Neal's Notes

If you’re a legal/journalism junkie, you may have read that a federal court recently ruled that Chuck DeVore, a California senatorial candidate, infringed on former Eagles member Don Henley by using two songs in paid political advertisements.

The songs — “The Boys of Summer” and “All She Wants to Do Is Dance,” were reworked in political videos and titled, “The Hope of November” and “All She Wants to Do Is Tax.”

The court blocked their use, stating that since DeVore was not parodying Henley, there was no fair use.

Mike Masnick, in a recent techdirt posting, indicated that under current copyright law, parody is given more leeway under fair use; satire, in contrast, “involves using a work to comment on something other than the work itself.”

Kurt Ospahl, writing for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, postulated that from a First Amendment point of view, it’s a strange way to address political speech.

“For the court, the political purpose was a strike against fair use, because the court considered the videos to be a commercial use, seeking ‘publicity and campaign donations.’ In contrast, the Supreme Court has recognized that the First Amendment, ‘has its fullest and most urgent application’ to speech uttered during a campaign for political office.”

Ospahl said that the court insisted that Devore prove that the videos would not harm the potential licensing market for Henley’s songs.

“Under that view, however, few satires will ever pass fair use muster,” added Ospahl. “That would inflict more harm on future creators than DeVore did on Henley’s works.  Satire is an art form that has enriched the political process since time immemorial. In the fourth century BC, Aristophanes, a comic playwright in ancient Athens, routinely skewered politicians and influenced the early democracy. Satire has continued to play a vital role in democracies through today.”

But Osprey said that he’s optimistic that courts have begun to better interpret fair use and that it should apply to transformative satires.

“So although the judge in Henley v. DeVore got it wrong, other courts will have a chance to recognize the value of satire and fair use,” he said.

Thoughts?

Whilst recently adding some blogs to our blogroll, our webmaster, Elyssa Malakoff, who heads up central NJ-based ELM Design World (highly recommend utilizing her services!), suggested that I do a posting outlining some of my favorites. Great idea!

So here’s my Top 10 list:

Boy Genius Report – Was founded by an anonymous blogger known as Boy Genius. Has a great online following as he or she has constantly broke stories in the mobile gadget space.

College Fashionista – As someone who is severely fashion-challenged (I strategically line up dress shirts and corresponding ties in a row and also memorize combinations so I don’t walk out of the house looking like a clown), I normally wouldn’t glance at this. But my niece is blogging for them so am slightly biased, and of course, her postings are top-notch.

Daily Kos – This is an online political community with more than two million monthly visitors, established in May 2002. Contributors have included numerous senators, members of Congress, and governors.

engadget – Geek Central for gadgets.  ‘Nuf said.

Gizmodo – More gadgets and technology. Launched in 2002, Gizmodo is now Gawker Media’s largest blog, with more than 100 million page views a month in traffic.

Guy Kawasaki – Always has cogent posts.  He’s a managing director of Garage Technology Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm and a columnist for Entrepreneur Magazine. Previously, he was an Apple Fellow at Apple Computer, Inc. and author of nine books including Reality Check, The Art of the Start, Rules for Revolutionaries, How to Drive Your Competition Crazy, Selling the Dream, and The Macintosh Way.

Lifehacker – Lifehacker is a software and productivity blog providing tips and tricks for streamlining life with computers. The blog “points out software downloads, web sites, do-it-yourself projects, how to’s, tutorials, shortcuts and tips for going beyond the default settings and getting things done in the most clever, unexpected and efficient ways.”

Media Decoder – Published by the New York Times, contains a lot of relevant media-oriented stories. It’s an insider’s guide to the media industry, tracking the movie business, television, print, advertising, marketing and new media.

The Onion – I loved MAD Magazine as a kid and have always enjoyed warped, off-kilter humor. Now I get my chuckles from reading the wicked satire of The Onion. It’s read by more than 3 million people each week, online and in print in select cities. Another million folks listen to Onion Radio News. In 2007, The Onion also launched Onion News Network, a 24-hour video news network.

The Opinionator – Online commentary from the New York Times – lots of interesting subjects, topics and contributors. Worth checking out.

The Computer Industry Almanac now estimates there are more than 1.8 billion Internet users worldwide. But at least in the U.S., we’re not hangin’ out very long on any particular web page (and I plead guilty too) – Nielsen reports that the average American spends only 56 seconds there before moving on.

So are we becoming a bunch of digital gnats – just buzzin’ around, filling our heads with all sorts of arcane facts/figures that are forgotten hours later, or are we actually getting smarter?

Could be a bit of both. Two contributors to a recent Wall Street Journal story, Does the Internet Make You Smarter or Dumber, presented cogent arguments for each supposition.

Clay Shirky, who most recently penned Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age, believes that the Internet will fuel the intellectual achievements of the 21st century. Shirky said the Internet “restores reading and writing as central activities in our culture.” He added that we’re now witnessing the rapid stress of older institutions accompanied by the slow and fitful development of cultural alternatives.

“Just as required education was a response to print, using the Internet well will require new cultural institutions as well, not just new technologies,” said Shirky.

Shirky stated that we’re going through an explosion of publishing capability today, where digital media links over a billion people into the same network.

“This linking together in turn lets us tap our cognitive surplus, the trillion hours a year of free time the educated population of the planet has to spend doing things they care about,” said Shirky. “In the 20th century, the bulk of that time was spent watching TV, but our cognitive surplus is so enormous that diverting even a tiny fraction of time from consumption to participation can create enormous positive effects.”

Nicholas Carr, author of The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains, said that the Internet, with its constant distractions and interruptions, is turning us into scattered and superficial thinkers.

“When we’re constantly distracted and interrupted, as we tend to be online, our brains are unable to forge the strong and expansive neural connections that give depth and distinctiveness to our thinking,” said Carr. “We become more like signal-processing units, quickly shepherding disjointed bits of information into and then out of short-term memory.”

Carr added that he finds it distressing to compare the cognitive effects of the Internet with those of the printed book.

“Whereas the Internet scatters our attention, the book focuses it,” he said. “Unlike the screen, the page promotes contemplativeness. To read a book is to practice an unnatural process of thought – our fast-paced, reflexive shifts in focus were once crucial to our survival as they reduced the odds that a predator would take us by surprise or that we’d overlook a nearby food source. We now have to strengthen the neural links to counter our instinctive distractedness, thereby gaining control over our attention and our mind.”

Carr believes that we’re at risk of losing this mental acuity as we continue to spend more time online.

So were you able to read this brief essay in its entirety sans interruptions?

Or were you simultaneously texting, using IM, viewing split screens with multiple web browsers going, and chatting with someone on your iPhone or Crackberry?