Art Machine
Just another former infatuation junkie

An international media conference has been held in Beijing—a choice of venue apparently made without a shred of irony. In attendance and speaking were Rupert Murdoch and Tom Curley (chief executive of AP), who had some scathing words about what the future held for the internet.

This paragraph, of course, is where I would quote from the story—but the AP has previously announced they don’t want to be quoted on blogs. More to the point, at least a few words in the final sentence of the above paragraph should have been a link to the story so that you could read it yourself. However, it was part of Murdoch and Curley’s presentations that people online should get used to the idea that they will be charged for linking to a story from now on. So, you’ll probably have to find the story the same way I did—follow a link from a news aggregator to a search-engine sponsored page (that pays a fee to AP for access to their content) and read it there.

That is, if the AP and Newscorp will let you. Unloading on their own dwindling revenue stream with both barrels, their presentations specifically targeted search engines and news aggregators, while also snarking at bloggers (whom they prefer to refer to as “plagiarists”). Along the way, they listed such offenders as Wikipedia, YouTube, and Facebook. All of which allow you to post links to articles on money-making websites so that you can drive your friends to the websites where the AP and Newscorp (and other concerned attendees) can cash in on advertising revenue.

Murdoch even went so far as to call all of these venues and the people using them “content kleptomaniacs” (only two words quoted so far—still well under AP’s 5 word quotation licensing threshold). Apparently, having and sharing an opinion on the news and encouraging people to check the story out for themselves at the original publisher’s website is tantamount to compulsively slipping a stapler and fifteen pencils into your pocket when they aren’t yours to take.

Once upon a time, I thought it would be a good strategy to simply not quote any further AP stories. Given their new agenda, however, I think it’s time to ramp up the strategy.

All people who are reported on by the news media—in particular the AP and Newscorp—who are not being reported on for the commission of a crime should respond to said reporting by demanding a payment for their story. By all rights, any story told in the news media could be sold by its participants for adaptation into a book, television special or series, and/or movie. If search engines and aggregators steal value from news media, then news media steals value from these people’s life stories by pilfering them and publishing them without payment to their originators.

Demand damages for publication of your story without payment. Demand personal image licensing fees before they can take your picture. Sue for copyright infringement when they quote you or your writings without your express written consent. And never accept that simply having your picture in the paper/on TV is “payment enough.”

Further, anybody acquitted of a crime that is reported in the news media should also demand payment. After all, it is only if convicted that the law prohibits you from turning a profit on a crime. If you’re acquitted, you’re perfectly free to make a buck off the story. And who are the news media to go reporting all of the details of your case before you have a chance to profit off of it?

I was a comic geek once upon a time.

From the time I was a little kid until almost a decade or so ago (was it really a decade since I was a college sophomore? Yeesh), I was an avid comic collector.

As a kid, I bought pretty much any superhero comic I could get my hands on—particularly anything with Spider-Man, Batman, Captain America, or Superman on the cover.

As a young teenager, I discovered ElfQuest and learned the joys of longform comic storytelling—something I had never quite gotten the hang of with superhero comics. And by the time I was the aforementioned college sophomore, my comics intake consisted pretty much entirely of Strangers in Paradise, Books of Magic, and brief flirtations with Cerebus and Sandman Mystery Theatre, as well as Bone (which I loved, but I got into way too late at the time).

And then it stopped.

“You can’t own a song, maaan. It’s like, one of God’s creatures, y’dig?” – somebody, possibly me

Hey! Anybody out there use the Yahoo! Music Store? Anybody? Um… anybody?

Well, if you do, you’re royally screwed. Yahoo! is getting out of the music business, and they’re taking the keys to your music with them. (Link via Boing Boing)

Once the Yahoo store goes down and the key servers go offline, existing tracks cannot be authorized to play on new computers. Instead, Yahoo recommends the old, lame, and lossy workaround of burning the files to CD, then reripping them onto the computer. Sure, you’ll lose a bunch of blank CDs, sound quality, and all the metadata, but that’s a small price to pay for the privilege of being able to listen to that music you lawfully acquired. Good thing you didn’t download it illegally or just buy it on CD!

No matter how you slice it or how many times the RIAA or MPAA try to tell you DRM is for your own good or that it allows the customer “to enjoy their music in the best possible way,” it’s just a bad idea. It destroys your ability to choose, and in some cases it also destroys your ability to own. No consumer asked for this. As Cory Doctorow told Microsoft, “No Sony customer woke up one morning and said, ‘Damn, I wish Sony would devote some expensive engineering effort in order that I may do less with my music.’”

Ars Technica points out that this same thing happened recently with MSN who, after public outcry, agreed to keep their DRM servers running until 2011 – so you get a full three years more to enjoy your music! Yay!

Of course, nobody seems to be remembering that DRM-encoded Google Videos got deactivated when they got out of selling content, or that the MLB has used its DRM scheme to turn off purchased (not rented) digital downloads of their games. Because, after all, those are video and not audio, and apparently the exploitation of DRM by greedy corporations who already have their money aren’t worth noting if they weren’t in your particular media.

Here’s the simple truth. MSN, Yahoo! Music, Google Video Store, and the MLB all demonstrate one simple fact. If you are a customer of a DRM encoding store for any kind of media, then you are not purchasing your content – you’re renting it. No matter what they tell you about how you just purchased your music free and clear, they all reserve the right to just turn your music/video/ebooks off and leave you with gigabytes of worthless data.

Jed’s Report carries a story on the Associated Press-hosted luncheon where Obama was grilled and McCain was given Dunkin’ Donuts doughnuts (with sprinkles!) and coffee. Barack Obama was asked if he would increase troop levels in Afghanistan where “Obama bin Laden” was still operating. McCain’s moderator, in the meantime, waxed eloquent about the wonderful times reporters spent with McCain on the Straight Talk Express, declared the luncheon a chance to invite everybody else to share those great times, and then offered the doughnuts to McCain, noting that she knew they were his favorite snack.

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Above is the point where I would usually put a quote from the original article – which, in this case, might be a good thing for them, since it might contain some pearl of wisdom that I had missed that would completely justify the difference in how the two candidates were treated.

The AP, however, has decided that the thing they truly hate is having their own words quoted when people critique their journalism. To that end, they have created a bizarre, counter-intuitive, and definitely counter to fair use policy that they will license quotes of more than five words for a fee – a license which they reserve the right to revoke if they feel it shows the AP in a bad light. Given these new guidelines, I can in good conscience only give the AP four or fewer words to state their case – and that’s three quoted words in the first sentence. Tsk. Too bad.

The expectation many had that the next-generation HD format would take off once the format war was over is pretty much a forgotten dream at this point. Sales of Blu-Ray haven’t experienced the massive jump people expected once wait-and-see consumers saw that HD-DVD was well and truly dead.

Consumers are balking at the $300-plus cost of most Blu-ray players especially because only limited movie titles are available in the format.

“People aren’t going to pay three times as much for a platform that’s only half-baked,” said Steve Wilson, a consumer electronics analyst with ABI Research.

The problem with both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray formats, of course, was largely the library. Perhaps it’s only obvious to me, but when you’re touting the superiority of the platform as a prestige format, you might want to consider releasing Citizen Kane – a movie with a long history that most people would display proudly in their collection, and something more likely to be cherished by someone who just dropped $399 on a player – instead of, say, Ultraviolet – a movie whose design concept can best be described as “blurry, obviously fake, and designed above all to not be viewed in HD.”

This in turn feeds the price question. Why should people pay a prestige price for a player where the majority of titles are movies that people just flat don’t care about seeing in HD – many of which are $20+ on the new format when they’re already in the bargain bins on the old? I just purchased Alien, Aliens, and Alien 3 on DVD for $5.99 each – movies I care about having in my collection (well, Alien 3 more for completeness’ sake). With the already high quality of DVD picture and sound, spending $25.99 for each of them on Blu-Ray would just feel wrong.

Of course, Blu-Ray could get an extra push from indie producers. More and more indie directors shooting on HD would mean an influx of content – some of which would be kept inexpensive to draw in new audiences, and which would help sell the new format to off-the-wall and indie film fans. Of course, it could provide this extra push – if Blu-Ray didn’t seem determined to exclude these producers from the new market.

Where are the POD solutions for Blu-Ray at this point? No, I’m seriously asking – where are they? CreateSpace, which is owned by Amazon, is still negotiating a deal to allow them to offer POD Blu-Ray. Kunaki? Lulu? Who knows? Neither one even mentions it. Why not?

It may have something to do with the $3,000-a-person entry fee the industry is imposing, otherwise known as the AACS DRM scheme. It appears that there’s been a real problem playing Blu-Ray discs that don’t include AACS, so everybody who wants to publish to the medium has to purchase an AACS license, and every title must include AACS – regardless of the wishes of the publisher and/or the artist.

Creative Commons-licensed material? Who cares? You’d better slap some copy protection on it.

Want to release a public domain film to Blu-Ray to help preserve our film history (or make a quick buck off of an HD release of The Last Man on Earth)? Sure. As long as that public domain film is one you’re willing to pay $3,000 to copy protect.

And forget about a sales system like EZTakes, that provides its DVD images DRM-free – but with the purchaser’s e-mail address embedded in the burnt copy.

Forget, too, about the share-friendly independent spirit that provokes legal statements like this one (found on my newest DVD, available soon, plug plug).

Low- and Micro-budget filmmakers will find themselves blocked out of the new next-generation disc market for as long as AACS is an expensive necessity and the artists are blocked out of making their own decisions as to how their content should be treated. The result? Well, unless the major studios wise up on their releasing schedule, a homogenized blend of movies nobody cares about seeing in High Definition, and a marketplace completely priced out of the range of the regular consumer.

After all, there’s one further aspect I’ve barely even touched on that is just as blocked by this current model – one could argue that DVD’s would never have become the consumer mainstay they are today if not for the bins of $1 DVD’s at the front of every major retail chain today…

I believe I’ve re-edited this footage 3 times already. See, the original performance had music that I just didn’t have the license to sell in hard copy form. So every time I get it in my head to share the play, I wind up cutting the old music – and learning a bit more about editing.

For now, here’s a bit of the opening sequence to the upcoming Three Shots Fired Point Blank: The Special Edition DVD. “Adult Content” will be posted to YouTube later.

I was reading through issue 00 of Doorways Magazine (free from Wowio – link at the end of the entry) when I came across this little gem from Gary A. Braunbeck.

Doorways: It’s been said before, by you as well as others, that your work isn’t easily definable—you often overlap horror, dark fiction, sci-fi, and even fantasy and mainstream fiction, as well as writing stories that fall easily within those boundaries. Where do you feel the majority of your work belongs, in terms of general category?

Gary: The more I write and publish, the less I care about categorization—categorization is purely a marketing tool, a necessary evil that mid-list writers like myself—in my case, barely a mid-lister—have to accept and deal with. I was exceptionally pleased when Leisure decided to drop the word “Horror” from the spines of their books and replace it with, simply, “Fiction.”

He then goes on to talk about how he advises his writing students to “forget genre” and instead just tell the story as it should be told—which is great artistic advice, even if it’s a bit dicey commercially.

I, for one, have been disappointed making the rounds of my local bookstores and discovering that none of them have “horror” shelves. Instead, the horror titles are mixed in with the rest of the “fiction” section. The marketing reality of this is that if I’m looking for new horror—which, as someone working on horror manuscripts, I am—then I pretty much have to already know the title and author of the book I’m looking for instead of browsing or looking at a “new horror” section. Especially since my local book stores tend to fill over half of their floor space with the fiction section, making just general browsing a day-long activity. This is unlike the Science Fiction or Mystery genres, where I can walk over and take a look at one to two shelves of “New Science Fiction” and “New Mystery” and acquaint myself with what’s recently published.

Instead, I have to depend on outside resources like, well, Doorways Magazine, for a start, and those nifty cardboard standees at the front of Barnes & Noblesse Oblige. I’ve scanned those standees, by the way, and based on them, here’s the ideal back cover blurb for your latest horror masterpiece. You will adjust your plotlines accordingly.

The streets of [London/New York/Paris/Romantic Western Urban Locale] are dark and mysterious. Real mysterious. Not just episode-of-”Monk” mysterious, but, like, mys-teeer-ious. Life is dull and grey for [reporter/student/other career that involves words] Jane Merkinson [or insert favorite name of your choice]. Little does she know that soon her boring, comfortable life will be ripped asunder as a dark, sexy [vampire/vampiress] leads her into the blood-soaked, sensuous underworld of the undead.

“I loved it!” – generichorrorsite.com

“Breathtaking!” – welovevampirehotties.com

“A sleek and sexy thriller!” – Entertainment Weekly

“Please, please, pleeease give me Anne Rice’s old contract!” – The Author

Thanks to Boing Boing, I find my way back to ElfQuest.com – where WaRP Graphics has started the long process of posting every page of ElfQuest online for free reading. The second wave is about to go up, but the first wave contains – among other things – the first full story arc of the original series, Journey to Sorrow’s End.

It’s ElfQuest’s 30th anniversary this year, and last year DC Comics let go of them. They’re one of the longest-running indie comics on the scene, and I discovered they’re selling merchandise through CafePress.

I had problems with how DC handled their property. The “manga” reprints hacked the original art apart and re-ordered it, slathering it with a liberal dose of digital screen tones, and the only way to get the comic as it originally appeared was in overpriced “Archive” editions. Add to that the lack of promotion and the fact that the movie adaptation fizzled shortly afterward, and it seems like DC just didn’t quite bring its A-game.

There’s nothing wrong with CafePress. I still have a store with them, myself. But it still feels odd to see an indie comics institution of 30 years using what is usually thought of as a beginners’ merchandising outlet.

ElfQuest was a big part of my artistic development. It was the first outlet that made me realize that character design was more than just how people looked, but could also be used to reveal the inner life and monologue of a character. It was the comic that kept me interested in comics as a storytelling medium at times when the mainstream output failed to engage me. A lot of my sense of visual storytelling still comes from tricks I learned from Wendy Pini’s sequential art, with its use of cinematic angles and animated frame layouts that mimicked the time-flexibility of film.

And to top it all off, my first actual audience for any one of my short stories was an ElfQuest fan club (or “holt”).

I’m happy to see ElfQuest going online, and hoping that now WaRP will be able to bring back an audience for the comic. I know I’ll be tuning in every week and re-acquainting myself with what still remains my favorite comic.

Sci-fi blog io9 links to this article on the official Star Wars site comparing the Japanese manga of Star Wars to the Marvel Comics adaptations.

it’s truly an unfair comparison to gauge how well Marvel Comics originally adapted the classic trilogy films against how Japanese artists did the same. The deck is definitely stacked in manga’s favor. For the Marvel adaptations, produced during each film’s post-production period, the artists had not seen the films—they were working merely from the script, with some key photography and maybe some concept art. Also, they had to conform to the page and printing standards of newsstand comics from 1977-1983. This meant that all the action of a Star Wars film had to be crammed into six issues (or, in the case of Return of the Jedi, a mere four).

What quickly becomes apparent, however, is that the manga adaptation had far more going for it than just a long, long lead time and flexible format. The manga also didn’t have to deal with the Comics Code Authority, resulting in a much freer style with some of the more violent moments of the Star Wars saga. Where a piece of machinery conveniently covers the action in the Code-approved American adaptation, the manga depicts Luke’s hand being cut off with brutality and finality. Where Luke and Vader’s cave confrontation is toned down severely in the American adaptation, the manga version depicts it perhaps even better than the original film.

The open manga style also lends itself better to capturing the spirit of the film in general. While the Marvel adaptations feature painstakingly detailed artwork, the cartoon style of the manga allows it to better capture the comic relief of the series, while also lending itself to true hardcore pulp moments like Leia’s revenge on Jabba the Hutt.

So perhaps it is truly unfair to compare the two adaptations – as is usually the case with Japanese and American comics, it’s a case of apples to oranges. But it certainly is interesting to compare them. And it’s even more interesting to me to see this kind of side-by-side comparison published by the licensing company itself.

If you haven’t already purchased or downloaded it from one of the myriad places it’s been published (hint: it’s also available on cd here), then I’m pleased to announce that you can now get The Illegal Rebirth of Deep Blue the Kid at the Amazon.com digital downloads store! Act now – your copy is waiting.