exit Fullscreen you can press Alt + Enter or the Esc key on your keyboard.
Keeping and using your Video Files
Miro will delete the video files that you download to save space on your computer
unless you specifically tell it not to by clicking on the “Keep” button when you have
watched the video.
If you want to use one of the files you downloaded to put onto an iPod or turn into a
CD or DVD, you need to know where Miro stores the files it downloads.
In Windows, Miro stores the files by default inside the “My Videos” folder which is
in “My Documents”.
To access them, open Windows Explorer and browse to \My Documents\My Videos\
Miro.
61
To set how long you want to leave videos before they get deleted, select File > Options.
You will see the options for this at the bottom of the window.
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3.2.2. Subscribe to video podcasts using iTunes
Aim: Subscribe to a video podcast to get new videos automatically downloaded
when they are released.
Tools: Mac OSX and Windows, iTunes
This is relatively simple to do. But why not use Miro — it offers a number of advantages
over iTunes and it is an Open Source application too. Miro can download BitTorrent
files and it plays many types of video files as it has the VLC player built-in. It can
download files from YouTube and has a built-in channel guide.
Managing video podcasts with iTunes
Anyway, with iTunes one does not to have to be fully restricted to content licensed
to Apple. A video podcast doesn’t have to be included in the Apple iTunes guide for
you to be able subscribe to it.
First, find out the URL (web address) of the podcast that you want to subscribe to.
To do this you should right-click on either the RSS, podcast, XML button or link to
the podcast.
Here are a couple of examples:
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or
Now that you have copied the URL of the podcast / vodcast / media RSS feed into the
computer’s memory you should open iTunes and from the to menu select Advanced
> Add Podcast.
Then paste the URL of the podcast from the computer’s memory into the box you
are presented.
64
You can do this by pressing Ctrl + V on your keyboard (or Apple + V on Mac). Then
click OK. The podcast should then appear under the “Podcasts” section which you
can select by clicking on the “Podcasts” entry on the left menu.
65
3.2.3. How to watch V2V
1. Download and install BitTorrent.
2. Click on the content you want to watch from http://v2v.cc; a small torrent file is
downloaded. Double-click this file and the content will be downloaded over the
BitTorrent file-sharing network.
3. To watch the file you have to install the VLC Player from VideoLAN (available for
every operating system, including Windows and Mac OSX), or MPlayer (Linux).
66
3.2.4. How to install and use BitTorrent
Aim: To install and use Azureus BitTorrent client in order to download content.
Task: Download a video file using the BitTorrent system
Tools: Azureus for Mac OSX and Windows
Overview
The BitTorrent world contains both licenced and pirated content. Azureus, which can
be used for downloading all sorts of content, is one of the most popular BitTorrent
clients, supported by an Open Source community that has contributed to plenty of
add-ons. BitTorrent has also become a commercial distribution system for pay-perview content.
Installing Azureus
Windows: Get it from http://azureus.sourceforge.net/.
Double-click on the installer: azureus_*.exe
Click “Next” when the welcome screen shows. Click “I accept the agreement” when
you are happy with the licence agreement presented to you, then click “Next”. As for
choosing your installation location, use the one suggested to you unless you have
a strong preference. Click “Next”. As for choosing your Start Menu folder location,
also use the one suggested unless you have a strong preference. Click “Next”. In the
“Select file associations” window, make sure the Azureus download box is ticked.
Click “Next” and “Finish”.
Mac: Download the latest OSX package. Follow the instructions when opening the
.dmg file.
Linux: Follow instructions here: http://azureus.sourceforge.net/howto_linux.php
Using Azureus
When you are looking for torrents you may use a site like The Pirate Bay (http://
www.thepiratebay.org) which publishes .torrent files uploaded by its users. These
small torrent files contain information about the content in circulation. It does not
contain the video file itself. Therefore, the torrent files are very quick to download.
Azureus uses this information to connect to other users who have the actual content
on their computers, and starts to download it from them. You may be downloading
it from a lot of users at the same time, while any fragments of the file that you have
downloaded are automatically made available to other users as well. In this way the
more people who are simultaneously sharing a file, the quicker it will download to
your computer.
Azureus should be set up to automatically open when you have downloaded a
67
torrent files. If not, you can save the torrent file to your desktop and then select File >
Open in Azureus to browse for the particular torrent file.
Once having instigated the download of a file, clicking on the “Advanced” tab (in the
top right under the blue frog) will let you know how quickly the file will arrive and
how many other people you are downloading it from. It is recommended to remain
in this Advanced mode throughout using Azureus, since it gives a clearer overview.
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Much of the information you see will be redundant to you, but the number of seeds
and the incoming speed of data will be useful when deciding which torrents are
worth keeping to download content and which ones will probably take too long or
be out of date.
Saving and finding your downloaded video files
To choose a directory where all your incoming files are stored you can select Tools >
Options.
Then click on the word “Files” in the list on the left of the window.
You can then choose the default directory and if you want to, download to there
automatically. Put a tick in this box if appropriate. If possible choose a location that
doesn’t contain your system, i.e. not C: for Windows, or the main disk drive for Mac.
This, because it is easy for your computer to fill up with data if you use Azureus to
69
download large amounts of content, and this may cause the machine to function
badly.
You can return to the advanced transfer window by clicking on the “My Torrents”
tab.
Once you have set the directory for download you will know where to find your files
when they have finished downloading. There is an option for playing files with the
Azureus Vuze program but it is more recommended using the VLC player, as it is
well documented and generally a superior application.
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3.2.5. How to watch YouTube
1. Point your web browser to http://www.youtube.com.
2. Click on “My Account”. If you don’t have an account, click “Sign Up” to get one.
3. Log in with your username and password.
4. Click on “My Subscriptions”.
5. Enter the name of the user you want to subscribe to.
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6. You can also surf the Videos, Channels, Groups and Categories (simply click the
links) to find videos and channels you would like to subscribe to.
7. Click the ”Subscribe” button.
8. You can manage your subscriptions by clicking on ”My Subscriptions”.
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3.3. How to prepare your video
Shrink it down! Save your video in a net-friendly size and format. The Converge
project uses the x.264 (h.264) iPod codec, so you can also watch your clips on a
portable video player like the iPod, PSP or similar portable video player.
Prepare your video for distribution on the Internet
Your video may not be in the right format to distribute on the Internet. There are
many file formats to distribute video on the Internet. This section doesn’t aim to
cover them all. It aims to provide some clear instructions to achieve certain aims.
• How to prepare video files in Windows, using Videora (section 3.3.2)
• How to prepare video files in Mac OSX using iSquint (section 3.3.4)
• How to prepare video files in Linux (section 3.3.6)
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3.3.1. How to convert video files into an iPod-friendly format
1. Make sure MPEG Streamclip (http://www.squared5.com) is installed on your
computer.
2. Start the MPEG Streamclip application.
3. Drag your video (preferably .mov or .avi format) into MPEG Streamclip.
4. In the File menu, select “Export to MPEG-4” and tick the button “iPod”.
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5. Select option “320x240”.
6. Select “Make Mp4”.
7. Click the “Save” button. After transcoding you will find your video on the desktop
(or in the folder specified) with an .mp4 extension.
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3.3.2. How to prepare video files for Windows
Below the encoding software Videora is documented; you can also use MPEG
Streamclip.
1. Make sure Videora is installed on your computer (see section 3.3.3, next page).
2. Start the Videora application.
3. Click on “Setup” to define where the clip will be saved and what resolution will
be used.
4. Click on “Convert”.
5. Click on “Transcode New Video”. A new window will open. Browse and select the
video clip you want to transcode.
6. Click on “Start”.
7. The progress bar will show how much time remains until the transcoding process
is finished.
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3.3.3. How to install Videora
1. Point your web browser to http://videora.com/en-us/Converter/iPod/download.php to
download the clip.
2. Double-click the file VideoraiPodConverter_Install.exe on your desktop.
3. Follow the installation instructions.
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3.3.4. How to prepare video files for Mac
Below the encoding software iSquint is documented; you can also use MPEG
Streamclip.
1. Make sure iSquint is installed on your computer (see 3.3.5, next page).
2. Start the iSquint application.
3. Drag your video (preferably .mov or .avi format) into iSquint.
4. Select in Settings “Optimize or iPod” and tick the box “H.264 Encoding”.
5. Click the “Start” button. After transcoding you will find your video on the desktop
(or in the folder specified) with an .mp4 extension.
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3.3.5. How to install iSquint (Mac OSX only)
1. Point your web browser to http://www.isquint.org and click “Download”.
2. Choose the option “Save to Disk”.
3. Double-click the iSquint.dmg file.
4. Drag the iSquint file into your Applications folder.
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3.3.6. How to prepare video files for Linux
1. Make sure Avidemux (http://www.avidemux.org) or FFmpeg (http://ffmpeg.mplayerhq.
hu) is installed on your computer.
2. Open a Terminal.
3. Command-line example with Avidemux. For all possible settings and transcoding
possibilities please refer to the Avidemux manual.
Converting AVI files to VCD
Encoding the audio with libavcodec:
avidemux2 --load input.avi --audio-process \ --audio-normalize --audioresample 44100 --audio-codec MP2 \ --audio-bitrate 224 --output-format PS
--video-process \ --vcd-res --video-codec VCD --save output.mpg --quit
4. Alternatively you can use the command-line tool FFmpeg. For all possible settings
and transcoding possibilities please refer to the FFmpeg manual.
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3.4. How to publish your video
First prepare your video (see section 3.3) and convert it into an Internet-friendly
size. Then you choose the method you want to publish your video with. Some blogs
or web sites restrict bandwith or storage space; upload your file to a video host like
the Internet Archive (http://www.archive.org), YouTube (http://www.youtube.com), or
Video Syndication Network (http://www.v2v.cc) instead.
The Converge project uses the Broadcast Machine (see section 3.4.2) from the
Participatory Culture Foundation (http://www.participatoryculture.org) to distribute
videos.
The now famous video distribution portal YouTube and the peer-to-peer video filesharing portal Video Syndication Network are further explained on these pages.
Publishing methods
• Uploading onto the Internet Archive (section 3.4.1)
• Distribution through the Broadcast Machine (section 3.4.2)
• Publishing content through CC Publisher (section 3.4.3)
• Distribution through Wordpress blogs/RSS feeds (section 3.4.4)
• Podcasting (section 3.4.5)
• Peer-to-peer distribution through BitTorrent (section 3.4.6)
• Distribution through UK Indymedia (section 3.4.7)
• Video Syndication Network (section 3.4.8)
• Broadcasting through YouTube (section 3.4.9)
• Dyne:Bolic (section 3.4.10)
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3.4.1. How to sign up with The Internet Archive
1. Point your web browser to http://www.archive.org.
2. Click “join us”.
3. Fill in your details and click “Get Library Card”.
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3.4.2. How to publish your video with Broadcast Machine
1. Upload video to the Internet Archive
• If you do not have an account with the Internet Archive, create one (see
previous section, 3.4.1).
• Upload your video with CC Publisher (see section 3.4.3).
2. Publish with Broadcast Machine.
2.1. Point your web browser to the link provided in step 11 of CC Publisher. You
should then find your video clip on the Internet Archive (http://www.archive.org).
2.2. Right-click (Linux and Windows) or Ctrl-click (Mac OS) the link “MPEG4”
under “Download”.
2.3. Choose “Copy Link Location” from the drop-down menu.
2.4. Point your web browser to your Broadcast Machine (for example, see http://www.
converge.org.uk/bm.html) and click the “Login” link at the bottom of the page.
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2.5. Login with your username and password given by the Converge
Administrator.
2.6. Click the “Post a File” link at the bottom of the page.
2.7. Click “Link to the file”.
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2.8. Paste the link copied in step 2.3. into the field “URL of the file:” and fill in the
details of your video clip.
2.9. Click on “Publish”. Done! You can now subscribe to the Converge channel with
the Democracy application (http://www.getdemocracy.com).
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3.4.3. How to upload with CC Publisher
1. Make sure CC Publisher is installed on your computer (http://wiki.creativecommons.
org/CcPublisher#Installing_ccPublisher).
2. Start the CC Publisher application.
3. Click “Next”.
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4. Drag your video clip into CC Publisher (the illustration shows a file named
cyberwrestling.mp4 as an example).
5. Fill in the details of your video clip and click “Next”.
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6. Choose a license and click “Next”.
7. Choose file format (MPEG4) and click “Next”.
8. Select “Internet Archive Storage” as your Upload Destination.
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9. Confirm the identifier by clicking “Next”, or change it if you wish.
10. Fill in your username and password created with the Internet Archive (see
section 3.4.1) and click “Next”.
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11. Please be patient! Wait until you get confirmation, i.e. “Upload Complete”. Write
down the link provided under “You can view your work online shortly at:”. This is
important as this link will be the one used when publishing your video over the
Broadcast Machine.
12. When the file has uploaded, you can click “Quit”.
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3.4.4. How to create a video blog with a podcast using a Wordpress.com account
This is based on the following tutorial: http://makeinternettv.org/publish/blog.blog.php
Get a Wordpress account
Create a Wordpress blog (at http://www.wordpress.com).
Fill out the forms and make sure you check “Gimmie a Blog!”.
Now click the ”Next” button.
Choose a domain name
On the second page, you’ll be picking a blog domain. This is important, because it
will be the web address for your blog.
Fill in the remaining info and click “Signup”.
You will need to check your e-mail for a confirmation link and all the usual
registration stuff.
Log In to Your New Blog
Once you’ve received an e-mail with a password, you can browse the domain you’ve
chosen.
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Locate the “Meta” section in the sidebar and then click the “Login” link.
Use your login details; you should have received them by e-mail after having followed
the confirmation link.
If all went well, you should be logged in to your new blog (what once said “login”
should now say “logout”).
Now you’ve got a fully functional blog, and it’s time to set up the third and final
element of your videoblog.
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How to add an entry that is RSS / podcast friendly
1. If you add an entry to your blog that links to a video file, then it will be included
in your podcast (that is, once we have prepared it properly).
To do this, select “Write Post”, also enter a title and some text for the post. Then enter
a link to the video file in the post as shown below.
Then click “Publish”.
You should now have an entry linking to a video on your blog and you are thereby
ready for the next step.
2. You may want to add a preview of the video file; a click-and-view version. One
way of doing this is to upload a video to Daily Motion, a video hosting service.
2.1. Find your Wordpress RSS feed address.
2.2. Browse to your Wordpress blog.
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An RSS feed is a URL, just like any other link on a website.
2.3. Scroll to the bottom of the page and look for the RSS feed links.
Right-click (for Mac, ctrl + click) on ”Entries” (RSS). Now select “Copy Link
Location” (alternatively, if you are using Internet Explorer, “Copy Shortcut”).
3. Burn a video RSS Feed
Browse to FeedBurner (http://www.feedburner.com).
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Use Edit > Paste to input your RSS address into the field. Make sure you check the box
that says “I am a podcaster”!
Now click “Next”.
4. Create a Feedburner account
Feedburner will prompt you to create an account.
Make sure your feed title and address are valid, and then fill out the account
information. Once you’re set, click the “Activate Feed” button.
The link in blue is your video RSS feed. In order to have viewers subscribe to your
videos, they will need this magic link. Write it down.
Section 3.4.5 will tell you more about how means to promote your video RSS feed.
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Customize your Feedburner feed
Feedburner has a ton of advanced options, such as custom feed icons, descriptions
and titles.
To share and explore these options, see http://mitvwiki.org/Finding_Your_Blogs_Text_
RSS_Feed.
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3.4.5. How to display a button linking to your RSS feed or video podcast so that
users can subscribe to it
Summary
It is helpful to have a small graphic button which links to an RSS feed of different
kinds of content. Below are some screenshots from different websites.
This tutorial will show you how to create one of these buttons to incorporate into
your webpage. It is assumed that you have created an RSS feed for your video and
that you know the URL (web address) of the feed. There is also a way of getting
iTunes and/or the Miro video player to subscribe to your podcast just by clicking on
it. This is detailed at the end of this tutorial.
Adding a generic Media RSS button
There are some online tools which allow you to enter the address of your Media RSS
feed and create a button to go with it.
http://www.toprankblog.com/tools/rss-buttons/ is one.
You need to fill out the form and choose which graphics you want to use. Annoyingly
there isn’t one saying “Podcast” or “Media RSS”.
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When you click “Create Buttons” you are presented with some code to embed in
your website or blog.
You now need to paste this code into your page, or to the sidebar of your blog.
Adding a one-click button for Miro
This part of the tutorial is from http://www.makeinternettv.org.
We suggest you test your feed in the various players before you commit to using a
one-click button. Make sure the feed works and that the experience is good.
When a visitor clicks a one-click button, Miro opens up with the feed automatically
subscribed to and ready to watch (when Miro isn’t installed, the button leads to a
download page).
Use the Miro 1-click Button Maker (http://subscribe.getmiro.com) to create a button
for your site — paste in your RSS feed and then you will get code for a personalized
button. Just paste the HTML into your site.
Creating code for an iTunes chicklet
Here is another way of creating an iTunes button. Use the graphic and code below.
Code:
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<a href=”itpc://feeds.feedburner.com/yourblog” target=”_self ”
title=”podcast”> <img border=”0” src=”picture of button” alt=”podcast” />
</a>
Button:
We also need to change the code so that it links to your Media RSS feed. Instead of
linking to http://, change that to say iptc:// in front of your feed.
Embedding this code in your web page / blog
If you know how to embed HTML code in your website or blog, that’s great! If not,
there are so many different blog types that is is difficult to explain how to do it for all
of them. You might have to ask a more experienced person (that is, a geek) to help.
We’re sorry about that, we hope to update this section soon.
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3.4.6. How to install and use BitTorrent
Aim: To install and use Azureus BitTorrent client in order to download content.
Task: Download a video file using the BitTorrent system
Tools: Azureus for Mac OSX and Windows
Overview
“2005 is the year that internet downloads became a viable distribution
mechanism, mainly through BitTorrent, a cunning peer-to-peer mechanism
for making large films available without incurring large bandwith costs. People
have already started downloading movies in earnest and the phenomenon is
growing so rapidly that BitTorrent now accounts for one third of all traffic on
the internet. Bigger hard drives and faster net connections are driving this
trend.”
The BitTorrent world contains both licenced and pirated content. Azureus, which can
be used for downloading all sorts of content, is one of the most popular BitTorrent
clients, supported by an Open Source community that has contributed to plenty of
add-ons. BitTorrent has also become a commercial distribution system for pay-perview content. We can see this as an advange for smaller video producers in that even
if you are distributing your video content for free you can charge for a film.
“The easiest way to do so is to ask for an online payment on your website
before directing users to where they can download the BitTorrent file” (Simon
Tzu in DIY distribution, “Get your Documentary funded” from http://www.
shootingpeople.org).
Installing Azureus
Windows: Get it from http://azureus.sourceforge.net
Double-click on the installer: azureus_*.exe
Click “Next” when the welcome screen shows. Click “I Accept the agreement” when
you are happy with the licence agreement presented to you, then click “Next”. As for
choosing your installation location, use the one suggested to you unless you have
a strong preference. Click “Next”. As for choosing your Start Menu folder location,
also use the one suggested unless you have a strong preference. Click “Next”. In the
“Select File Associations” window, make sure the Azureus download box is ticked.
Click “Next” and then “Finish”.
Mac: Download the latest OSX package. Follow the instructions when opening the
.dmg file.
Linux: Follow instructions here: http://azureus.sourceforge.net/howto_linux.php
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Using Azureus for publishing video
When you are looking for torrents you may use a site like The Pirate Bay (http://
www.thepiratebay.org) which publishes .torrent files uploaded by its users. These
small torrent files contain information about the content in circulation. It does not
contain the video file itself. Therefore, the torrent files are very quick to download.
Azureus uses this information to connect to other users who have the actual content
on their computers, and starts to download it from them. You may be downloading
it from a lot of users at the same time, while any fragments of the file that you have
downloaded are automatically made available to other users as well. In this way the
more people who are simultaneously sharing a file, the quicker it will download to
your computer.
There is a traditional way of creating a torrent file and seeding your content so that
others can download it. (Seeding the file basically means allowing other users to
download it from you using BitTorrent.) It is relatively complicated to do this but it
is documented here.
The system can be said to work against new users since these might not know anyone
else out there who could sustain the availablity of your content: users must remain
online to help making available the content they’ve downloaded so that this content
is kept in permanent circulation and others can easily download it. As you need to
do this for at least a while until enough people have got hold of your content, make
sure to be persistent when you are starting to seed the file, and preferably use an
Internet connection with as much bandwidth as possible.
Using the Azureus Vuze network to publish video
To avoid these problems use the Azureus Vuze network. They have a system that
allows you to upload a file and they will also create the torrent file and ‘seed’ your
video file so that others can start downloading it.
The disadvantage to this system is that these other people also need to be using
the same Azureus Vuze system and your video won’t be available to be included in
podcasts. It can therefore be said to seem a bit like the McDonalds of the torrent
world. However, it’s really easy to do.
Make sure you have the latest version of Azureus Vuze. At the start-up screen, click
“Publish”.
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Sign up for an account using the form shown below. Fill out the forms and click
“Register”.
Then click “Sign In” once you have registered.
When you have signed in click on “Publish New Content” (at the top left of the
page).
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We are going to upload just a single file. From the drop down box next to “Media
type” select “Video”.
Click on the “Browse” button next to “Upload a Single File”.
Look on the system for the file you want to upload. Then fill out the form with as
much information as you can.
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Add an image to represent the video. You should take a screenshot or find a related
image on the Internet. Often doing a Google Image (http://images.google.com) search
for related terms can help as shown below.
Try to choose one that is about the right size for screen shot (TV size). If this isn’t the
right shape or is much too big you may have to resize it in another program. When
you have browsed for and selected your image file there is a tool that lets you choose
part of the image by moving and zooming the picture.
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Click OK when you are happy with it.
Then, when the form is complete, click the box saying you agree to the terms when
you are happy with them and finally click the “Publish” button.
You should then recieve a confirmation page. Keep Azureus open until there is
confirmation that the file has been uploaded.
You should follow any advice given.
Click on “Published Content” above that message and you will see this screen.
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Click on the icon
next to the file you are uploading, and the message at the bottom of the screen above
will be displayed. If you click on he name of the video it will take you to a page where
people can download and preview your video.
On that page it also suggests ways of networking your video so many people might
download it.
The most important piece of information is the link so that you can email it to your
friends and get them passing on the message and downloading the content.
Using a Public Tracker to publish video with a BitTorrent file
In Azureus, choose File > New Torrent.
Choose a public tracker (like The Pirate Bay). Currently the server is tpb.tracker.
piratebay.org.
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Then click “Next”.
Drag and drop the file onto the next window and the location of the file should
appear in the “File:” box there.
Click “Next”.
You then get to choose where to save the torrent file. The default would be in a path
similar to this: C:\Documents and Settings\Mick Fuzz\Application Data\Azureus\torrents
Further settings
Click the boxes for “Open the torrent for seeding” and “Allow decentralized tracking
when tracking is unavailable”.
Click “Finish”.
You should see your file in the lower window with the status ”seeding”. If so, you are
ready to upload your torrent to the Internet.
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Seeding a file you made earlier
Maybe you didn’t click the “Open the torrent for seeding” box, or something went
wrong or you want to seed it at a later date.
How do you come back to a torrent you’ve already made and start to seed it?
Make sure you are in the “Advanced” window. Select File > Open Torrent.
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When you see the above window, click on “Add file” and choose the torrent file you
want to add. This is the .torrent file which has a small file size, not the actual content
(the big data or video file that the .torrent refers to).
You should make a backup of the original data file — in the example above, the
“transmission2.mpg” file — and then browse for the folder that contains the original
file in the box “Location to save data”.
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Right-click (on Mac, Ctrl-click) on the file entry in the top window and select “Add
Mode: Seeding”.
If this works correctly the following window should appear.
The reason we created a backup was in case anything goes wrong with this process.
Click OK.
The torrent should now be seeding the file and it should appear in the lower seeding
window.
Uploading the torrent file to the Internet
There are many different public trackers you can use to distribute your BitTorrent
file. We are going to use one of the most famous ones for this example; The Pirate Bay
(http://www.thepiratebay.org). It is worth watching the video “Steal this Film” about
how the Pirate Bay and other BitTorrent tracker sites work. See the Wikipedia entry
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steal_This_Film), the Google Video film (http://video.google.
com/videoplay?docid=-4116387786400792905), or use this link to the actual torrent of
“Steal This Film” hosted on The Pirate Bay: http://thepiratebay.org/blog/38.
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Here we’ll focus on how to distribute your file using The Pirate Bay’s tracker and
website.
First create an account at The Pirate Bay.
From the front page of The Pirate Bay, click “Register” which would appear as the
second link at the bottom of the page.
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Make sure you input your correct email address as you will be sent a confirmation
email .
From: [email protected]
Subject: The Pirate Bay — Please confirm your registration
In the email there will be a message confirming your username and password. There
will also be a weblink that you need to click on to visit, in order to confirm your
registration.
When you click on that link you will be able to log in to The Pirate Bay. In fact you
will probably already be logged in.
When you have logged in you should see different options for your personal setup
at the bottom of the page.
What we need is to click on “Upload Torrent”. When you do, the following screen
will appear:
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You can see here the URL of the tracker that is going to be used by your torrent. It
needs to be the same as the one that we used when creating the torrent. If you don’t
understand this don’t worry, all you need to know is that if for some reason the
’Announce URL’ shown at this stage is different from the one you used when you
created the torrent, then it won’t work, and you need to re-create the torrent using
the correct ’Announce URL’.
Browse for the torrent you created in the steps above. It should end .torrent
— the default location will be something like C:\Documents and Settings\your name\
Application Data\Azureus\torrents.
It’s worth noting that the more information you can put in your file name for the
torrent the better, as it will be easier to find and will improve the information about
what the video is about to the casual file-sharers of the BitTorrent world.
If your file name doesn’t describe what the video is about you have the chance to
enter a different name in the next box.
You should also choose a category, add information about the languages of the original
soundtrack and subtitle files as appropriate, and put in a catchy description.
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In the example (a Matroska file with embedded subtitles) we have added more than
one language in the “Texted languages” box. If you have external subtitles to your
video file you will probably want to compress these into one file (using zip or rar)
for BitTorrent download. For more information on this see the Subtitles section of
these guides.
Enter the security code. Click “Upload”.
Your BitTorrent file should now be available for download through The Pirate Bay.
You can check this by clicking “Recent Torrents” at the top of the page.
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If you see the name of your file and click on it you should recieve the individual page
of your torrent. It will look something like this:
This contains the information you uploaded, together with some information about
“Seeders” and “Leechers”. This is important (although not always totally accurate).
It is useful for keeping your torrent alive — you want to have as many of these as
possible, especially seeders!
Keeping your torrent alive — making sure the torrent is sucessful
Just because you have uploaded your torrent file to a torrent site doesn’t mean
that everyone will be able to download it. There needs to be at least one computer
connected to the Internet seeding it at any one time in order for the content to be
publicly available. If you have followed the above steps for seeding your file, and you
keep your computer on and connected to the Internet this process should be under
way. Ideally you want a few people to download the file from you and to keep it open
for seeding as well. In this way you can stop seeding the file personally and it will still
be held in circulation by the other seeders.
To do this you may want to have a couple of people you know do this for you.
Ideally people who have broadband connections and are online all of the time. You
can email them your torrent file and ask them to keep seeding it when they have
downloaded it.
This is why the “Seeders” information displayed is useful. You can tell how many
people have a copy of the file open for seeding. Some of the very popular Hollywood
films for example have many (and we mean many) seeders. If your file gets to the
point where it hasn’t any seeders at all, then people won’t be able to download it.
Maybe you have to do the hard work of seeding th file manually again, just to keep
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the file available.
Specialist trackers
If your film is of a ‘specialist’ nature then you should try to get your torrent listed
on a few other torrent sites that specialise in your genre. There is no need to remake
your torrent — just try to get it listed!
Indytorrents
For videos relating to social justice and freedom of speech it’s a good idea to use
Indytorrents (http://indytorrents.org).
To register you need to get in contact with the people who run it, which you can
do by contacting them on this email list (not used too much!): https://lists.riseup.net/
www/info/indytorrents. You can send an email to [email protected] explaining
what kind of content you want to distribute. This is a tip from someone involved in
deciding what content is allowed:
We allow people to join and be uploaders as long as they want to upload
activist film and it is under some kind of shareable license (or, not licensed,
or whatever). Traditional copyright material is most definitely discouraged (I
would say not allowed, but I don’t know if anyone actually polices that — I’m
certain it would get taken down immediately if requested by the copyright
owner or other interested parties).
After you have contacted the indytorrents people and recieved your username and
password, to add your torrent first login by clicking “Login”.
Then click “Upload a new torrent”.
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Then fill out the form presented to you. Browse for the torrent file you created earlier
in this tutorial and fill in the other details. See below for an example.
You should then get a screen saying you have been successful and give concise
instructions on seeding the torrent. For more detailed ones see above in the
tutorial.
Now click on “Return to Tracker”. You should see your file there!
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3.4.7. Using Firefox FTP to upload a file to UK Indymedia
This guide gives you a short overview on how to install and use Firefox FTP.
FTP is a good way to upload larger files to the Internet. Web upload forms are very
unstable. If you have a file that is over 10Mb it is generally advisable to use FTP to
upload your files.
An Internet Server is a computer which is always connected to the Internet and set
up to run websites. FTP is a way of connecting to one of these servers in order to
transfer the file from your computer (the local machine) to the server (the remote
computer). Once you have connected, this process should be as easy as copying files
from one directory/folder to another on your own machine.
Here we will use the example of UK Indymedia (http://www.indymedia.org.uk) to
upload a video file.
It uses a combination of a web form to upload information about the video and an
FTP service which allows you to upload the file by FTP. It then connects the textual
information you entered in the forms together with the file you uploaded by FTP. A
similar process is used by the Internet Archive (http://www.archive.org). See section
3.4.1. for how to upload to the Internet Archive.
Installing Firefox FTP
Follow the instructions here: http://flossmanuals.net/firefox
As for the FireFTP plugin, follow the instructions here: http://flossmanuals.net/firefox/
fireftp
Uploading your video file via FTP
Firstly you need to have access to an FTP account, and know the details of this
account (the FTP address and the password). These will either be given to you by an
Internet server administrator who is letting you have some space on their server, or
as part of an automatic uploading system as used by systems like Indymedia.org or
UK Indymedia.
Normally you will need to enter:
1) The host address [i.e. the FTP address / IP address]
2) Your login name [i.e. username]
3) Your password
For instructions on how to enter these details into FireFTP once again see the
tutorial: http://flossmanuals.net/firefox/fireftp
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For UK Indymedia there is an anonymous login. Follow the instructions in the
FireFTP tutorial but instead of using a specific username and a password, click the
box saying “Anonymous”.
When you connect to the server you will see a folder on the right window called
“UK”. Double-click on that folder and wait to get a listing of what is in there.
There may be no files in there, don’t worry. Then transfer your file into this UK folder
by selecting your file in the left window and clicking on the green arrow pointing
right.
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When your transfer has finished, close the FireFTP window and follow the steps
outlined below about entering information about your video to the UK Indymedia
system.
Entering information about the Video
Information about your video file, i.e. Title, Subject, Author etc is called metadata.
It is normal to enter this information via a web form in order for it to be available
online.
To get to the required form on UK Indymedia go to the front page and click the
“Publish” button.
You are then taken to what is called the “Prepublish” page.
In this page we need to indicate that we have a file (or several files) to upload via FTP
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which we want to link to some information about the video. In this example we are
only going to upload one file. However, if we had different versions of the file — say
one for low-bandwidth and one higher-quality one — then we should indicate this
in the number we enter in the “Attach files uploaded via FTP” section.
So here we input the number 1 and click “Publish with FTP uploads”.
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You may get the following window — if so select “Accept certificate permanently”
and click OK.
You are then able to enter information about the video file you have uploaded. It
is a good idea to try to include as much relevant information and links to other
resources as possible, as this means that more people will be interested in your video
and will watch it. If you are confused by this form then there are some tips supplied
by the Indymedia team: https://publish.indymedia.org.uk/en/static/help-publish.html.
When you get to the final part of the form it should read: “Step 4 — Select Items
Uploaded by FTP”.
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Here you are given the chance to select and re-name the file you have uploaded from
a drop-down menu.
Make sure you give it a relevant name or it will be tricky for people to download it.
Then click “Contribute”.
You should get a message saying: “Your post was successful and should appear on
the front page soon”. It might take quite a while, however, for posts to appear on UK
Indymedia.
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3.4.8. How to publish your video with V2V
By registering to the V2V site (http://www.v2v.cc) one can contribute multimedia
content. All the video content is encoded with the OGG Theora codec (http://
www.theora.org). For encoding own material which is not saved in the oggtheora
codec you can use an encoder like MEncoder or FFmpeg2theora (http://www.v2v.
cc/~j/ffmpeg2theora/). Encoding is the process by which your content (the object) is
converted into data, which can then be sent to a receiver (observer) such as a data
processing system, and decoded again when it is played back.
V2V distributes multimedia content over the BitTorrent peer-to-peer network.
As soon as a new film is available the exact address for downloading is being
published.
Background to the V2V initiative
In 1997, during the Documenta X exhibition in Kassel, Germany, the “Kein Mensch
ist illegal” (“Nobody is illegal”) campaign had an infodesk at the Hybrid WorkSpace.
Basically it came out of a network of local groups who were dedicated to help
immigrants and asylum seekers, much like the earlier “Sans Papiers” campaign in
France. The idea for a German and Polish border festival — an autonomous zone
where artists and activists could show their concerns towards the treatment of
immigrants — was born. The camp was realized in 1998. The webpage (http://www.
kein.org) was initiated, followed by http://www.kein.tv as video outlet establishing the
V2V site as a video hosting service.
In 2000 several camps had been organized along the borders that separate the
European Union with the former Soviet bloc and “Kein Mensch ist illegal” took
place for the first time at the borders of the United States of America in the city of
Tijuana, Mexico, under the title “Borderhack!”.
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“On one side the Malls are filled with happiness, and on the other, the wrong
side, we are forever condemned to produce goods that we will never enjoy
ourselves. That is, unless we are lucky enough to come by a green card. This is
the border. Our border. A place where we earn pesos and consume in dollars.
Where we almost live in the US. Where we can smell the future coming from
the freeways, from Silicon Valley, from Hollywood, but yet we are trapped
in a muddy hill with unpaved streets. To reach the freeway we need a car,
something that we could never afford. The only way for us to cross the border
is on foot, without a penny in our pockets. We resign ourselves to earn a
minimum wage throughout our lifetimes, to looking through store windows
as if they were postcards from Europe (it could be Jupiter or earth, for us it is
the same), knowing that we could only reach the other side in our dreams. We
are the good neighbors of the US, always here, always smiling, ready to serve
the next margarita” (Borderhack 2000).
Excerpts from the V2V manifesto 2003
To whom it may belong
Therefore we pose the question of intellectual property: To whom belongs an
image? To the one who is mapped, to the one who produced it? Or to the one who
makes copies from it? Or does it belong to everybody? We know that there is no
final solution to these questions. But we have learned: New films are based on new
freedoms.
Re-placing the images
We believe in images with open sources: Reassessing the cinematic heritage of other
generations, broadcasting the general intellect, empowering collective story-telling,
changing the views, fast sharing of content, skills and resources, enabling multiple
connections between creative nodes and networks. Virtual images that everyone
can edit, change, forward, rewind and PLAY.
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3.4.9. How to publish your video with YouTube.com
There are certain advantages of using a commercial service like YouTube. One is that
the videos can easily be embedded in free blogging services like Blogger (http://www.
blogger.com) or Wordpress (http://www.wordpress.com).
This means that when you have uploaded one of your video files, then not only will
the users of YouTube be able to view your video, you will also be able to link to the
video by including the code in your website or blog. (See for example section 3.4.4
for how to manage a Wordpress blog.)
We recognize that using a commercial service like this isn’t great and ideally you
should seek another solution. However organizations like Wordpress seem a good
solution if you don’t have access to other solutions. That’s why this is included.
By the time you have go to this stage you should have an mp4 video file or similar
file to upload.
1. Make sure you have a YouTube user account (see section 3.2.5)
2. Point your web browser to http://www.youtube.com and click “Upload”.
3. Log in with your username and password.
4. Fill in the details of your video.
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5. Choose your category.
6. Click “Continue”.
7. Browse for your video by clicking “Browse...”.
8. Select whether you want it to be a public or private video.
9. Click “Upload Video”.
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10. Be patient!
11. When finished, you will see the confirmation “Video Upload Successful!”.
General tips on using YouTube
• YouTube knocks almost everything out of sync. And the video quality is
highly-compressed 320x240 then scaled back up to 450x337. If you are going
to use YouTube, sign up for a “Director” account and then you can put a link
back to your website on the video’s page.
• Embed it online: Once your videos are uploaded, you can embed them in your
Web site or blog. YouTube provides HTML code you can copy and paste.
• Broadcast it: Use an RSS feed to let subscribers automatically receive your
latest videos. The YouTube RSS feed is feed://www.youtube.com/rss/user/youtube/
videos.rss (replace “user” in this URL with the name of your account).
• For others to watch your video either send them the YouTube link from your
uploaded video, or — if they also have a user account with YouTube — tell
them your username so that they can sign up to your videos.
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3.4.10. Dyne:bolic
Over the last few years “Free Libre and Open Source Software” (FLOSS) — a form of
collaborative software development — has grown rapidly over the digital networks.
“Free software” is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you
should think of “free” as in “free speech”, not as in “free beer”. The users have the
freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software as they
wish — in other words, not restricted by patents or copyright.
The idea of free software still needs more acceptance from users who are not
programmers. This shows a demand for technical literacy, but also the fact that
FLOSS needs to be developed further for it to become “user-friendly”.
Linux is one of the most famous FLOSS developments. Linux is a computer operating
system which can be installed for free on any computer without having to pay for
it, unlike the commercial mainstream operating systems like Microsoft Windows or
Apple Mac OS. All its source code is available to the public and anyone can freely
use, modify, and redistribute it.
Among other software, Dyne:bolic includes the free software below, released under
the terms and conditions of the GNU General Public License. The GNU General
Public License (GNU GPL or simply GPL) is a free software license, originally
written by Richard Stallman for the GNU project (a project to create a completely
free software operating system). It has since become the most popular license for
FLOSS initiatives.
How to use it
All you have to do is to download the disk image from http://www.dynebolic.org, burn
it onto a CD and reboot your computer with this CD inside. You can manipulate
and broadcast both sound and video with tools to record, edit, encode and stream.
You don’t have to install anything because the Dyne:bolic system can run just from
the CD and automatically recognizes most of your devices and peripherals such as
sound, video and network cards.
Other similar initiatives
MuSE (http://muse.dyne.org) — Multiple Streaming Engine is a user friendly but
powerful tool for network audio streaming.
Cinelerra (http://cinelerra.org) is a video editing system. Thanks to its small size it
can be run on older computers and enables multimedia video and non-linear video
editing access more publicly.
HasciiCam (http://ascii.dyne.org) makes it possible to have live ASCII video on the
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web. It captures video from a TV card and renders it into ASCII letters, formatting
the output into an webpage with a refresh tag, or into a live ASCII window, or into
a simple text file.
FreeJ (http://freej.org) is a VJing tool for real-time video manipulation. VJ or veejay
(from video jockey, by analogy with disc jockey or DJ or deejay) is a term coined in
the early 1980s to describe the fresh-faced youth who introduced the music videos
on MTV. The word VJ is also used to represent video performance artists who create
live visuals on all kind of music.
Dyne.org — general background information
“This software is about Digital Resistance in a Babylon world which tries
to control and market the way we communicate, we share our interests and
knowledge. The roots of the Rastafari movement are in resistance to slavery:
this software is one step in the struggle for Redemption and Freedom from
proprietary and closed-source software.” (Jaromil 2000)
In 2000 Jaromil registered the domain Dyne.org (http://www.dyne.org). Dyne.org
started as a software atelier, a lab for on-line development of software; a place to show
the creations of programmers and to address issues like distribution of knowledge,
freedom of speech, and the sharing of free technologies in support of those who
have less opportunities to access them.
So, if dyne.org is not a company, what is it then?
“dyne.org is a network, communication flows between individuals, without
any hierarchy or power structures. As long as the constituting fundamental of
every community are identities, defining themselves with their activity, dyne.
org is a network of individuals and doesn’t aim to be in any way representing
neither substituting them. If you make us a collaboration proposal remember
that dyne.org is not a business company: you’ll need to arrange business terms
with each one interested, singularly and independently.” (Jaromil 2000)
This is the lab behind the bootable Dyne:bolic outlined above. Jaromil came up
with the idea of creating a free and easy-to-employ operating system for radio
broadcasting including his streaming software MuSE after he attended, in 2001,
the presentation of the Bolic1 live CD distribution by the LOA hacklab (http://wiki.
hacklab.org.uk/index.php/Hacklabs_from_digital_to_analog), when they gathered in a
hackmeeting in Sicily organized by the FreakNet media lab (http://freaknet.org). In
August 2002 Jaromil employed Dyne:bolic in the independent net-art project Farah
in Palestine. After the positive experience of the Farah project, the development
was focused on lowering technical requirements (computer speed etc) in order to
be able to use recycled hardware. Today the bootable Dyne:bolic CD is a complete
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multimedia system. At the time of writing (June 2006) the Dyne:bolic system is for
example being used by the independent Iraqi media project Streamtime.org (http://
streamtime.org).
Streamtime uses the Dyne:bolic system to broadcast radio programs from Iraq.
People can speak to the world through a hand-held microphone connected to a
computer. The first streams where initiated on the 14th July 2004. The broadcast
was picked up by several stations in European cities such as Naples (Italy), Zurich
(Switzerland), Munich (Germany), Sheffield (United Kingdom), Bern (Switzerland)
and Amsterdam (Netherlands) and broadcast directly, or in an edited version later
on.
The Dyne:bolic system is a computer operating system that gives the widest possible
public access to the technology because it will run on the original Pentium series of
machines PCs with quantities of RAM that would not be considered sufficient for a
basic PC these days, let alone a multimedia workstation. Dyne:bolic also runs on the
Microsoft Xbox games console!
“It’s a core feature! (...) Hardware recycling has been an important activity
for the FreakNet Medialab, setting up free surf stations in a squatted building
back in the early ‘90s. (...) It is about the politics and philosophy we developed
in the Hackmeeting: in solidarity with the poor, and trying to fill the digital
divide since the very beginning.” (Jaromil 2000)
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converge: data
4. Converge projects & participants
4.1. FreqOUT!
FreqOUT! is an innovative London-based community education programme for
young people which originated in Westminster. It seeks to explore the artistic and
educational potential of wireless technology in order to engage socially excluded
young people living in the 20% most deprived areas of the UK.
Artists, tutors and youth workers facilitate activities that enable the young people
to discuss and create responses to current issues and technologies in a safe and
supportive environment. Through involvement with technology, exposure to artists,
members of the business community and statutory service providers we aim to
increase the young people’s opportunities for work and further education.
Artists, tutors and youth workers facilitate activities that enable the young people
to discuss and create responses to current issues and technologies in a safe and
supportive environment. Through involvement with technology, exposure to artists,
members of the business community and statutory service providers we aim to
increase the young people’s opportunities for work and further education.
VR
Vital Regeneration aims to be a dynamic, innovative, high-impact regeneration
charity.Our vision is for individuals and communities to have equal expectations
and opportunities in life, regardless of where they live. Our mission is to Educate,
Empower and promote Enjoyment.
Working in the 20% most deprived communities in London we aim to:
o develop and sustain community education, enterprise and creative
development programmes tailored to individuals’ and communities’ needs
o remove practical barriers to accessing education, employment or enterprise
o enhance individuals’ economic welfare and wellbeing through information,
advice and guidance
o develop long lasting relationships with partner organisations for the benefit
of the community
o facilitate community cohesion
o capacity build grassroots organisations to ensure long term sustainability of
programmes
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PlaySpace
A healthy living project, which uses the arts and creative media to champion ‘The
Healthy Child’. The project uses drawing, movement, dance, music, animation and
sculpture to explore concepts of healthy eating and healthy active lifestyles for Year 4,
5 and 6 children. It is a partnership project between Vital Regeneration, Wilberforce
Primary School and Edward Wilson Primary School. Play Space is commissioned by
Westminster City Partnership and is funded by Neighbourhood Renewal Funds.
Urban Attitudes
A consortium of partners including Queens Park New Media Centre, First Light,
Paddington Arts, Connexions, Samaritans, CityWest Homes and the Institute of
Contemporary Arts joined forces to create Urban Attitudes, a project that represents
a unique opportunity for young people in North Westminster to learn about film
making and to explore issues that affect them.
Urban Attitudes is a youth film project that aims to:
o engage with young people to encourage them to get the help and support they
need to reach their full potential
o engage with young people who are at risk of becoming NEET (Not in
Education, Employment or Training)
o promote the diversity of young peoples’ lives by making of short films
reflecting young peoples’ issues.
o support young people to make an effective transition to work and adult life
by: promoting emotional well
o being; encouraging them to understand themselves better; and by widening
their horizons by exposing them to new experiences.
Studio+
Studio + is part of Vital Regeneration’s youth music provision and is made up of
courses and taster sessions in various youth centres. Young people use industry
standard equipment to write and record their own music and learn about careers
in the creative industry. They design and promote events where their music can be
heard and develop skills for life that help them move into employment.
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Image from the first ‘Train the Trainers’ workshop perparing trainers for their workshops. This took place with Musicians
In Focus & the UNDP (United Nations)
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Image from the Hi8us Boost workshop
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4.2. UNDP ACT YFP
Young Cypriot filmmakers begin cinematic adventure
On 29 March 2007 Action for Cooperation and Trust announced the finalists from
the Young Filmmakers competition.
The island-wide competition called upon young Cypriots between the ages of 1830 to send in their ideas for a short film about anything that is important to young
people including individual or social issues. The selection panel made up of film
critics, youth representatives and educators had the challenging task of judging the
entries.
The selected ideas covered a range of topics/issues such as • The economy of both
communities in Cyprus • Young people’s relationship with their grandparents • The
history of village cafés • Identity • Friendship • Death • Cancer • War and Peace •
Environment • Disabilities • Ethnic diversity
A total of 28 young Cypriots completed a training program covering the following
topics: Story Development, Production Management, Lighting, Camera Operating,
Sound, Logistics and Editing. Under the guidance of professionals, these successful
finalists will now be provided with equipment and technical support to make their
films.
A film festival will be the highlight of the project, during which the finalists’ films
will be shown to the public and renowned commentators in the world of the arts and
cinema. Prizes will be awarded to the top three films, and a Participation Award will
also be given to the finalist with the highest level of participation.
http://www.undp-act.org
Pembe Mentesh Programme Analyst UNDP Action for Cooperation & Trust
P.O Box 21642,1590 Nicosia, Cyprus
Tel: +357 22 874777 or +90392 601 4778/9 Fax: +357 22 359066
“This project seeks to combine youthful energy with the profound power of the
film medium,” said Jaco Cilliers, UNDP-ACT Programme Manager. “It will aim
to stimulate an innovative social commentary on the issues which affect modern
Cypriot youth and society at large. It aims to give Cypriot youth a voice and empower
them to express themselves through film”.
As part of this, the project also seeks to tackle indifference and promote civic
engagement amongst Cypriot youth. Recent studies conducted show an increasing
divide between youth in the two communities. The proportion of young people willing
to live together or co-exist with people from the other community is, unfortunately,
decreasing. This trend highlights the need for more opportunities for young people
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from across the island to meet each other and work together. Increased contact can
assist in breaking down stereotypes, prejudices and pre-conceived notions of “the
other”.
Phase three of the project – a bi-communal film festival will be the highlight of the
project, during which the finalists’ films will be shown to the public and renowned
commentators in the world of the arts and journalism.
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4.3. FOMACS
The Forum for Migration and Communications (FOMACS) is a three-year mediadriven programme producing print, photographic, broadcast and interactive stories
on the topic of immigration and integration, with the aim of reaching and engaging
diverse audiences and constituencies.
Our vision is of an Ireland where the public/private image and knowledge of the
immigrant constituency is no longer shaped by ‘suspicion’, ‘fear’ or ‘resentment’, but
by an informed and rich understanding of the historical and social realities that have
led people to migrate (whether migrant workers and their families, refugees and
their families and asylum seekers and their families). It is an Ireland where social
integration is symbolised by a respect for cultural and ethnic difference, where
immigrants participate fully in civic, political, cultural and economic life with full
rights and entitlements
FOMACS’ mission is to generate a series of media-led projects, creating accessible,
challenging and innovative representations of the changing demography of
contemporary Ireland. Highlighting personal/collective stories under the themes
of ‘Family Reunification’ and ‘Irregular/Undocumented’ migration – in schools,
workplaces, in the family home – FOMACS offers an evidence-based and humaninterest angle to the everyday life of migrants.
Our central objective is to amplify immigrant voices and perspectives previously
absent, sensationalised or marginalised in dominant media representations.
FOMACS builds on initiatives where media production not only provides the
foundation and critical glue for social justice campaigns, but is further framed by a
community outreach approach.
FOMACS brings immigrant and non-immigrant media producers, NGO service
providers/community activists and social and policy researchers into an innovative
and collaborative working framework. One of our aims is to design and maintain a
‘living archive’ of the present moment, making digitally accessible the ongoing work
of FOMACS to a diverse set of constituencies and interested publics.
FOMACS is located at the Dublin Institute of Technology, Ground Floor Java City,
Dublin 2, Ireland. For enquiries please email: [email protected]
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4.4. Dublin Institute of Technology
Dublin Institute of Technology is distinguished by the commitment of my colleagues
to bringing their creativity and experience, expertise and scholarship to all our
fields of study. Their close links to the “real world” bring up-to-date perspectives
and rapid responses to the changing educational needs of our modern technological
society. We’ve combined the academic excellence of a traditional university with
career-focused learning and preparation for productive leadership roles. As one of
our students you will gain the knowledge and abilities to contribute to our complex
and ever-changing world. When you graduate you will be among the thinkers, doers
and leaders needed to responding to the new challenges of a global, interdependent,
multicultural, and technologically advanced society. If you want a 21st-century
education that will prepare you for a leading-edge career, we have the programmes
for you!
The Photography and Digital Imaging Studio is situated on the northside of Meeting
House Square in the heart of Dublin’s cultural quarter, Temple Bar. The building
was specially designed as a photographic teaching facility and has a full range of
photographic facilities. These consist of three studios including a daylight studio,
three monochrome and one colour printing darkrooms, monochrome and colour
film processing darkrooms, digital lightroom, print finishing area, lecture and
seminar rooms as well as staff offices and a student recreational area.
The Studio is responsible for the teaching of photography and digital imaging on
a number of DIT courses at undergraduate and postgraduate level. The Studio will
also be developing a range of short courses in the near future.
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4.5. The Roma Support Group
The Roma Support Group is a community organisation working with East European
Roma refugees and migrants since 1998. The origins of the organisation and its
ethos are strongly based within the grass root movement of the Roma community
in London.
The RSG was established by the Roma people and it is led by them today. Since its
humble origins of working from private kitchens and sitting-rooms, the RSG has
moved on to become a Registered Charity and a Company Limited by Guarantee. We
are now working with over 900 Roma families in London, (mainly in East London),
offering them a variety of services, mobilising a community through volunteering
schemes and promoting an understanding of Roma culture in the UK.
Currently, we are running the following projects: • Advice Project • Health Project
• Mentoring Project • Education Support Project • Art Project • Sport Inclusion
Project • Cultural Participation Project
Since November ’05 until February’06, The Roma Support Group has run a Media
Project for Roma children and young people from East London. As a result of
this project a short documentary has been produced in collaboration with Hi8us,
the community media company. The project has enabled children to take part in
all stages of film production from planning, script writing, researching, acting,
narrating, music production and film editing. It is a journey through their heritage
and across London examining Britain’s attitudes towards Roma while celebrating
the new life that the Roma refugee children and youth are making for themselves
in the UK. The launch of the film, Be Roma or Die Tryin’, took place in the Genesis
Cinema in East London and has also been screened during the First International
Roma Film Festival in London. Both shows attracted approx. 300 people and were
followed by a panel discussion involving the public and the makers of the film. They
created an opportunity for young Roma to talk about their lives and issues that they
face as Roma refugees in multicultural and multiracial London.
Since then, the film has been shown on various education and media conferences
in the UK and abroad. As a follow up to our first media project ”Be Roma or Die
Tryin”, RSG organised a film workshop in East London. During this workshop, a
group of ten young Roma created three one-minute films, which were shown at the
OneminutesJr website (http://www.theoneminutesjr.org) thereby entering international
competition of young people’s short film.
In May 2007, the Roma Support Group joined the Converge Project. The project’s
purpose is to enable young Roma to publish short videos on an online publishing
network and it will be a unique opportunity for young Roma to express their ideas,
talk about their culture and challenges they are facing in the UK. In this way, they
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are empowered to speak about their identity themselves whilst learning about IT
and media. They are also able to exchange their work with other young people from
diverse backgrounds. The main challenges of the project are lack of resources both
in terms of technical equipment and manpower. However, this is compensated with
young people’s enthusiasm and interest in media.
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4.6. Chew TV
What is Chew TV?
Chew TV is an interactive and independent web TV channel. It is run mainly by
young people and is for young people.
The channel plays User Generated Content along side our own commissions and
exclusive videos from film festivals and special projects that are only available for
streaming on Chew TV. This content is played as part of a programme schedule
that changes at different times of the day for the different audiences that we expect
although all of the videos are also available on demand in the ‘View All’ section or
by using the search facility.
Signing up to a Chew TV user account is totally free and allows you to submit videos
(online or by post), leave reviews & rate other films and create a profile that will allow
you to advertise your skills and meet other filmmakers and media practitioners. Also
some video are not available to you unless you sign up. This feature really allows you
to ‘network’ within the industry and your peers so that you can get involved in other
projects and further your media journey.
Chew TV workshop with Adnan Hadzi (Converge)
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Why have a program schedule?
For most people watching TV is a largely passive recreation. In contrast, using most
browser based web channels requires searching through endless lists of random
videos (and that’s after you’ve thought of something to search for). Chew TV plays
targeted programs at different times of the day just like a regular TV Channel, so if
your film get on to the playlist then it is likely to be seen by large numbers of viewers.
Although at any time users can ‘view all’ or search for videos.
Why curated/edited?
Not just anything gets on the channel, your work will have to be considered by our
youth led content group before being approved for inclusion in the schedule. This
filters out all of the rubbish you might find on other video sharing sites such as
footage of people’s pets and lonely nerds’ webcam monologues.
Why use Chew TV? Unlike some other video sharing sites, Chew TV allows you to
retain copyright of your work. This is more important than you might think as these
corporations still own your work even after you have removed form their site! Also
as mentioned above, unless you want your life’s work to be shown alongside “man
falls down hole” then Chew TV is the place for you. Our streaming quality is also
pretty good!
The Converge Workshop
Being part of the Converge project was very important to Chew TV. The information
and tutorials provided on open source technology helped shape our strategies and
also informed us on many debates/arguments that we had previously not considered.
The Broadcast Machine is an excellent model for using free open source technology
and online storage to create web video channels. Although due to technical reasons (at
our end) we could not use The Broadcast Machine to its full potential, understanding
its process was so valuable to us in looking into furthering our output by using RSS
technology and introduced us to new platforms such as Democracy/Miro.
At Chew TV one of our goals is to empower young people to do things for themselves
and get their voices heard. All of the information provided in the Converge Workshop
and online wiki/manual provided us with knowledge to help young people to do
this without resorting to uploading their work into Rupert Murdoch’s evil grasp.
We were also able to look at they way Chew TV worked and think about setting
examples to the collaborative filmmakers of the future.
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4.7. Digital Women’s Club
The Digital Women’s Club is a dynamic network designed to support unemployed
and underemployed women in finding roles and careers within the creative digital
sector. The project centers on an interactive website (key to developing contacts
and showcasing talent and experience) and is underpinned by free creative and
vocational training in: music, film, design, tv production, DJing, radio broadcasting
and website development.
Training is provided by eight leading arts organisations: Antersite, Betar Bangla,
CIDA, Circus Media/New VIC, DV8/Eastside Records, Free Form Arts Trust,
Point Blank and Urban Development. Shape, the country’s leading disability arts
organisation, will be supporting all the organisations in ensuring the needs of deaf
and disabled women are met throughout the project. New Media Knowledge and
Music Tank will be leading some high profile networking events.
The Digital Women’s Club is led by CIDA and is London Development Agency/ESF
co-financed.
http://www.myspace.com/digitalwomen
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4.8. PVA MediaLab
PVA MediaLab are a multimedia art organisation. we are currently developing a web
based project for young people called The Silicon Coast. There have been several
short films, music and audio projects all devised and written by young people living
in the silicon coast region.
148
149
150
5. About Converge
5.1. About Converge
One of ITM’s objectives is using ICT for the production and distribution of learning
materials and products developed by partners and target groups. Converge is a
programme to enable young people to showcase their work on the web. A handbook
and workshop program is produced to enable young people to fully utilise both
existing offers and build their own open source software based sites. These will be
piloted with Hi8us partipatory youth media projects across the UK.
Project leader: Rebecca Maguire, Office for Business Development Partner: Hi8us
Projects, Hi8us South, Hi8us Midlands, Hi8us North, CIDA, Goldsmiths, University
of London
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5.2. About these tutorials
Information about the pitch of the guides, the philosophy and technical tools for making them
These tutorials may not give a total guide to the software involved but will show
you how to achieve a specific task which is likely to be needed in the creation of a
web video file or another form of viewing or distributing Video files. We decided
to cover a fair amount of ground in these tutorials over three operating systems
rather than complete guides. Some of this software is in rapid development and
more complete documentation of the software may not yet be possible. When there
is more complete documentation or a need for some we try to point that out.
The tutorials themselves are released under a GPL Free Documentation License (see
section 5.4).
Also when possible the tutorials detail how to undertake tasks using Free Software.
However they also detail how to do tasks using non-Free Software as well if the
authors felt there was a need to create such tutorials. Because of the wide range use
user skills it was felt that some tasks are so complicated in commercial software that
an alternative should be given. Also at times the features of the Free software tools
were not as developed as they should be so alternatives were offered. In these cases
we have tried to make the development communities of the Free Software involved
aware of our thoughts. In fact in most cases where documentation has been written
about software, the communities that develop that software have been informed of
the tutorials and asked to give feedback and improve them.
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5.3. Contact Converge
For further details about Converge workshops, contact Rebecca Maguire:
email: [email protected]
web: http://www.goldsmiths.ac.uk/business-development
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5.4. Free Documentation License
Version 1.2, November 2002
Copyright (C) 2000, 2001, 2002 Free Software Foundation, Inc. 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston,
MA 02110-1301 USA Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this license
document, but changing it is not allowed.
0. Preamble
The purpose of this License is to make a manual, textbook, or other functional and useful document
“free” in the sense of freedom: to assure everyone the effective freedom to copy and redistribute it,
with or without modifying it, either commercially or noncommercially. Secondarily, this License
preserves for the author and publisher a way to get credit for their work, while not being considered
responsible for modifications made by others.
This License is a kind of “copyleft”, which means that derivative works of the document must themselves
be free in the same sense. It complements the GNU General Public License, which is a copyleft
license designed for free software.
We have designed this License in order to use it for manuals for free software, because free software
needs free documentation: a free program should come with manuals providing the same
freedoms that the software does. But this License is not limited to software manuals; it can be used
for any textual work, regardless of subject matter or whether it is published as a printed book. We
recommend this License principally for works whose purpose is instruction or reference.
1. Applicability and definitions
This License applies to any manual or other work, in any medium, that contains a notice placed by the
copyright holder saying it can be distributed under the terms of this License. Such a notice grants a
world-wide, royalty-free license, unlimited in duration, to use that work under the conditions stated
herein. The “Document”, below, refers to any such manual or work. Any member of the public is a
licensee, and is addressed as “you”. You accept the license if you copy, modify or distribute the work
in a way requiring permission under copyright law.
A “Modified Version” of the Document means any work containing the Document or a portion of it,
either copied verbatim, or with modifications and/or translated into another language.
A “Secondary Section” is a named appendix or a front-matter section of the Document that deals
exclusively with the relationship of the publishers or authors of the Document to the Document’s
overall subject (or to related matters) and contains nothing that could fall directly within that
overall subject. (Thus, if the Document is in part a textbook of mathematics, a Secondary Section
may not explain any mathematics.) The relationship could be a matter of historical connection
with the subject or with related matters, or of legal, commercial, philosophical, ethical or political
position regarding them.
The “Invariant Sections” are certain Secondary Sections whose titles are designated, as being those
of Invariant Sections, in the notice that says that the Document is released under this License. If
a section does not fit the above definition of Secondary then it is not allowed to be designated as
Invariant. The Document may contain zero Invariant Sections. If the Document does not identify
any Invariant Sections then there are none.
The “Cover Texts” are certain short passages of text that are listed, as Front-Cover Texts or Back-Cover
Texts, in the notice that says that the Document is released under this License. A Front-Cover Text
may be at most 5 words, and a Back-Cover Text may be at most 25 words.
A “Transparent” copy of the Document means a machine-readable copy, represented in a format
whose specification is available to the general public, that is suitable for revising the document
straightforwardly with generic text editors or (for images composed of pixels) generic paint
programs or (for drawings) some widely available drawing editor, and that is suitable for input
to text formatters or for automatic translation to a variety of formats suitable for input to text
formatters. A copy made in an otherwise Transparent file format whose markup, or absence of
markup, has been arranged to thwart or discourage subsequent modification by readers is not
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Transparent. An image format is not Transparent if used for any substantial amount of text. A copy
that is not “Transparent” is called “Opaque”.
Examples of suitable formats for Transparent copies include plain ASCII without markup, Texinfo
input format, LaTeX input format, SGML or XML using a publicly available DTD, and standardconforming simple HTML, PostScript or PDF designed for human modification. Examples of
transparent image formats include PNG, XCF and JPG. Opaque formats include proprietary
formats that can be read and edited only by proprietary word processors, SGML or XML for which
the DTD and/or processing tools are not generally available, and the machine-generated HTML,
PostScript or PDF produced by some word processors for output purposes only.
The “Title Page” means, for a printed book, the title page itself, plus such following pages as are needed
to hold, legibly, the material this License requires to appear in the title page. For works in formats
which do not have any title page as such, “Title Page” means the text near the most prominent
appearance of the work’s title, preceding the beginning of the body of the text.
A section “Entitled XYZ” means a named subunit of the Document whose title either is precisely XYZ
or contains XYZ in parentheses following text that translates XYZ in another language. (Here XYZ
stands for a specific section name mentioned below, such as “Acknowledgements”, “Dedications”,
“Endorsements”, or “History”.) To “Preserve the Title” of such a section when you modify the
Document means that it remains a section “Entitled XYZ” according to this definition.
The Document may include Warranty Disclaimers next to the notice which states that this License
applies to the Document. These Warranty Disclaimers are considered to be included by reference in
this License, but only as regards disclaiming warranties: any other implication that these Warranty
Disclaimers may have is void and has no effect on the meaning of this License.
2. Verbatim copying
You may copy and distribute the Document in any medium, either commercially or noncommercially,
provided that this License, the copyright notices, and the license notice saying this License applies
to the Document are reproduced in all copies, and that you add no other conditions whatsoever
to those of this License. You may not use technical measures to obstruct or control the reading or
further copying of the copies you make or distribute. However, you may accept compensation in
exchange for copies. If you distribute a large enough number of copies you must also follow the
conditions in section 3.
You may also lend copies, under the same conditions stated above, and you may publicly display
copies.
3. Copying in quantity
If you publish printed copies (or copies in media that commonly have printed covers) of the Document,
numbering more than 100, and the Document’s license notice requires Cover Texts, you must
enclose the copies in covers that carry, clearly and legibly, all these Cover Texts: Front-Cover Texts
on the front cover, and Back-Cover Texts on the back cover. Both covers must also clearly and
legibly identify you as the publisher of these copies. The front cover must present the full title with
all words of the title equally prominent and visible. You may add other material on the covers
in addition. Copying with changes limited to the covers, as long as they preserve the title of the
Document and satisfy these conditions, can be treated as verbatim copying in other respects.
If the required texts for either cover are too voluminous to fit legibly, you should put the first ones listed
(as many as fit reasonably) on the actual cover, and continue the rest onto adjacent pages.
If you publish or distribute Opaque copies of the Document numbering more than 100, you must either
include a machine-readable Transparent copy along with each Opaque copy, or state in or with
each Opaque copy a computer-network location from which the general network-using public has
access to download using public-standard network protocols a complete Transparent copy of the
Document, free of added material. If you use the latter option, you must take reasonably prudent
steps, when you begin distribution of Opaque copies in quantity, to ensure that this Transparent
copy will remain thus accessible at the stated location until at least one year after the last time
you distribute an Opaque copy (directly or through your agents or retailers) of that edition to the
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public.
It is requested, but not required, that you contact the authors of the Document well before redistributing
any large number of copies, to give them a chance to provide you with an updated version of the
Document.
4. Modifications
You may copy and distribute a Modified Version of the Document under the conditions of sections 2
and 3 above, provided that you release the Modified Version under precisely this License, with the
Modified Version filling the role of the Document, thus licensing distribution and modification of
the Modified Version to whoever possesses a copy of it. In addition, you must do these things in
the Modified Version:
A. Use in the Title Page (and on the covers, if any) a title distinct from that of the Document, and from
those of previous versions (which should, if there were any, be listed in the History section of
the Document). You may use the same title as a previous version if the original publisher of that
version gives permission.
B. List on the Title Page, as authors, one or more persons or entities responsible for authorship of the
modifications in the Modified Version, together with at least five of the principal authors of the
Document (all of its principal authors, if it has fewer than five), unless they release you from this
requirement.
C. State on the Title page the name of the publisher of the Modified Version, as the publisher.
D. Preserve all the copyright notices of the Document.
E. Add an appropriate copyright notice for your modifications adjacent to the other copyright notices
F. Include, immediately after the copyright notices, a license notice giving the public permission to
use the Modified Version under the terms of this License, in the form shown in the Addendum
below.
G. Preserve in that license notice the full lists of Invariant Sections and required Cover Texts given in
the Document's license notice.
H. Include an unaltered copy of this License.
I. Preserve the section Entitled “History”, Preserve its Title, and add to it an item stating at least the
title, year, new authors, and publisher of the Modified Version as given on the Title Page. If there
is no section Entitled “History” in the Document, create one stating the title, year, authors, and
publisher of the Document as given on its Title Page, then add an item describing the Modified
Version as stated in the previous sentence.
J. Preserve the network location, if any, given in the Document for public access to a Transparent copy
of the Document, and likewise the network locations given in the Document for previous versions
it was based on. These may be placed in the “History” section. You may omit a network location for
a work that was published at least four years before the Document itself, or if the original publisher
of the version it refers to gives permission.
K. For any section Entitled “Acknowledgements” or “Dedications”, Preserve the Title of the section, and
preserve in the section all the substance and tone of each of the contributor acknowledgements
and/or dedications given therein.
L. Preserve all the Invariant Sections of the Document, unaltered in their text and in their titles. Section
numbers or the equivalent are not considered part of the section titles.
M. Delete any section Entitled “Endorsements”. Such a section may not be included in the Modified
Version.
N. Do not retitle any existing section to be Entitled “Endorsements” or to conflict in title with any
Invariant Section.
O. Preserve any Warranty Disclaimers.
If the Modified Version includes new front-matter sections or appendices that qualify as Secondary
Sections and contain no material copied from the Document, you may at your option designate
some or all of these sections as invariant. To do this, add their titles to the list of Invariant Sections
in the Modified Version’s license notice. These titles must be distinct from any other section titles.
You may add a section Entitled “Endorsements”, provided it contains nothing but endorsements of
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your Modified Version by various parties — for example, statements of peer review or that the text
has been approved by an organization as the authoritative definition of a standard.
You may add a passage of up to five words as a Front-Cover Text, and a passage of up to 25 words as a
Back-Cover Text, to the end of the list of Cover Texts in the Modified Version. Only one passage of
Front-Cover Text and one of Back-Cover Text may be added by (or through arrangements made
by) any one entity. If the Document already includes a cover text for the same cover, previously
added by you or by arrangement made by the same entity you are acting on behalf of, you may not
add another; but you may replace the old one, on explicit permission from the previous publisher
that added the old one.
The author(s) and publisher(s) of the Document do not by this License give permission to use their
names for publicity for or to assert or imply endorsement of any Modified Version.
5. Combining documents
You may combine the Document with other documents released under this License, under the terms
defined in section 4 above for modified versions, provided that you include in the combination all
of the Invariant Sections of all of the original documents, unmodified, and list them all as Invariant
Sections of your combined work in its license notice, and that you preserve all their Warranty
Disclaimers.
The combined work need only contain one copy of this License, and multiple identical Invariant
Sections may be replaced with a single copy. If there are multiple Invariant Sections with the same
name but different contents, make the title of each such section unique by adding at the end of
it, in parentheses, the name of the original author or publisher of that section if known, or else a
unique number. Make the same adjustment to the section titles in the list of Invariant Sections in
the license notice of the combined work.
In the combination, you must combine any sections Entitled “History” in the various original
documents, forming one section Entitled “History”; likewise combine any sections Entitled
“Acknowledgements”, and any sections Entitled “Dedications”. You must delete all sections Entitled
“Endorsements.”
6. Collections of documents
You may make a collection consisting of the Document and other documents released under this
License, and replace the individual copies of this License in the various documents with a single
copy that is included in the collection, provided that you follow the rules of this License for
verbatim copying of each of the documents in all other respects.
You may extract a single document from such a collection, and distribute it individually under this
License, provided you insert a copy of this License into the extracted document, and follow this
License in all other respects regarding verbatim copying of that document.
7. Aggregation with independent works
A compilation of the Document or its derivatives with other separate and independent documents
or works, in or on a volume of a storage or distribution medium, is called an “aggregate” if the
copyright resulting from the compilation is not used to limit the legal rights of the compilation’s
users beyond what the individual works permit. When the Document is included in an aggregate,
this License does not apply to the other works in the aggregate which are not themselves derivative
works of the Document.
If the Cover Text requirement of section 3 is applicable to these copies of the Document, then if the
Document is less than one half of the entire aggregate, the Document’s Cover Texts may be placed
on covers that bracket the Document within the aggregate, or the electronic equivalent of covers
if the Document is in electronic form. Otherwise they must appear on printed covers that bracket
the whole aggregate.
8. Translation
Translation is considered a kind of modification, so you may distribute translations of the Document
under the terms of section 4. Replacing Invariant Sections with translations requires special
permission from their copyright holders, but you may include translations of some or all Invariant
157
Sections in addition to the original versions of these Invariant Sections. You may include a translation
of this License, and all the license notices in the Document, and any Warranty Disclaimers, provided
that you also include the original English version of this License and the original versions of those
notices and disclaimers. In case of a disagreement between the translation and the original version
of this License or a notice or disclaimer, the original version will prevail.
If a section in the Document is Entitled “Acknowledgements”, “Dedications”, or “History”, the
requirement (section 4) to Preserve its Title (section 1) will typically require changing the actual
title.
9. Termination
You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Document except as expressly provided for
under this License. Any other attempt to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Document is
void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License. However, parties who have
received copies, or rights, from you under this License will not have their licenses terminated so
long as such parties remain in full compliance.
10. Future revisions of this license
The Free Software Foundation may publish new, revised versions of the GNU Free Documentation
License from time to time. Such new versions will be similar in spirit to the present version, but
may differ in detail to address new problems or concerns. See http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/.
Each version of the License is given a distinguishing version number. If the Document specifies that a
particular numbered version of this License “or any later version” applies to it, you have the option
of following the terms and conditions either of that specified version or of any later version that has
been published (not as a draft) by the Free Software Foundation. If the Document does not specify
a version number of this License, you may choose any version ever published (not as a draft) by the
Free Software Foundation.
More information: http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html
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5.5. Copyrights
Copyright © 2007
All contributions to Converge are the property of the submitter unless otherwise noted (for example;
the submitter may be posting public domain text or other text they were given permission to copy,
modify and republish under our copyright terms). All content is considered to be released under
the following terms unless otherwise indicated (for example; a clearly-marked quotation);
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU
Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software
Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy
of the license is included in the section entitled “Free Documentation License” (section 5.4).
Publication by third parties
You may use the same title as Converge and/or module(s) but trademark law prevents you from
advertising the Converge or Wikimedia names without our written permission. This does not
prevent you from giving either Converge or Wikimedia credit for the work by name; as a matter of
fact we very much appreciate all the credit we can get (this is a separate issue from author credit;
see below). But it does legally prevent you from leading your readers to believe that your version of
our work is in fact an official Converge or Wikimedia publication. See below for more.
Use on the Internet
For specifics read the Free Documentation License
1. Mention Converge as the source (not mandatory; but appreciated)
2. Provide a functional link back to Converge (this satisfies the author credit requirement of our
license)
3. State that the text is available under the GNU Free Documentation License
4. Link to a copy of the GNU FDL license (preferably stored on your own server).
5. Your version of the text must be machine readable (meaning you cannot prevent others from
copying the text)
Use in hardcopy
For specifics read the Free Documentation License
1. Mention Converge as the source (not mandatory; but appreciated)
2. Give credit to at least 5 authors listed on the ”Authors” page of whatever book you are re-publishing
(if fewer than 5 then include all).
3. State that the text is available under the GNU Free Documentation License on at least one page of
the book with the above bolded copyright notice.
4. A full copy of the license needs to be included with the printed book.
5. Whenever more than 100 copies are made, you must (choose one):
1. Provide a floppy disk, CD, DVD or other computer media with the entire content of the book in
machine readable text.
2. Provide a network link to a website where the machine readable text can be obtained (this link
must remain active for at least one year after publication of the hardcopy; if all you are doing is
making an exact copy of Converge, then you may use the URL of the corresponding Converge
index page).
Fair Use Material
In some situations you may encounter material on Converge that has been added according to the
Converge Fair Use Policy. The restricted sub-set of fair-use material should be legal to reproduce
in most countries around the world, but you should check with expert legal opinion if you plan to
commercially reproduce this sort of content, or if you plan on distributing a large number of copies
of any Wikibooks content that uses this sort of material. All material that is being used under fairuse guidelines should be clearly identified as such, either through an image copyright identification
tag or within the Wikibook itself.
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