Patenting the use of all episodic media on the Web might sound absurd, but the US Patent and Trademark Office has granted just such a patent, to a company called VoloMedia. It’s a significant issue, one that could threaten the freedom of all media distribution online. Wherever you are in the world, you can help.

Intellectual property law was created in order to protect genuine inventions and innovation from exploitation. But predatory patents, based on bogus claims and attempting to stake out broad rights, threaten to do just the opposite.

Here’s a new idea: fight back.

Lawyers are the heroes this time. The Electronic Frontier Foundation’s patent-busting project aims to take down unfair patents that threaten common-sense uses of technology. A number of these have applied to music and audio. The EFF has already won a big victory against what had been the worst offender – media giant Clear Channel actually successfully patented recording live shows. (No, really — recording a live gig, then burning them on the spot. The EFF was able to bust that patent.) The advocacy group also scored significant victories against patents on sending and receiving online streams and encoding media. (If someone thought they could patent your ears and charge you royalties for hearing, they probably would.)

Lawyers alone haven’t won these battles. The EFF’s clever twist is to crowd-source its case, by getting people like you to help the group document “prior art” – in plain English, to prove that something existed before the patent. (Without basic chronology, I could claim to have discovered electricity.)

In short, you can help save the freedom of online content.

Play this track:

That sounds like the usual collection of meaningless YouTube buzzwords, but yet again, in the spirit of the YouTube-fueled musical genius of Kutiman and, more recently, Tan Dun and Internet orchestras, the combination of user-contributed videos turns out to be magical. Perhaps “You” are a star, after all.

In Bb also gives You, the viewer, some powers over the remix. As the name implies, everything will blend, so you can start the videos as you wish, and control volume with the volume sliders. It’s part of the ongoing evidence that sometimes simple ideas can be deeply musical and effective.

Now, you weren’t expecting to get any more work done on this Friday afternoon / evening / Saturday morning (depending on where you live), were you?

Bicycle Built for Two Thousand from Aaron on Vimeo.

The song “Daisy Bell” has a special place in computer history. Max Mathews, who had by the late 50s pioneered digital synthesis using IBM 704 mainframe, arranged the tune in 1961 for vocoder-derived vocal synthesis technology on technology developed by John Larry Kelly, Jr.. Kelly himself is better known for applying number theory to investing in the markets — an unfortunate achievement in the wake of a financial collapse brought down by misuse of mathematical theory.

In 1962, Arthur C. Clarke happened to hear the 704 singing the Mathews/Kelly “Daisy Bell,” and the rest is (fictional) history – the HAL computer in the book and movie sings the song as he is being disconnected, as though the computer had learned this song as a “child.”

Here’s Max himself (namesake for Max, the patching language), overseeing a rendition of his arrangement:

Celebrity musicians say the darndest things. We’re still reflecting on the layers of meaning in Bob Dylan’s “New records have sound all over them.” And along comes Elton John, to say:

Hopefully the next movement in music will tear down the internet…

I do think it would be an incredible experiment to shut down the whole internet for five years and see what sort of art is produced over that span.

There’s too much technology available.

Why we must close the net [The Sun Online, bastion of journalism that it is]

Darnit, I knew something was screwing up modern music. It’s … CDM! I mean, come on, it’s not like people like me are just sitting around blogging instead of actually making som– Oh. Ahem. See your point.

Okay, in fairness, we’re once again taking something zany out of context. Sir Elton was mainly pointing out that actually being together with people is more fun than just hanging around your computer, and then makes the radical statement that maybe the world would be a better place if people actually did something rather than blogging about it. And, naturally, I kind of tend to agree.

While we’re at it, Bob Dylan turned out to be right, too — modern records do have sound all over them.

Of course, it wasn’t the Internet that was the big culprit — if anything, the Internet is galvanizing online audiences, encouraging collaboration and creative music making, and helping artists resurrect live music. (Just use it in moderation, folks. If you’re looking at those stupid cats enough that you’ve actually lost the ability to play your instrument, you’ve probably gone too far.)

Only one invention had the power to transform a society that made music in their living rooms into one that became largely passive consumers of a few superstar artists. That’d be … the phonograph. It did give us some awesome music, though, so I don’t think we did all bad.

I’m more curious about how we’re tearing down the Internet. I know how we can tear down this tiny little corner of the Internet — digg/slashdot a story enough and even our mighty, new server will come crashing to the ground. Not sure about the rest, though. Ideas?

This may stretch your definition of “good news” for webcasters, but the latest on the Internet Radio crisis runs something like this:

Webcasters don’t yet have to pay new fees for their broadcast. But they’re still accruing debt — fast. Sort of like our credit card debt.

Webcasters may get a small break on the minimum fee, one that could literally have shut down “personalized” radio services. SoundExchange explains the deal thusly:

Under the new proposal, to be implemented by remand to the CRJs, SoundExchange has offered to cap the $500 per channel minimum fee at $50,000 per year for webcasters who agree to provide more detailed reporting of the music that they play and work to stop users from engaging in “streamripping” – turning Internet radio performances into a digital music library.

Note the big attached “ifs”, which are vaguely worded in the official SoundExchange announcement, and sound all the more threatening given, according to SoundExchange, the previous rates are already in effect. Whichever side you’re on here, you have to give SoundExchange some credit for, erm, negotiating skill. “Hey, so while you’re dangled over this bridge, I wonder if we might … negotiate some small items?”

The one shred of good news: apparently Congress has applied some pressure on SoundExchange to negotiate, meaning public action has actually made some difference. Whatever the ultimate solution, it’d be nice to think some sort of public involvement might push the government to do something effective.

Wired has some good reporting on this:
Net Radio Wins Partial Reprieve as Royalties Loom

Meanwhile, I have a partial vacation to get back to. See you soon.