The Creative Commons Sampling License

In response to my post a few days ago about my Creative Commons Dilemma, Denise Howell pointed out a CC license I had somehow missed. It’s a license designed specifically to permit sampling. The version I am considering reads (in its summary form):

You are free:

  • To sample, mash-up, or otherwise creatively transform this work for commercial or noncommercial purposes.

Under the following conditions:

  • You must give the original author credit
  • You may not use this work to advertise for or promote anything but the work you create from it.
  • For any reuse, you must make clear to others the license terms of this work.
  • You may not perform, display, or distribute copies of this whole work for any purpose.

The formal version is here.

As Denise pointed out, there may be a loophole or two for my purposes, but living with those loopholes might be outweighed by the benefits of remaining within the Creative Commons umbrella.

IT Conversations in The Boston Globe

Scott Kirsner wrote a good article on podcasting that appears in the business section of today’s Boston Globe and mentions IT Conversations.

Doug Kaye operates one of the best podcasting sites, ITConversations.com, which collects interviews and panel discussions with big thinkers like Harvard Business School’s Clay Christensen, Amazon.com chief executive Jeff Bezos, and author Malcolm Gladwell. Last year, Kaye put up an electronic ”tip jar” on the site, which so far has collected donations of $10 or $20 from about 130 listeners. He works about 70 hours a week on the site. ”ITConversations is my labor of love, but it’s also my full-time gig,” Kaye writes by e-mail. ”Most other people don’t have that luxury – to be able to devote themselves full time to podcasting.” Kaye estimates that his Internet bandwidth would cost about $5,000 a month — if it weren’t donated to him by a site sponsor.

My wife says, “70 hours? That would be only ten hours per day every day! It’s got to be more than that.”

IT Conversations News: February 26, 2005

[Meta: Rather than a single post the size of a small phone book, this week I’ve blogged items separately with links here.]

(Hear the MP3.)

New Shows

Other Stuff

Podcast Distribution

With all the recent mainstream press coverage of podcasting, barely a few days go by that I don’t get yet another offer to distribute IT Conversations’ programs. A few of the proposals make sense, but most of them do not. Maybe I’m missing the point, but here’s how I see it.

Distribution of a podcast (or whatever you choose to label IT Conversations) isn’t like distribution via broadcast radio, for example. When you pickup a new radio station outlet, you add listeners in a geographical area that you couldn’t previously reach. That’s the way you expand your listenership in radio, and thanks to Arbitron you can report that increased coverage to advertisers or underwriters. But there’s no Arbitron for podcasts (yet), so just having your MP3s delivered by another web site adds no value, again — at least that’s how I see it.

When I evaluate a distribution opportunity, based on today’s state of the Internet and podcasting, I want one of two things: either (1) distribute the content for free and report back on the number of listeners, or (2) charge for the content and share the revenues. The former can be converted to revenues in that I can add those stats to my own when I report to underwritiers.

But if you just distribute the shows for free without reporting back to me, or if you charge for the content and don’t share those revenues with me, I don’t see any reason to release the shows via your channel. At least that’s how I see it.

A Creative Commons Dilemma

I love Creative Commons. I love its goals, its implementation and its simplicity. From the moment I first learned of it, I decided to grant a Creative Commons license for IT Conversations programs. Now, however, I find myself having to reconsider that decision. Here’s the problem…

In my quest to fund IT Conversations and at the same time keep the content free for all listeners, I need corporate sponsors and underwriters to help pay the expenses. (Those tip-jar donations are great, but they’ll likely never be enough on their own.) Advertisers need to know what they’re getting for their money. They need to know how many people are hearing their promotional announcements, and for that reason I need statistics: counts of the number of listeners.

I’m happy when anyone links to IT Conversations recordings, and I want everyone to be able to hear them. All I ask is that I be able to count those listens so I can report them to advertisers. But if you copy an IT Conversations recording and host it on your own web site (as currently allowed by our Creative Commons license), we won’t be able to include your listener counts in our totals.

But what’s the point of copying and re-hosting IT Conversations shows anyway? Why would someone want or need to do that? You don’t let others just copy and re-host your complete web pages; you want readers to come to your site to read what you’ve written. Google page ranks and all that. It’s no different with audio programming. So long as the shows are available on our site via a permanent URL, what’s to be gained by offering the same files at a second URL? One could even argue that it’s bad design (in the global sense) to have two permalinks for the same object.

So is there any reason I shouldn’t replace the CC license with one that doesn’t allow for copying the files to another server? I look forward to your feedback and recommendations, but don’t forget that fundamental need to keep the site alive by attracting sponsors.

IT Conversations Announcement for February 18, 2005

(Hear the MP3 version)

Housekeeping

  • Back from Vacation.
    I’m finally back from a terrific vacation and trying desperately to catch up with email and other chores. I hope you enjoyed the programs I was able to prepare in advance and launch each day while I was gone.
  • The Great IT Conversations Button Contest.
    A number of listeners sent in images for the contest, and I’ve posted the best of them. If you’d like to tell others about IT Conversations, please visit that page and copy a button to your own website or blog.
  • PodcastAlley.com.
    Thanks to your votes, last week IT Conversations jumped again from #7 to #4 on PodcastAlley.com. It may seem trivial, but in these early days of podcasting, PodcastAlley.com is one of the few independent sources of comparative data, and our rating there is already helping attract sponsors and underwriters.
  • The Gillmor Gang — Still on Hiatus.
    Once again we didn’t have a chance to put together a new edition of The Gillmor Gang this past week, but I hope we’ll be able to round up The Gang for another show as soon as possible.
  • The Future of AAC/M4B Files.
    I want to alert IT Conversations listeners to a possible future change — one that I know won’t be particularly popular among iPod users. Last year I started encoding files in AAC (.m4b) format in addition to MP3. The primary advantage is that on Apple iPods (and only on iPods) you can pause an AAC file, listen to another, and when you return to the first one, you continue at the point you left off. This really ought to work for all file types on all players, but that isn’t the case.

    I spent many hours trying to find an encoder that would create the proper files on my Linux-based content-management system, but the only solution I could find turned out to be a very manual operation using iTunes on a Mac or PC.

    I’m currently working on the further automation of the IT Conversations web site, and it appears that I may have to eliminate this manual operation. So unless I can find a Linux-based encoder that creates iPod-compatible AAC files, I may have to eliminate the AAC option and deliver only MP3 files.

    The good news is that many of the podcatching clients such as Doppler and iPodderX can automatically convert downloaded files to AAC at the receiving end.

New Programs from the Past Two Weeks

    Because of my time away from the studio, I’ve got two week’s worth of shows to cover. Here are the top five, ranked according to the votes cast by you, the listeners of IT Conversations:

  • #5: Interface: Jaron Lanier v. Will Wright (3.6).
    As our interfaces get continually smarter, how do we keep them from dehumanizing us? Should we be concerned that U.S. youth have had forty years of declining math, science, and analytical reading skills? A debate from the Accelerating Change 2004 conference.
  • #4: The Gillmor Gang (3.6).
    The Gang asks guest Dan Bricklin what innovations are on his radar. Dan’s answers include the trend to large amounts of storage that allow a store-now-think-later approach, mobility, cheap CPU power and IP connectivity everywhere. Dan also points out that “Google caught everyone by surprise,” by using the population to generate the connection database. The Gang digs into the benefits of pervasive devices that can share with others and considers whether evolution shows us how markets work.
  • #3: Stewart Copeland (4.0).
    Since his early days with the Police, drummer Stewart has been heavily involved with technology. Today he’s a composer for film, TV, and opera, having scored more than 60 soundtracks. In this live fireside chat at the Mac OS X conference, Copeland reveals his innovative recording techniques, lays out his dreams for the ideal music software, and even recalls his skin-piercing sampler shootout with Sting.
  • #2: Malcolm Gladwell on Tech Nation (4.2)
    Malcolm Gladwell is back to discuss his new book, Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking. Dr. Moira Gunn asks him, “Do you really think there’s a science of decision?” We have two kinds of thought, Malcolm says. The first is the rational, deliberate and conscious thought that we analyze and cherish. The other is the kind of thinking that occurs below the level of awareness, and it doesn’t happen slowly and deliberately, but really quickly. We tend to dismiss the latter in our society, but in the past few years psychologists have referred to this as the product of the adaptive unconscious. It’s a kind of a big computer that does all the background tasks. It’s powerful and fast, but because it’s not part of our consciousness, it’s rather mysterious. Join Moira for another great interview with an IT Conversations favorite.
  • #1: Cory Ondrejka — Living the Dream (5.0)
    Over the next decade, visionary entrepreneurs will emerge from the digital melting pot of distributed and connected populations. Innovation and growth will allow digital worlds to capture an increasing share of the global economy. They will soon be in direct economic competition with real-world nations. Cory is the VP of Product Development, Linden Lab, creators of Second Life. (From Accelerating Change 2004)
  • And here are the other shows posted in the past two weeks:

  • Andrew Conru at Web 2.0 (2.6). What can we learn from the adult industry?
  • So, Is This a Bubble Yet? (2.6). Leading analysts Lanny Baker and Safa Rashtchy join top financier Bill Janeway and London-based Danny Rimer to address the state of the Internet’s finances.
  • Keith Halper – Reality Games (3.2). At Accelerating Change 2004, Kuma CEO Keith Halper discussed the techniques and technology which make episodic games possible, their cultural and financial impact, and the process of introducing revolutionary change in the buzz-driven market for games.
  • Dave Sifry at Web 2.0 (3.1). Dave Sifry, founder and CEO of Technorati presented the inside look at this explosive new medium at the Web 2.0 Conference.
  • The Mobile Platform (3.3). At the Web 2.0 conference, mobile expert Rael Dornfest discusses the state of the mobile web with innovators Russell Beattie, Jory Bell, Juha Christensen and Trip Hawkins.
  • James Currier – Tickle (3.0). Every great consumer business is built around the psychology and emotions of the individual. Come take a deep dive into consumer psychology and its implications for the future of online consumer services.

Greatest Hits from the Archives

    Amd finally, here’s one of my personal favorite programs from the IT Conversations archives:

  • Malcolm Gladwell: Human Nature (4.2).
    If you like this week’s interview of Malcolm Gladwell by Moira Gunn, make sure you listen to a presentation he gave last year at the Pop!Tech 2004 conference. It’s one of the most popular and highly rated programs on IT Conversations.

    Malcolm explores why we can’t trust people’s opinions — because we don’t have the language to express our feelings. His examples include the story of New Coke and how Coke’s market research misled them, and the development of Herman-Miller’s Aeron chair, the best-selling chair in the history of office chairs, which succeeded in spite of research that suggested it would fail.
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