Digital technology has the power to transmit information more efficiently, to make the invisible visible, and to express new things. It can also be pushed so far to the limits of actually transmitting information to be meaningless. It can push well beyond what we can even perceive in a useful way. What’s bizarre and wonderful about Johannes Kreidler’s work is that he’s not afraid of pushing toward that boundary. The results may have only a shred of remaining meaning, or be intentionally, comically meaningless. But he’s nothing if not inventive.

Compression Sound Art (2009) [“Comments on Music – Musical Zip-Files … Time is relative!”

The video above, politically speaking, is Not Safe For Anything – where else can you bring up Hitler and Britney Spears and condoms? But the only visually tantalizing information is the brief view of a condom speaker membrane and a chest with pasties.

The creations range from:

An oven pipe imported in 1972 from Alaska to New Zealand, vibrated at 574 cycles per second using a gasoline motor. Then, in 2003, this recording was manipulated and filtered on an old atari computer using hacked software.

…to:

Immanuel Kant: Critique of Pure Reason, played 22,000 times in one second (audible only to bats).

The controversial nods and humor aside, I think this really does say something about time and data. I could tell you, but I’d need a microsecond. Let’s just avoid any mention of datamosh.

Johannes Kreidler does know how to encode information in useful, accessible ways, too, however. He’s done just that with a terrific book on Pd (Pure Data), the open source, visual programming environment in which he created works like the one above. Can’t dance to it? You can do other things with Pd, too. You can dance to it? Then, by all means, go for it:

Be a Music Geek Ninja with Electronic Music Programming in Pd: New Book

Previous Kreidler sightings:

A song made from 70,2000 samples

The stock market declines, as a song

Here in the US, Congressional Democrats have reversed not one but both bad decisions on the role of the arts in the economic stimulus package. Provisions that would have blocked any stimulus funds from reaching arts centers, museums, and theaters have been dropped. (Golf courses and casinos are still in the ban. Maybe this time, someone read the actual legislation.) And the US$50 million (out of some $800 billion) that would go to the National Endowment for the Arts, dropped from a Senate version, has been restored to the bill. It appears both of those changes not only cleared the House but are part of the Senate version that’s in votes as I write this.

If you believe artists shouldn’t rely exclusively on government funding, you can still celebrate. The arts will receive far less of a handout than a lot of other industries — and do more with it. Arts advocacy groups estimate that for every dollar of the NEA money, another seven dollars will come from public and private supporters. What the tiny amount of federal spending does is make up for shortfalls in lean times, protecting an arts sphere that depends on a variety of sources for revenue. Nearly 15,000 real jobs could be saved by those same estimates. That means an arts infrastructure in the US that can remain healthy and independent.

But the important story here has nothing to do with the stimulus bill, or even the US. It’s that public outcry from people like you rescued this legislation. And if public support can do that, it can do a lot more for the arts, not only in federal spending but other key areas.

Americans for the Arts says supporters from its organization alone sent some 100,000 messages and letters to their Members of Congress. That’s not counting the many more letters and phone calls from constituents, not to mention letters to the editor and press attention.

Here’s one example from CDM comments, by Dartanyan Brown:

I heard the congressman from Nashville (!) talking down the $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts. I immediately called his office and let his staffers know that (blue dog democrat Cooper) was full of hot air on this issue. As a synthesist, jazz musician and former NEA artist-in-residence I had the facts and anecdotes to make my points clear.
If Rush Limbaugh can get his folks to call, we can at least counteract them with some facts and persistence.
Call them, they listen, they respond to numbers.

More background on today’s developments:
House passes stimulus bill with $50 million for artists [Los Angeles Times]
U.S. Senate Begins Voting on Obama’s $787 Billion Stimulus Plan [Bloomberg, including various other details]

To all of you who were active, and to our elected representatives who got this right, thanks.

Targeting the arts in this way may have backfired for those elements seeking to vilify it. Instead, it caused thousands of people to rally to the cause. Here’s an example of organizing meetings in Chicago – and a renewed sense that the arts could be part of the economic solution, not the “costly distraction” so many try to make it out to be.
Organizing around art [Chicago Tribune]

Folks, we have a lot of work ahead of us.

To wrap up the thread I started, the plot in US politics, in the space of a few short weeks, has gone something like this:

1. A new Administration could bring new vision to making the arts part of the economy.
2. Arts spending is wasteful.
3. Any spending on anything should be specifically prohibited from reaching the arts, as that would be wasteful and evil, and the arts are the best symbol of Waste itself.

I live on Wall Street (technically, on the corner of Pine). I guess we’ve now forgotten about them.

As digital musicians and visualists, relevancy to the rest of the people around us is important. What we do can be meaningful to people, and it can pay for our health care and our loved ones and our kids. It’s often not a life or death thing – but then, neither are many jobs. It’s a gig. Heck, even if it’s a hobby, it supports someone else’s gig.

So that raises some really deep questions about what’s going on with our society when arts-related jobs are singled out above nearly every other sector as meaningless or “wasteful” or not “real jobs.” This stimulus bill will pass, but that fundamental misunderstanding isn’t going anywhere – and it’s time to recognize there’s a problem, and start to work to set it right.

Roughly half of one one hundredth of one percent of the US economic stimulus plan was slated to support job protection in the arts — US$50 million. Meanwhile, we’ve just passed one trillion-dollar bailout of finance and are told another trillion is needed.

You might expect anger to be directed at finance, given their industry was at the heart of the problem. Instead, legislators single out — the arts?

In last-minute negotiations in the US Senate, legislators — including key liberal Democrats — have gone still further to ban any use of stimulus funds for the arts (”museums,” “theaters,” and “arts centers” get singled out). The move was largely symbolically-motivated, not fiscally-motivated. Adding insult to injury, arts institutions are lumped together with casinos and golf courses – literally.

U.S. Senate votes against arts [Chicago Examiner]

Arts Bashing [Center for American Progress]

Some of those Democrats, incidentally, are now pleading ignorance – including my own Senator Schumer:
UPDATE: Senator Charles Schumer in Hot Water With Local Arts Organizations [New York Magazine]

I had really hoped to leave this issue rest, but I want to be clear: this ban would cover appropriations for Labor, Education, and Transportation that could also give funds to arts organizations. It doesn’t just strip the $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts — it locks out any arts activity from the nearly trillion dollars in the rest of the plan. If you make roads, you count – if you make art, you don’t. Senator Coburn, who introduced the amendment, didn’t even vote for the final bill, meaning this wasn’t even a concession to get the bill passed.

This ceases to be a legislative issue. It’s now a cultural war — one that’s being waged by both parties on a target that lacks powerful, rich advocates. That’ll be — you. And we know from CDM readers around the planet that this is an issue in other countries, too.

You may not believe in lots of government funding for the arts — I’d tend to agree with you, in that it’s not a panacea. But these were a small amount of funds intended to support jobs in arts organizations, which receive lots of their funding from you and from private interests. If you believe in public and private (and not government) funding for the arts, this is exactly the kind of targeted stimulus you want, and it could save thousands of real jobs.

Ironically, it’s in the US that we have the strongest private funding for the arts, which is a good thing. American Institutes for the Arts, the advocacy group supporting greater government funding, isn’t looking for handouts; they point out that every $1 spent by the federal agency would be matched from $7 in public and private funds. That means a $50 million NEA stimulus could have saved or created 14,422 jobs by their estimate.

OPEN FORUM: Economic stimulus should invest in creativity [San Francisco Chronicle]

I’m certainly not in line for a government handout. But am I angry when I hear “real jobs” as the talking point? Am I angry when people in the arts are considered lower than condoms? Heck, yeah.

From a Republican campaign ad airing on the radio next week:

Democrats said they would fight for fiscal responsibility in Washington, but went back on their promise by voting for $335 million in STD prevention, $75 million for smoking cessation and even $50 million for the National Endowment of the Arts.

(emphasis mine)

GOP radio ads to target House Dems who supported stimulus [USA Today On Politics]

Or as Representative Jack Kingston, R-Georgia put it:

“We have real people out of work right now and putting $50 million in the NEA and pretending that’s going to save jobs as opposed to putting $50 million in a road project is disingenuous.”

Congressman Blasts Arts Jobs [Volume One]
Arts jobs are real jobs [Los Angeles Times]

The arts are the punchline – and the punching bag. I’m all for fiscal responsibility, but given the current banking crisis, is it really money for the arts that’s fiscally irresponsible?

Look, policy is one thing. The battle over economic stimulus was bound to be contentious, and the dangers facing the US and world economy have put immense pressure on the process. I think in a way, just getting defensive on this issue is exactly what anti-arts advocates want artists to have to do.

My question is fundamental: why can’t the arts and “entertainment” be considered part of the economy? And what do we have to do, exactly, to convince people that there are real jobs that don’t involve building roads?

Side note: so many people are complaining about this issue (try a Google or Technorati search) that I’m hopeful the final bill will nix this nonsense and protect arts funding, or even the NEA. But as I say, it’s really the fundamental debate that needs fixing more than any one bill.

While I’m discussing the potential to take new directions in the arts and technology worldwide, and about ways in which creative technology can help repair the global economy, I’d be remiss if I didn’t make one sobering concession:

To many policy makers, the “arts” don’t count as the economy. If you’re employed as an artist, (and by extension in creative fields), you’re not a worker. Um… thanks?

Never mind that in the US alone, nearly 6 million people are employed in the arts – or that that figure itself is  probably wildly conservative, compared to the many more creative freelancers and the economies around them. (Ask companies like Yamaha, Roland, Korg, Avid, and Apple, who then sell products to musicians, many of them pros.)

It’s not just a US problem, either. The Dutch government – just the kind of liberal European government decried by American conservatives – had to be convinced of the value of its music technology research center in 2008.

To me, this shouldn’t be an issue that pits liberals versus conservatives. In fact, important issues around the economy have always been solved by cooperation between people of different political persuasions and parties. Unfortunately, conservatives have decided to declare the arts “liberal.”

The Heritage Foundation claims funding for the arts amounts to “pork.” Leading Republican Jeff Flake, when asked for an example of pork in the current proposed economic stimulus bill, replies:

"For example, $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts," Flake says. "There’s no better example than that. How that stimulates the economy, I don’t know."

Does ‘Pork-Less’ Stimulus Bear Porcine Whiff? [NPR]

Now, I wouldn’t be surprised if there is some pork in there – but the NEA funding is all Rep. Flake can come up with? This seems to be less about policy and more about reigniting culture wars.

Specifically, the conservative talking point is to focus on “productivity” and producing goods. The implication: if your job involves the arts, you’re not a “productive” member of society. (I’ll have to scratch my head to work out just what “goods” the financiers buying up bundled debt were producing. I’ll get back to you on that one.)

Of course, the way in which arts funding would stimulate the economy is obviously the way any other part of a stimulus package would – by providing support to people doing work in a field during rough times, support that in this case provides an educational and cultural resource shared by everyone. Ironically, part of the reason these aren’t arts jobs for individuals is that the US long ago eliminated direct funding for individual artists, a move designed to placate conservatives opposed to arts funding.

Yet for some conservatives, the arts have been used as a key talking point, even though it’s $50 million out of an $875 billion bill. That’s a tiny fraction of one percent of the funding, like arguing over the number of pennies in the tip on a $1500 steak dinner. Now, I’m all for some genuine fiscal conservatism – it’s badly needed in these economic times. And likewise, I would hope the opposition party in Washington is tough on the Administration plan. But where are those conservatives? Why are they beating up on a tiny line item over philosophical reasons? In the past, conservatives and Republicans had long been patrons and supporters of the arts. We could use some old-fashioned conservatism right now if we’re going to save the planet and its economy.

If you want to stimulate the economy, you invest in jobs, in making actual goods. In 2008, the US taxpayer funded hundreds of billions of dollars in handouts to the failed finance sector that singlehandedly created the economic crisis. Billions of those dollars wound up ending up as executive bonuses.

But, guess what? If you’re an artist, if you’re a creative person, you don’t even count as a person with a job.

I bring this up because if you do live in the US, you can call your Representative tomorrow and tell them what you think about this issue. It’s especially important if you’re a Republican or a conservative, because I think there are more important points to be made – and this can distract from them. This could be a bipartisan issue again. And for everyone else, we clearly – as an artistic community – have some messaging to work on. We can’t allow this to be a political issue, a wedge issue. And as former NEA chair Bill Ivey puts it:

"Once we move away from a consumerist view of a high quality of life — once we’re forced away from it — arts and culture, creativity, homemade art, those things can begin to come to the fore."

Stimulus Package Includes Millions For The Arts [NPR]

American citizens have turned their eyes to the incoming Obama Administration for all kinds of change. It wouldn’t be overstatement to say that just about every possible hope is being pinned to the new government – practical or not. But there’s good reason to believe some significant changes may be in store for both the areas of arts and technology, in ways that are not only relevant to CDM readers in the US, but could impact the global climate for these areas.

The federal government in the US can’t do everything, particularly when economic pressures are likely to make budgets tight. But they can do something to set the tone. Even more importantly, there should be opportunities for people who want change to become active and vocal, and to learn from each other, wherever we are in the world.

The agenda I think we’ll want as tech-using artists and makers:

• Defend innovation, commercial or common, from patent abuse (see: White House)
• Embrace open source – something that could benefit, again, commercial and community endeavors alike (see: BBC, OSI)
• Make the arts a priority, and one that via technology connects to renewed interest in math and science (see: NYT)

As you can see, regardless of your party affiliations or even country of citizenship, these are things we can work on together. For a start, I’ve already talked about personal changes – not simply governmental or political changes – that can make a difference in our communities:

Your Own Times of Change: Greetings, “Makers of Things”

Here are some additional issues that may well interface with the incoming US government, with impacts on the US and around the world.

Above: Remixing history, through the ears of the UK.
Obama’s Inauguration as Reaktor Mash-Up: Tim Exile

Technology: Patents

You can read the Obama technology agenda on the new White House site (itself a subject of discussion and hopes for new transparency).

http://www.whitehouse.gov/agenda/technology/

A lot here reads like campaign language, so it’s tough to say what the actual policy will be. But this bullet should be especially interesting to digital musicians and visualists:

Reform the Patent System: Ensure that our patent laws protect legitimate rights while not stifling innovation and collaboration. Give the Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) the resources to improve patent quality and open up the patent process to citizen review to help foster an environment that encourages innovation. Reduce uncertainty and wasteful litigation that is currently a significant drag on innovation.

I think flawed patents may be the single biggest to new creative technologies. It impacts both hardware and software, and everyone from DIY makers to useful research in big corporations. (And yes, even big corporations can do research that’s useful to the rest of us. For one thing, even some of that corporate research is open source.)

Patents in the US in particular have been wildly abused. Companies who don’t make anything have effectively “squatted” on ideas that might someday turn into products. Those patents are defined so broadly that by the time a genuine innovator invents something real that works, they often find they’re in “violation” of a nonsense patent. Large businesses, acting defensively, have added to the problem by over-patenting their own research. Clearly, we need some common sense rules so that patents cover people actually making stuff.

There are few political issues more directly relevant to the music and visual technology covered on CDM. I’ve seen patents stifle innovation countless times on this site, and when that hasn’t happened, fear about patents has often been a factor in preventing people from more aggressively pursuing their inventions. It’d be unrealistic to expect the Obama Administration alone to magically solve these problems. But a friendly Administration could invigorate debate, meaning now is the time to get active on this issue. I’m no expert in patent law, but I’ll certainly welcome people who are to become involved.

I’d also like to see the open source community begin to formulate a way of responding to patent issues. Open source has almost exclusively dealt with licenses in copyright terms. Certainly, the community is sensitive to the issue, but just sitting around worrying about patents does nothing: open source inventors need to start formulating a concrete strategy. They’ll need help, not only from the government but experts in the field. But the timing is right.

Whether people want to open-source their inventions or not, I think DIYers and researchers and even businesses who actually create stuff have a common need here. So it will be equally important for that open source community not to just blindly rail against patents, but find policies that work for everyone. “Makers of things,” not just open source advocates, have an opportunity to come together.

Technology: Open Source

The Obamas clearly have the power and popularity to popularize trends and ideas. Sometimes, that borders on the absurd: when it was revealed the Obama children wore J. Crew, the clothing company’s site crashed. It’s little wonder, then, that open source advocates would hope the new Administration would champion their cause. BBC News’ Maggie Shiels has a great story on those possibilities:

Calls for open source government [BBC News, via Slashdot]

One figure behind the rallying cry for open source is Sun co-founder Scott McNealy. That’s interesting, as Sun was actually quite late to the open source party. Sun didn’t open its flagship Java technology until after McNealy’s tenure. The fact that he has been won over I think is telling – McNealy created one of the world’s biggest tech vendors. The rationale for his appeal is simple: open source is cheaper.

I think the case should actually be broader. If the US – and, indeed, the economically-weak planet – want to advocate new growth in education, science, and technological innovation, it’s a no-brainer to have at least some technologies common and shared. That could ultimately lead to benefits for big vendors and individuals and the economically challenged alike.

And if you want to push open technology, artists should be among your first stops. We push the real-time capabilities of computers harder than anyone. For instance, when researchers wanted to demonstrate real-time Java, they chose a Bach performance. Why? Playing Bach turns out to be more timing-critical than one of the other applications – controlling a nuclear submarine. (The Army phrase “Be all you can be” comes to mind.) The drive of self-expression can be a powerful way of to realize technology’s full potential.

Direct quote on that, by the way:

Music synthesis is, in fact, more stringent in its real-time needs than many other hard real-time systems. For instance, avionics typically operate at a period of 20 milliseconds, or about 10 times longer than the synthesizer.

Harmonicon research at IBM

Open source needs music and visuals – and we often need open source. In music and visuals, the lack of interest in basic, open frameworks has often stifled the success and expressivity of the tools we use. I was impressed by the new stuff at this year’s NAMM. But many of the leading technologies – Novation Automap and M-Audio HyperTransport for controllers and Akai’s APC and Native Instruments Maschine among the hardware announcements – were limited by aging standards and proprietary implementations of control. Those same vendors struggle with drivers for proprietary computer operating systems owned and controlled by someone else. The result: music technology is often hard to configure and unreliable, limiting its appeal and reducing the number of customers. The solutions there aren’t all easy, and open source is no panacea, but I don’t think I’m overstating the problem – or the lost potential that could be coming from the open source world.

Of course, the Obama Administration is unlikely to do anything of practical use to artists or musicians when it comes to open source. But it could set a tone – and I’d argue, it already has. The Open Source Initiative’s Michael Tiemann noted just after the election that the Obama campaign had benefited from running open source tools. Whether or not Obama mandates federal offices run OpenOffice or something like that, I’d say the proof of open source’s utility is already out there:

Barack Obama proves the power of Open Source [Open Source Administration blog]

And that should be the main interest of arts technologists and creative tech vendors – politics aside, open source can pay.

Arts

We have mixed blessings in the US. On one hand, government arts funding has often been scant. On the other, we have an artist community that has vigorously defended its own value against the harshest critics, a uniquely-generous private funding climate, and a bootstrap, DIY approach by artists to supporting themselves. Arts advocacy groups are nonetheless eager to use the Obama Administration as an opportunity to get more badly-needed support – and they’re using the economic stimulus as a new angle:

Arts Leaders Urge Role for Culture in Economic Recovery [Robin Pogrebin for The New York Times]

Don’t believe them? Here’s a number for you: US$167 billion. That’s the amount Americans for the Arts says nonprofits contribute to the US economy. (They also employ some 6 million people.) And that’s just nonprofit groups; the impact of the arts and music are of course far bigger than that. As evidenced by this site, that cultural economy is increasingly globalized, meaning the entire business of making things could grow around the planet.

Much of the actual policy here would be more symbolic than practical. The additional US$50 million advocates want for the National Endowment for the Arts would have little meaning to an individual artist, though I’m sure the agency would love to have it. But “reframing” culture as an important part of the business of America is something that’s badly-needed.

Along the same lines, calls for WPA-style support for artists as part of economic recovery:

Will Act for Food [Newsweek]

More practical, I think, is the need for US policy that makes healthcare more affordable and accessible to the self-employed, a significant group of American readers of the site. If individual musicians or visual artists or freelancing coders and visualists and the like didn’t have to worry about spiraling health care costs, they could contribute in other ways a lot more easily.

Globally, we need a climate that’s friendlier to artists in general. The recent struggle of music tech research centers like STEIM in Amsterdam and IRCAM in Paris – places Americans might have assumed would be safe – is solid evidence of that.

Connecting this to the material and business of this site sure isn’t hard. Musicians and visualists increasingly sell to fans and one another, build their own businesses from scratch, innovate technologically, share open source research, teach others, volunteer, and add DIY tech businesses to their portfolio as they make their own hardware and software.

One thing missing from the traditional arts advocacy approach is the ability to use music, movement, and motion to aid in innovating in and teaching math and science. With technology (or even without it), expressive media are a fantastic way of demonstrating math and science concepts and making them creative and personal. I know I would have had a much easier time in school with topics like physics and Calculus if I could have connected them to music and animation, and I don’t think I’m alone.

That’s the philosophical framework, anyway. Given that tone matters for all of these issues, it’ll be interesting to see whom Obama makes NEA chief and what steps that agency and the Obama Administration take in arts policy.

So, thus concludes the post-Inauguration edition of this story. But you can expect to see a lot more on all three of these issues as they directly relate to the subject matter(s) of these sites – and expect more than just the President making some of the headlines.

Whatever part of the political spectrum, whatever part of the world community, as you come to the CDM community I do believe that we as creators are touched by larger issues. I think it doesn’t make sense to talk politics directly on this site when it’s not relevant, and I’m sure we’d all disagree about those issues. But as the world waits to find out what kind of leader the US President Obama will be, now is as good a time as any to talk about the larger responsibilities we all have. I’ve had conversations this year about politics with people far from the US – and I think now is the ideal time to make the changes we want ourselves. Politics are powerful and personal, but they’re also not everything. We have opportunities to lead the kind of world we want on our own, regardless of political affiliation or the country we call home.

As the US’ incoming President referred to the importance of “makers of things,” that seems especially appropriate. The world economy now seems strangely unhinged from actual production, meaning there’s nothing better than the DIY spirit as an antidote, to get us back to making things. And music (and motion) at its most ephemeral I think is real “making.”

In darker moments, I think it’s easy to see making music with technology as being extravagant. But there is a lot we can do as digital musicians that really does contribute to our world in material ways.

And yes, there’s more than just the latest music tech toys – though I think you’ll see, those have their place, too.

Learn to make stuff, and share what we’re learning. I shoot off my mouth about everything on this site for one reason – I enjoy learning from readers, whether you’re inspired or arguing, sharing or correcting. I think we have many opportunities to continue to develop the skills we want as musicians and technologists, and to share some of what we’re learning with each other.

Contribute shared tools and work. There really is something to be said for a “commons,” a shared set of tools and visual and audio work that other people can build upon. I believe open source and Creative Commons licenses can be tools themselves to make better stuff, whether for code, hardware plans, or media. I also think these can be compatible with traditional approaches toward intellectual property ownership – you can use the right tool for the right job. I hope we can build a more effective “commons” for music and visual technology that helps artists and technologists be more expressive and support the things they want to do. The monome has been one of the biggest projects this site has covered, and there’s a reason for that – and it’s also the tip of the iceberg.

Build creative businesses. Commons are great, but business is important, too. It’s important for us as people who write about media and technology to keep a critical eye, but at the same time, I really appreciate the fact that I meet people whose livelihood is supported – in whole or in part – by software and hardware companies and composing gigs and VJ gigs. Around the globe, the readers of this site face all sorts of economic challenges. I know we also regularly have to defend the value of music and visual tech to governments – and sometimes to family members. But I do think there are plenty of reasons to believe all these businesses have a future. Just supporting yourself or supporting one employee can make a big difference in your world, and I think all we can do to run smarter businesses that support what we want to do is valuable.

Use technology to raise literacy in science and thing-making. If you’re reading this, you’re likely part of a fortunate bunch. You get to use some of the world’s newest technologies and push them to their limits – even if it’s a computer or game system. These same tools can be powerful means of teaching people about electronics, how to design and make stuff, how to write code, and how to understand basic concepts in mathematics, geometry, and physics. If you’re like me, you probably wish you’d learned more of that stuff in school yourself. Because we’re fortunate enough to get to use this technology, and because the fundamental technologies can reach everyone in the world – including the people around the corner from you – we have a chance to share those gifts with more people by teaching them what we know.

One little tool that has helped was a nearly-free, business-card-sized oscillator circuit from PAIA that I know even kids can use – no soldering iron required. (Full details) I hope we can do more things like this.

Be compassionate. Artists are often criticized for being politically active. But I believe it’s no accident that artists and musicians (and programmers, very often) are aware of their world and more likely to be tolerant of difference. We have an extra gift, in that we can express those feelings in the stuff we make. Sometimes, that takes on a very political meaning – Georgia Tech’s Gil Weinberg used robotic-enhanced percussion as a way of setting up musical collaborations between Jewish and Arab percussionists. But I think any time we’re sharing work with friends, that matters, too.

Now, I’m not writing this to preach. I’ve been thinking a lot about these issues lately. This is stuff all of us can do. Often times, the first step is just to do what you were doing anyway, but better – and better documenting your work to make it easier to share.

And this for me is also a template for some of what I want to do in 2009 on CDM. Inaugurations aside, NAMM always seems like New Year’s Day in this business. So consider it a New Year’s Resolution to you. And if you have ideas for how we can better support you, let us know.

Earlier this week, I got some welcome news: the STEIM performance research and development center in Amsterdam is safe for now. STEIM has been a real hub for people doing work in sound around the world, not just in Amsterdam, as many readers here described. That means this should be good news for all of us – and it also demonstrates that, while the state funding upon which Europe has traditionally relied is endangered, making the right argument could protect institutions there. The question of what should get state funding started an interesting and passionate debate here, but at the same time, it’s good to see these folks defending what they believe.

See some video of crazy STEIM sonic projects on their Vimeo channel.

And in other news, speaking of reaping some benefits from STEIM:

• A new version 4 of their JunXion software is coming next week for manipulating controllers like mice, game pads, joysticks, HID devices, and even video motion tracking (below) on Mac OS X. There’s a nice preview on Mormo’s blog Basement Hum; expect more next week
• There’s a big party in Amsterdam all next week with workshops (including JunXion 4), performances, and more. I was actually invited to go but couldn’t last-minute; the lineup looks fantastic. Next time (perhaps once some of my own research and development is further along)!

Here’s the official thank you, which can go to those at CDM who included their support:

We have good news: STEIM is safe for now and will be able to continue doing her work.

The Dutch Council for Culture has reversed their initially negative decision.They were without a doubt impressed by the well over 1000 insightful, eloquent, personal letters of support from all over the world, which we received in just under two weeks. This, as well as some other factors, played a large role in opening their perception of STEIM’s importance and contribution to our community and field.

We cannot thank you enough. You helped us realize again how extensive and faithful the network around us is. We are excited and thrilled that we can keep working with you and continue to build collaborations, connections and exchanges.

STEIM is bound for change, but we will fight to keep its spirit intact. Michel Waisvisz has left us, but along with his legacy of inventions and a very human ‘touch’, he has left a dynamic team behind. Under the guidance of our new director, Dick Rijken, our task is now to create a new structure that will honour both our history as an institution and look forward into the future. STEIM is what STEIM
does: supporting a wide community of artists and composers, musicians and other performers in their search for great art, on stage, in the studio, in gallery spaces and on the streets. We will continue to be a safe house for an international community, bringing people together in our guesthouse and studio’s.

Together with you, we aim to remain both the oldest and the youngest electronic institute in the Netherlands and are thrilled to continue working with you.

STEIM

And here’s info on the (well-deserved) Jamboree (with plenty of video links, if you can’t be in Amsterdam and want to live vicariously through YouTube):

STEIM Micro Jamboree 2008

PERIOD: Dec 8 Monday – Dec 11 Thursday

FEE:

Micro Jamboree Sessions – Free but reservation required

Jamboree Concert – 5 euros

Description:

Main Entry: jam·bo·ree

Pronunciation: \ˌjam-bə-ˈrē\

Function: verb

Etymology: origin unknown

1: a noisy or unrestrained carouse 2 a: a large festive gathering b: a national or international camping assembly of Boy & Girl Scouts 3: a long mixed program of entertainment

STEIM is hosting it’s 2nd Micro Jamboree this Dec. 8-11, 2008. Featuring 4 days of creativity and excellence in the future of electronic music through a wealth of presentations, discussions, and performances. An intense 7 sessions of lectures, demos, and discussions held by the most innovative artists, musicians, and instrument designers in the field will be hosted in STEIM’s studios. An intellectual jam on creative musical software, modern sensor interfaces, alternative energy sources for electronic music, rhythm and sequencing for live performances, and more!

At night STEIM moves to the Smart Project Space on Dec. 10th and 11th for the Jamboree concerts for 2 large and festive gatherings  of noisy and unrestrained carouse. The 5th edition of Turntable Music Night will feature 4 acts, but 8 turntables. The 2nd concert night will be a plethora of controllers, voice, samplers, a cowboy suit, and even a Wii for individual performances. Concurrently, experience the STEIM Mobile Touch exhibition in the concert venue where you can make your own electronic music with the Finger Web or make some noise with the Crackle Box.

Sessions at STEIM have limited capacity, reservations required.

Concerts at Smart Project Space have unlimited capacity, 5 euros entrance fee.

FEATURED GUESTS:

David Zicarelli (US), Sukandar Kartadinata (DE), Andy Schmeder (US), Kjetil Hansen (SE), Kassen (NL), One Man Nation (NL), Jamie Allen (CA), Brian Degger (UK), Ben Knapp (UK), Dieb13 (AT), Stig and Pussy Crew (IR), Institut fur Feinmotorik (DE), Alex Nowitz (DE), Robot Cowboy(AT), Heidi Mortensen(DK) and more!

SCHEDULE:

Day 1, Monday Dec 8 //////////////////////////////////

Welcoming from STEIM

Session 1: Opening Presentation

David Zicarelli (Cycling 74) – On Max 5 and creative musical software http://www.cycling74.com/

Frank Balde (STEIM Software Designer) – Release and demo of new features in JunXion 4

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Day 2, Tuesday Dec 9 //////////////////////////////////

Session 2: Modern Sensor Interfaces

Sukandar Kartadinata (Instrument Designer, Gluion Developer) – Developing sensor instruments and platforms for artists http://www.glui.de/

Andy Schmeder (CNMAT Researcher, Developer of uOSC) – uOSC; OpenSoundConroll framework for USB and multiple sensor platforms http://cnmat.berkeley.edu/people/andy_schmeder

Session 3: On Mapping – techniques and future possibilities

Organized and hosted by Robert van Heumen (STEIM) and Daniel Schorno (STEIM) with invited guests

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Day 3, Wednesday Dec 10 //////////////////////////////////

Session 4: Turntable Music – the practice and its future direction

Kjetil Falkenberg Hansen (Scratch Researcher, PhD candidate at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden) http://www.csc.kth.se/~kjetil/

Takuro Mizuta Lippit (STEIM) – Turntable Music in the digital era

Session 5: Rhythm and Sequencing for live performances

Kassen (DJ, performer, ChucK programmer) – improvising house music with custom software and game controllers http://www.toplap.org/index.php/Kassen

One Man Nation (musician, producer) – techniques in live sequencing and beat generation in Ableton Live and PD http://onemannation.com/

Jamboree Concert 1: Turntable Music Night 5 at Smart Project Space

Dieb13 – Turntable improvisations with custom software http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=5L1Lu87kX-E

Stig and Pussy Crew – Turntables, feedback and visuals http://www.vimeo.com/1602827

Institut fur Feinmotorik – Turntable soundscape with 4 performers 8 turntables http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=3w2Smr5aNeE

dj sniff – Turntable reconstructions http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=jkR2ID8j_mU

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Day4, Thursday Dec 11 //////////////////////////////////

Session 6: Energy Music – Exploring new approaches to electronic music generative energy sources and off-the-grid art and performance work.

Jamie Allen (Musician, Artist, Researcher at Newcastle University, UK) http://heavyside.net/index.html

Brian Degger (Researcher, Artist) http://transitlab.org/

Ben Knapp (Engineer, Instrument Builder, Professor at SARC, Co-Founder of BioControl, UK) http://www.mu.qub.ac.uk/Staff/AcademicStaff/DrBenKnapp/

Session 7: Closing Panel Discussion – Excellence in Electronic Music

Panel TBA

Jamboree Concert 2 at Smart Project Space

Alex Nowitz – Voice, Wiimote and LiSa http://cec.concordia.ca/econtact/10_4/video/nowitz_selfportrait.mov

Jamie Allen – Circuit Music http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=G4vtSfT0gHw

Robot Cowboy – Robot Cowboy suit, midi guitar, controllers http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=CuuJkE789ag

Heidi Mortensen – voice and sampling http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=BswH7nKCvjQ

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Who’s sampling what? When is sampling stealing? Who’s stolen sampled samples, and was the sampling stolen stealing? Is anyone actually playing live? Does anyone know what the law is? Does anyone care?

Yes, it’s been a lively November so far for massive, complicated legal battles, PR battles, who-said-who-sampled-what battles, and general sampling messiness. Here’s a quick round-up for those of you who haven’t been able to keep up (understandably).

And we’re going to play a game. I’m going to start talking, and you can see at what point your head starts to spin and you need to go lie down.

Ready?

Here’s the executive summary:

• Justice steal samples and talk about it, because you can’t recognize them.
• US courts said long ago “nowhere to run, nowhere to hide,” to the dismay of even the RIAA.
• German courts, disagreeing with the US and with other German courts, say it don’t mean a thing if you can’t hum along.
• FL Studio turns “Faxing Berlin” Deadmau5 demo content into “Berlin” mostly-the-same demo content and a bunch of people start screaming obscenities at each other and most of us lose interest.
• Justice can’t keep their USB cables from falling out, may have to pirate samples of themselves.
• The Killers (or MTV, more to the point) plagiarize an entire stage.
• My head hurts already.

1. Justice admits they steal samples. French duo Justice admitted to borrowing the likes of 50 Cent without clearance because “they are such short samples no one can recognize them.” (See Beatportal story.)

Of course, the fact that they’re non-recognizable is kind of defeated if you talk about them. In a sane legal world, a completely unrecognizable sample warped until it might as well have come from a field recording of tree frogs wouldn’t be litigation bait. But this is the United States. As I covered way back in early 2005 for Keyboard Magazine, the standing circuit court decision in the US says all sampling is illegal, whether it’s recognizable or not. The elimination of what lawyers call a de minimis (plain English: common sense minimum) standard actually got the RIAA and the plaintiffs concerned about over-litigation. (Yes, you read that right: the ruling was so stupid, the plaintiffs appealed a case they themselves had just won.)

Don’t like it? Move to Germany. No, really.

2. German court says sampling is fine, unless you can whistle the sample. Kraftwerk suffered a legal defeat that made it (via Associated Press) all the way to the front page of CNN.com. It seems a court in Hamburg said what US courts did – no matter how small, sampling is illegal. The highest civil court in Germany says the opposite, but then goes on to be explicit about what constitutes illegal sampling (if un-cleared):

The civil court ruling, however, forbids sampling of a song melody and insists that the sample must be part of a completely new musical work bearing no resemblance to the original.

What’s interesting about this: the length and nature of the sample of Kraftwerk (two seconds of rhythm from “Metal on Metal,” as used un-cleared by Sabrina Setlur) is the same as the sample in the US civil case (two seconds of Funkadelic’s “Get Off Your Ass and Jam” as used in N.W.A.’s “100 Miles and Runnin.”) That’s neither here nor there, except to say if you sample anything in a recognized track, some court somewhere will probably make your life miserable, especially with no international framework to smooth out the difficulties. (Case in point: the US samples had been cleared by N.W.A. – the movie studio No Limit simply forgot to clear the samples in the song for sync rights when they used it in a film.)

3. FL Studio user uses demo loops, meets irate Deadmau5. Thanks to reader Scott Metzger for tipping us off on this one. FL Studio 8 ships, as do many programs, with included loops. It also comes with demo content. An FL 8 user released a track that uses some of that demo content almost wholesale. Now, some people are defending the FL user, because Image-Line says its loops are released royalty free. (They claim they never said that explicitly about demo content, causing confusion.) Image-Line clearly should have been more explicit about this, or this might not have happened. But royalty-free sampling is one thing – plagiarism is another. The user in this case released a track that basically was Deadmau5’s Faxing Berlin. He even copied the name, calling his track “Berlin.” (Smooth.) It’s almost not different enough to count as a remix. I could make some general criticism, except that he’s already been roundly flamed in especially colorful terms by the FL forum users.

I’m still looking for ways of getting a laugh from fellow nerdsters by sneaking some of the roundly-despised Ableton demo track into a set. But, in case your eyes haven’t already glazed over, here are more of the gruesome details of this story.

FL Studio user faces legal action for using built-in samples [MusicRadar, who have more patience for digging through this story than I do]

Don’t use FL Studio loops! [FutureMusic, inadvertently giving users some good advice]

Lesson: software developers, label your loops. (And in all seriousness, it does sound as though Image-Line has lost some of their credibility on this one.) Users, don’t … do this, okay? Just don’t. We can hear you. We can hear those stupid Garage Band loops, too, for crying out loud. Or, alternative names, how about “IMing Hamburg” or “Skyping Munich” or “Snail Mailing Frankfurt”? Maybe change your name to L1v3M0us3 or Deadr4t. I’ll stop. We’re not even done with this damned round-up yet. There’s more.

4. Justice, the Milli Vanilli of Our Time? In case Justice weren’t in trouble enough already telling MTV they’re sampling illegally, they’ve got MPDgate to contend with. Beatportal showed an image of them grooving away with an MPD24 that was, rather inconveniently unplugged. (Their answer: the cable fell out.) Don’t worry, though, Justice fans — Resident Advisor springs into action with a series of photos that would do Oliver Stone’s JFK proud. (There it is – a loose USB cable on the grassy knoll! The screen gone blank, then on again in the Book Depository! Again! Change the angle!)

I’m inclined to give Justice the benefit of the doubt, especially because I care less about this one gig than I do about this outrageous comment by Beatportal’s Terry Church:

Anyone with a shred of understanding of how the music is made knows that it’s near impossible to play electronic music 100% live, unless you have the talent of somebody like The Bays.

Of course, if it were 100% live, it wouldn’t be electronic music. (You could get really literal and claim that you have to be Bobby McFerrin and not even use instruments.) But taking this as I think Terry meant it, uh, Terry, the entire readership of this site has something they’d like to discuss with you.

He also didn’t say “play electronic music 100% live well,” which means for each time one of us has screwed up catastrophically onstage by getting overcomplicated with live sets, we’ve done our bit to demonstrate that we’re not faking it. Unless the USB jack fell out, in which case, no photos!

But yes, I think we can safely say Justice are performing clips they stole from 50 Cent completely live.

5. Killers Plagiarize / Sample an Entire Stage. Okay, forget about two-second samples or even FL Studio demo songs. How about if you showed up in motorcycle helmets and a giant pyramid that looked exactly like Daft Punk? Erm, not in a tongue-in-cheek, parody sort of way.

Etienne de Crecy did a live stage show in France with giant projections mapped to a big cube, as produced by the talented Exyzt crew in Paris. Then, US band The Killers does … exactly the same thing?

Exyzt installation Ripped off by “the Killers”

In fact, the two were so much alike that over at Create Digital Motion, we just assumed it was another Exyzt install job. (Apparently, that isn’t so; even if it were, uh, novelty wears off a bit when you do exactly the same thing with another artist.)

Originality. Try it. It’s amazing.

You know what, by contrast have at those two seconds of rhythm that no one can recognize anyway.

(In fairness, as Wallace points out, MTV is likely to blame here. The Killers were just playing in the cubes and, most likely, were not directly responsible for the stage design.)

How’d you score?

How far did you get before you had to lie down, or strum an original tune on a ukulele? (Wait, damnit, that sounds just like “All the Things You Are.”) Let us know in comments.

Google has responded to widespread concerns about political ads, particularly those promoting California’s Proposition 8 same-sex marriage ban prior to last week’s US election. On one hand, I think their answers on policy and placement are incomplete. On the other, it looks like the upshot of this will be better tools for publishers to make their own decisions, which to me is fundamentally what the issue is about. For now, it’s a waiting game until promised improvements appear.

(If you’re bored by this discussion, don’t worry – we’ve got lots more music tech-specific stuff to talk about. But I know it matters to at least some of you directly, including music/music tech publishers out there.)

The response is on Google’s Inside AdSense blog, as posted at the end of the day Friday.

Political ads on AdSense sites

See my previous posts here on CDM. I posted these items because this issue hit music tech in a big way, from individual bloggers to big commercial press outlets – and advertising support is often used to describe what future revenue could look like for musicians:

Google AdSense Fails on Relevancy, Control, Policy, and Google Says Nothing

Google Ads Disabled; Your Partner is Your Business

In fact, the fact that readers didn’t universally agree with me – either on the political issues or my own spin on what this meant for publishers – only proves my point. You need individual publisher control of ads, just as you need human beings controlling editorial content. (If search engines alone told you everything, I don’t think we’d have any regular readers of anything.)

It’s worth reading Google’s complete response, but let’s evaluate it based on my original complaints – relevancy, policy, and publisher control:

Relevancy

Google confirms what we suspected, which is that “placement targeting” allows “advertisers to find sites serving a specific audience, such as "Males ages 18-24." Their answer isn’t entirely satisfactory here, though. For me, at least, the political ads didn’t appear in Google’s tool that’s supposed to review placement-targeted ads. And it’s clear that in this case placement-targeted ads aimed at an audience clashed with niche-specific sites that didn’t want political ads. Unlike a contextually-targeted ad based on a keyword (like “synth” or “recording”), the relationship to site content was unclear. If that had been something like cool sneakers, people probably wouldn’t have cared, so I have to agree with other publishers who felt that even basic publisher controls limiting political ads could be a remedy.

It’s still a mystery which audience Prop 8 supporters targeted. Given the amount of money spent on this campaign, maybe “all of them” is close.

Policy

Google still stands by its political policy, saying that “Google’s advertising system does not favor one political position over another.” But they offer absolutely no explanation of why Proposition 8 ads were consistent with that policy. Google explicitly says ads “advocating against” a group of people aren’t allowed, and even lists sexual preference as one of their “protected groups.”

Let’s flip this around. Proposition 8 opponents have now targeted Mormons and called for a boycott of the entire state of Utah. I understand their rationale – the Church of Latter-Day States funded campaigns in favor of the marriage ban. But to me, I wouldn’t want anti-Mormon ads on my site any more than I’d want ads against gay marriage. This kind of advocacy is not something I personally believe in, and quite frankly, I know we have Mormon and gay readers alike. I respect them, and I want advertising to respect them, too. That’s not just to be “nice”; that’s how I would conduct myself outside of the site, as well.

I can only imagine that Google has chosen to apply the standard of advocating “against” groups very narrowly. But to me, such a standard works only if it’s applied liberally. It’s pretty hard to imagine that an ad supporting a gay marriage ban isn’t implicitly an ad advocating against homosexuals, just as it would be hard to imagine an ad supporting a boycott of Utah isn’t implicitly advocating against the Mormon church. That’s not a judgment of either argument – but I personally wouldn’t want that kind of advocacy on my site, and if Google doesn’t apply this standard in this case, where do they draw the line?

The bottom line to all of this is, publishers need control to make their own call.

Control

Putting all your faith in Google, of course, is asking for trouble – whether Google means well or not. So to me, the answer from Google AdSense that overrides the rest of these issues is on publisher control.

We’ve heard your feedback about how quickly filters take effect and the ability to block specific categories of ads, and we’re working hard to improve our current controls and provide more powerful ones in the near future. Over the next couple weeks, we plan to improve the speed of your filters, and we’re working towards filters in the future that will take effect in less than an hour. We’ll also continue improving the Ad Review Center, giving you ways to block entire categories of ads in addition to individual ads. We are also working on ways for you to establish guidelines for the type of ads that will be acceptable to your users, so you can "set it and forget it," while feeling comfortable that users will have a good ad experience.

Now we’re talking. If publishers had adequate controls, differences on policy and concerns about certain kinds of placements wouldn’t have to come to people dropping AdSense altogether.

The only issue is, of course, for now this is just a promise – the improvements in the service aren’t here yet (though “next couple weeks” is promising as a timeframe). I’ll be watching for these controls to appear, because I think that the Prop 8 battle aside, this has profound implications for the future of advertising.

At the same time, I still think this illustrates why competition is important – both from competing services, and from publishers selling their own ad space. Interestingly, part of the problem is that AdSense has actually gotten quite good. I saw some kneejerk reactions around the Web (comments here, links elsewhere) suggesting I was nuts for even suggesting this was an issue, because their take was that AdSense was useless. I think what they’ve missed is that for sites with reasonably well-optimized content and keyword relevancy that connects to Google’s ad inventory, AdSense isn’t a bad solution, at least as a complement to direct ad sales. (AdSense is rarely as valuable as direct sales – for CDM, for instance, it’s basically just some background revenue that defrays hosting costs.)

But there’s no question in my mind that competition makes any service better. I’m still waiting on proposed alternatives from Microsoft and Yahoo. But even users threatening to leave AdSense clearly got their attention. And, frankly, that’s how this whole thing is supposed to work.

The ad-supported Web could be part of what allows music technology information and musician-made content to be free in the future. But the more this area grows, the more these kinds of debates over how ads are chosen, priced, and delivered will become important.

It’s a nearly unanimously-held belief: the future of digital content will depend, at least in part, on revenue from ads. This site is supported by ads. Musicians and digital producers will be looking to ads to support what they’re doing – sometimes in the form of direct ad revenue, sometimes in support for sites and communities they use (Facebook, YouTube, MySpace, and so on). Ads are very often what makes the Internet free.

But if ad-supported models are going to work, the system that delivers the ads has to work. This week, I believe Google failed to deliver the solution it promises its publishers. They violated their own policies, violated the principle of their service, violated the trust of their publishers, and then failed to respond to an issue that was deeply time-sensitive.

When Third-Party Ads Attack

Before I’m misunderstood, let’s consider advertising policy, which is not the same as editorial policy. In print publishing, whether a small-town weekly newspaper or The New York Times, ad sales relationships have been directly between a publisher and an advertiser. Running an ad does not mean an endorsement of the advertiser or their message or product. In fact, newspapers frequently run “op ed”-style ads that directly conflict with editorial policy, though not without being criticized by some for doing so. The Times runs a regular full-page ad from energy giant Exxon/Mobil, for instance.

In online publishing, we very frequently hand over those relationships to a third party. We expect, in return, that our interests as a publisher will be served by the third party.

This week, Google AdSense bombarded an enormous number of partner sites, Create Digital Music included, with banners opposing same-sex marriage in California, a right that had been protected in that state. Bizarrely, many music tech sites were targeted. The ads were offensive to many publishers; whatever your feelings about marriage and homosexuality, these were effectively ads in favor of discrimination. One ad run on this site was also factually inaccurate, suggesting that California protections for gay marriage can be equated to a mandate to teach about same-sex relationships in schools; various California officials have said that’s not true. Even if you want to debate the issue, that means the ads were claiming something that was false, which is not as debatable.

But tempting as it may be to focus on the political issue and the ads themselves, the ads are not the problem. The problem is that Google failed its publishers, failed the trust we place in Google, and then failed to talk about what it had done. It’s a failure of really historic proportions, and one that really merits a close examination and open debate if ad-supported content has any future at all. The fact that Proposition 8 passed and passed by a very narrow margin, is likely to turn up the political heat on that debate. Advertising was widely credited for the passage of the proposition, making us as publishers unwitting partners in the passage of a proposition many of us would have opposed. But let’s not lose sight of the fact that, Proposition 8 aside, the fault is Google’s for delivering well below the expectations of publishers.

Google’s Promise to Publishers

Unlike the traditional newspapers I used above, using Google AdSense is essentially entrusting your ads to an algorithm, to one that connects your content to relevant ads. Now, no one expects this algorithm to be perfect. Sometimes, it’s downright comical. When CDM covered Hatebeak, a parrot that “sings” death metal music, we got ads for bird feed

That said, the basic pitch Google makes to publishers is relevancy. Without relevancy, ads look out of place. They detract from the quality of the content we’re publishing. And most importantly, ads need to be relevant to make publishers money, which is the whole point. At least in the bird feed example, it was clear that the algorithm was making some match based on content, even if it wasn’t one an human might pick. (In fact, it might even work then – interested in parrots? Maybe you are interested in bird feed, even on a music site.)

But don’t take my word for it. Take Google’s:

AdSense for content automatically crawls the content of your pages and delivers ads (you can choose both text or image ads) that are relevant to your audience and your site content—ads so well-matched, in fact, that your readers will actually find them useful.

They go on to say:

Competitive Ad Filter enables you to filter out specific competitors or specific advertisers.

Editorial Review makes sure that all Google ads are reviewed and approved by the Google team, ensuring that inappropriate ads don’t appear on your pages.

Of course, none of that happened here.

My site is not a political site. Prior to this issue coming up, there’s no way an ad specific to California, entirely political in nature, had anything to do with the context of the site. Now, after this has happened, I’ve started writing posts with words like “homosexual” and “gay marriage,” so those ads would be contextual now. But as of Monday when ads appeared here, they had no business on the site. In fact, it would have been just as inappropriate if an ad saying “Oppose Proposition 8” had appeared on the site. For political reasons, I might not have objected, but it certainly would not have been “ads so well-matched … your readers will actually find them useful.”

Naturally, Google does run some ads as a public service, like “Give to the Red Cross.” But an ad encouraging you to give money to help tsunami victims is relevant to everyone, and it’s an issue on which everyone can agree. Political ads are quite different. And, in fact, sites only run those public service announcements when Google’s algorithm can’t find contextual ads to deliver.

As many publishers point out, the bottom line is lost revenue when this system fails – part of the reason a lot of us are considering dropping Google permanently, even if we don’t see anti-gay ads again. Since Google is click-based, not impression-based, we were actually paying bandwidth costs and missing out on ad revenue in order to carry these ads.

That said, we still don’t really know why this happened with the Prop 8 ads. Did the advertisers just buy up random keywords, getting them the technology placements? (And if so, does Google have a policy for such advertiser abuse?) Or does Google’s contextual targeting actually consider these ads relevant?

Whatever the answer, it gets worse.

Google’s Political Ad Policy

Below: one of the ads in question. Funny, on CDM when we think of protect childrens’ education, we think of expanding funding for teaching music. But worse, it violates Google’s own policies.

We as publishers are Google’s customers. You would think that massive online publicity for this story and widespread complaints from publishes would prompt some sort of response from the company. That hasn’t happened, minus a condescending and inadequate blog post on the Inside AdSense blog explaining how to block ads. (More on why that’s unhelpful in a moment.)

To get any explanation from Google, I had to rely, ironically, on a news article in which I myself was quoted. An unidentified Google spokesperson told the [London] Times Online:

Google allows ads that advocate for particular political position, regardless of the views that they represent. We’re currently allowing ads advocating both for and against Proposition 8.

That statement is based on Google’s published political advertising policy:

We permit political advertisements regardless of the political views they represent. Stating disagreement with or campaigning against a candidate for public office, a political party, or public administration is generally permissible.

There’s just one problem: that’s not the whole policy. Also from Google:

However, political ads must not include accusations or attacks relating to an individual’s personal life, nor can they advocate against a protected group.

Protected group, eh?

Don’t promote violence or advocate against a protected group.

Ad text advocating against any organization, person, or group of people is not permitted.
Advertisements and associated websites may not promote violence or advocate against a protected group. A protected group is distinguished by their:

• Race or ethnic origin
• Color
• National origin
• Religion
• Disability
• Sex
• Age
• Veteran status
• Sexual orientation/Gender identity

Emphasis Google’s. Note the last bullet point.

Supporting Proposition 8 isn’t advocating violence, of course. But it is is “advocating against a protected group” and advocating against “a group of people.” It doesn’t get any more clear-cut than this, Google. There’s no more damning way to advocate against a group of people than to run ad texts explicitly advocating non-equal treatment under the law. And some of these ads went further, suggesting that “group of people,” that “protected group” endangered childrens’ education.

We just elected our first African-American President in America – something that my pro-McCain, Republican-voting friends have said, despite their regrets about the election, really impressed them. If the Web had existed in the 1960s, political advocates might have run ads opposing voting protection for blacks. There’s no question now that such an ad would be advocacy against a group, even if the ad wasn’t explicitly “I don’t like black people.” This is the same issue.

If Google doesn’t follow their own ad policies in this case, there’s no guarantee that we can trust anything Google says about their ad programs. As a publisher, I can’t trust a relationship with any vendor that can’t follow their own policies.

Control for Publishers is Inadequate

A story in Information Week noted that some posters in online forums claim Google’s controls for blocking ads are sufficient. They’re not.

There are two methods for blocking ads on AdSense, and neither one in this case was appropriate or adequate.

Competitive Ad Filter: This filter is designed to allow you to block ads from competitive sites. In this case, it failed on a number of levels.

• You need to know what you’re blocking. It’s called a competitive filter for a reason – the assumption is that you know in advance what ads you don’t want to appear. In this case, we didn’t expect ads from “protectmarriage.com.”
• It’s domain-specific: If we did succeed in blocking these ads, the Prop 8 supporters could simply point to a differen domain and get around the block.
• There’s no way to review ads: I relied on readers in California to even know the Prop 8 ads were running in the first place. I was fortunate those readers gave me the benefit of the doubt and that they responded so quickly.
• The ad filter isn’t real-time: Google’s own blog post concedes that it can take several hours for the filter to take effect. That’s truly unacceptable, because other changes like what the ad code looks like are immediate. And in this case, the day before an election, we couldn’t afford to wait several hours. My own true recourse was to shut off Google Ads entirely. Now I’m finding it difficult to switch it back on.

Ad Review Center: This sounds promising at first. But it’s off by default, it can be necessary to automatically approve ads for ad auctions to work properly, and most importantly, it doesn’t actually have anything to do with contextual ads. The Ad Review Center is exclusively for placement-targeted advertising; that is, ads placed specifically on your site by advertising. The Prop 8 supporters used contextual advertising, based on keywords. So this is really entirely irrelevant.

The Prop 8 Ad Debacle: Failure on Every Level

The Proposition 8 ads that appeared were a failure on a number of levels. For those of you keeping score at home:

• The ads weren’t relevant. While the ads appear to have been geo-targeted, AdSense promises ads relevant to content. I don’t want ads for plumbing contractors in Rhode Island, even if you’re reading there, because I want content-relevant ads.
• Publishers lost money. Because the ads were irrelevant and offensive to many readers, publishers on all kinds of blogs reported suddenly-plunging click-through revenue. That may not mean much to small sites, at least in one day. But the loss on bigger sites must have been pretty painful. (And ironically, this means Google didn’t make as much, either!)
• It wasn’t a fluke. Ads were delivered in large quantities to this site, and to many others. Tech sites may even have been targeted specifically; ads ran on Slashdot and Techcrunch.
• The ads violated Google’s own political policy. If this doesn’t count as advocating against a group based on sexual preference, nothing does. So either Google broke their own policy, or their own policy is meaningless. And it’s clear Google left the ads in the network days after the issue appeared, so they can’t plead ignorance – even less so given that they use their editorial review as a selling point for the service.
• Publishers couldn’t do anything once the ads were placed. Not only did we find out the ads were running the hard way, but we had no real-time ability to block the ads – and they were, by definition, time-sensitive. The way to block the ads effectively? Disable Google Ads.
• Google doesn’t have a support outlet. While there’s an informal discussion group, there isn’t a clear, formal way for publishers to complain to Google.
• Google was completely unresponsive. Again, we’re Google’s customers. Days later, we’ve still heard nothing from Google officially, other than a thinly-veiled, defensive blog post explaining their (inadequate) blocking mechanism without mentioning the issue by name, and some faceless statements in the press that we could have copied and pasted from their FAQ.

We Need a More Perfect Web

I’d like to see several things come out of this mess.

I hope that we start to have a real debate about advertising policy. The issues here were to me pretty clear-cut, but advertising policy in general deals with all kinds of tough issues. It’s time to start talking about that as publishers and advertisers alike.

I hope that we get some response from Google. We need to know what actually happened and why. And, frankly, I would need a significantly expanded toolset for publisher control before ever considering running AdSense on my site again.

But I also hope we see more competition in the marketplace. There are various similar services, but in my experience they often don’t have enough ad inventory to be relevant on a site like CDM. That’s too bad. I think Google might have performed better here if they themselves faced more vibrant competition, and I think the whole ad market might improve, too. There are huge opportunities for advertisers online in these kind of sites, and the economic downturn means it’s even more important to make those solutions work better. I know Microsoft and Yahoo are readying services. I look forward to seeing them.

This was, on every level, a complete mess. But now that the issue is out in the open, the end result could be better advertising systems – if the advertising vendors actually pay attention, and respond.

Just as importantly, this debacle could also mean a new climate in which discriminatory ads aren’t tolerated. Publishers are dropping AdSense left and right, and they should. This violated Google’s principles and policy, and many of us believe it’s wrong to run ads that discriminate against a group of people.

There’s no question this is an important issue for musicians. Amidst all the hype about projects from the likes of Nine Inch Nails and Radiohead has been the assumption that our own sites, and community sites we depend on, will be supported by ads. That means that what impacts ads impacts us.

If you believe the future of the Web is bright, then you must also believe that we can all do better.

Related:

Google caught up in row over gay marriage vote [Times Online]

Google Instructs AdSense Publishers How To Block Its Ads [Information Week]

Previously:

Google Ads Disabled; Your Partner is Your Business