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Posted here are two pieces: the first, an excerpt from today's Op-Ed by NYTimes columnist Paul Krugman, offers a view of the future of technology with (uncharacteristic) optimism; the other is a press release about several major record labels currently suing Spain's own P2P pioneer, Pablo Soto. An interesting juxtaposition. The money quote is about litigation not being a particularly "valid business model".

Bits, Bands and Books
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: June 6, 2008

Do you remember what it was like back in the old days when we had a New Economy? In the 1990s, jobs were abundant, oil was cheap and information technology was about to change everything.

Then the technology bubble popped. Many highly touted New Economy companies, it turned out, were better at promoting their images than at making money -- although some of them did pioneer new forms of accounting fraud. After that came the oil shock and the food shock, grim reminders that we’re still living in a material world.

So much, then, for the digital revolution? Not so fast. The predictions of '90s technology gurus are coming true more slowly than enthusiasts expected -- but the future they envisioned is still on the march.

In 1994, one of those gurus, Esther Dyson, made a striking prediction: that the ease with which digital content can be copied and disseminated would eventually force businesses to sell the results of creative activity cheaply, or even give it away. Whatever the product -- software, books, music, movies -- the cost of creation would have to be recouped indirectly: businesses would have to "distribute intellectual property free in order to sell services and relationships."

For example, she described how some software companies gave their product away but earned fees for installation and servicing. But her most compelling illustration of how you can make money by giving stuff away was that of the Grateful Dead, who encouraged people to tape live performances because "enough of the people who copy and listen to Grateful Dead tapes end up paying for hats, T-shirts and performance tickets. In the new era, the ancillary market is the market."

Indeed, it turns out that the Dead were business pioneers. Rolling Stone recently published an article titled "Rock's New Economy: Making Money When CDs Don't Sell." Downloads are steadily undermining record sales -- but today's rock bands, the magazine reports, are finding other sources of income. Even if record sales are modest, bands can convert airplay and YouTube views into financial success indirectly, making money through "publishing, touring, merchandising and licensing."

What other creative activities will become mainly ways to promote side businesses? How about writing books?

[read on...]

via PRWeb, June 5, 2008:

Major Record Labels Sue Spanish P2P Pioneer Pablo Soto, MP2P Technologies, Suit Seeks $20mm USD

Lawsuit, Believed to be Unprecedented, Claims "Unfair Competition"

Madrid, Spain (PRWEB) June 5, 2008 -- MP2P Technologies (http://www.mp2p.net/) announced today that it has been served with a lawsuit from what remains of the four major record labels. The lawsuit, WARNER MUSIC SPAIN S.A., UNIVERSAL MUSIC SPAIN, S.A., EMI MUSIC SPAIN, S.A., SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT, S.A., PRODUCTORES DE MUSICA EN ESPANA (PROMUSICAE) v. PABLO SOTO BRAVO, OPTISOFT, S.L., PIOLET NETWORKS, S.L., MP2P TECHNOLOGIES, S.A. (filed in Madrid Court for Commercial Matters # 2807910001898), seeks $20mm in alleged damages from the technology upstart.

"We intend to vigorously defend ourselves against this shake down attempt by the major label cabal," said Pablo Soto, founder and CEO of MP2P Technologies. "Rather than embracing technology, they have chosen a path that will ultimately lead to their own demise, as evidenced by the labels consistent decline over the past decade. Litigation is in itself not a valid business model for them, however, it has been a dogged and futile pursuit of theirs since the advent of P2P."

"PROMUSICAE (Spanish branch of the IFPI; international arm of the RIAA) tried to proceed with civil suits against users of P2P networks in Spain and, after being halted by the Court of Justice of the EU, it has now decided to go against a neutral communication tool such as P2P technology," added Soto.

MP2P Technologies innovates technology offerings including Piolet (http://www.piolet.com/), Omemo, (http://www.omemo.com) and Blubster (http://www.blubster.com).

Pablo Soto is considered one of the pioneers of P2P, together with other distinguished luminaries such as Justin Frankel (Gnutella) and Shawn Fanning (Napster). He is a frequent panelist at national and international forums and serves from time to time as a visiting professor at the University of Valencia and the University of the Basque Country. His progressive accomplishments in technology have garnered worldwide press recognition, including CNN, The New York Times, Reuters, AP, USA Today, C/Net, Rolling Stone, CBS News, San Jose Mercury News, among many others.

About MP2P Technologies
MP2P Technologies' software offerings have been downloaded millions of times by scores of people from around the globe. Founded by renowned technology developer Pablo Soto in 2000, MP2P Technologies today remains a leader in the P2P sector and consumer technology. MP2P Technologies is headquartered in Madrid, Spain. For more information, visit http://www.mp2p.net.

For more info, check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Music_Economy

reblogged via artreview.com:

One Less Alternative: The Lower East Side's Orchard Gallery Closes, As Planned                                                                   

Posted by artreview.com on 26 May 2008 at 5:00pm

By Joshua Mack

This past Sunday, Orchard, one of New York's most challenging counterfoils to the commercial art scene, closed, as planned, three years after opening.

The gallery was on the Lower East Side, in a partially renovated storefront at 47 Orchard Street – a thoroughfare once famed for the bargain basement clothing offered by immigrant merchants and now a gentrifying 'hood replete with yuppie restaurants and high end coffee roasters. Orchard was founded by twelve 'members' – among them artists Andrea Fraser, R.H. Quaytman, Christian Philipp Müller and Nicolás Guagnini, historian Rhea Anastas, filmmaker Jeff Preiss and one anonymous participant – in response to a shared distress over Bush's reelection in 2004, a booming art market, and the disconnect between daily life and the exclusive environment fostered by Chelsea galleries.

Spring Wound installation view / Outside the opening of Cookie Cutter, 2008

Spring Wound, Orchard's final show, was as enigmatic, cerebral and challenging as anything the hardscrabble space has produced: a survey of films by Jeff Preiss documenting past projects at the gallery. The show encapsulated the diversity of Orchard's curatorial program, featuring Andrea Fraser, queen of institutional critique, re-enacting May I Help You (1991), her skewering of art commerce and its aesthetic pretensions, and Anthony McCall's redo of Five Minute Drawing (1974).

Orchard's curatorial stance was rigorous, discursive and wide-ranging: one-person shows were eschewed for group exhibitions and newer work was placed in historical context. The relationship of art to political power was examined and critiqued: for example, September 11, 1973 (2005), curated by Guagnani, explored resonances between work made after the CIA-sponsored overthrow of Chilean President Salvador Allende in 1973 and work made after the attack on the World Trade Center in 2001. Last year, an exhibition of Polish 'socialist conceptualism' from the 1970s highlighted how artists used their party affiliation to reveal the communist government's bankrupt social policies.

Such undermining from within echoes Orchard's modus operandi. It was intentionally organized as a for-profit gallery and was supported by sales and monthly contributions from its twelve members. As Guagnini explained over coffee earlier this week, by running the space for profit (whether it actually turned one or not), the founders sought to subvert the polarizing categories of commercial and non profit, the former designed to serve the market and the latter a kind of do-gooding lesser cousin. Instead, Orchard co-opted the formulas of the commercial space, the use of historic shows and the association of critics with specific artists – think Benjamin Buchloh and Gerhard Richter – to propose alternative criteria for valuing art.

Screening of Michael Asher's film 1973/2005 / Diego Fernandez, Portrait of My Father; both in the exhibition September 11, 1973 at Orchard

Perhaps the most vital aspect of Orchard's program has been the conviction that art could, and should, involve dialogue and social engagement. Much of what was shown fell under the heading of institutional critique, or engaged global and local political and economic marginalization. Gentrification and demographic change on the Lower East Side was a major topic, explored in photographs and walking tours by Zoe Leonard, Petra Wunderlich and Christian Philipp Müller. Orchard also set up a benefit auction for the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, a program that advocates for low income and/or coloured transgender people as they navigate the public health and justice systems.

The place was not perfect and not without its critics, both internal and external. Shows were often organized around turgid concepts explicated in overly theoretical press releases. A limited budget – a painful reminder of what does sell today – often resulted in thin or slapdash shows. The head of a university arts program suggested to me that "It is/was just one of those innumerable new collectives, possibly happening as a counterpoint in the real physical world to virtual online social networks. And as cumbersome and 'closed' (elitist?) as anything that is material." Conflicts among members may have brought meaningful compromise for the most part, but Quaytman noted the early defection of founding member Gareth James as indicative of the internal hostility. Guagnini and Andrea Fraser also fell out over the project.

Some things were bound to go wrong – Orchard was founded as a laboratory. Rebecca Quaytman, the gallery director, was astounded at the public's hunger for an alternative to big box commercial venues. "People wanted it to be there. Our events were filled."

Kathy Halbreich, deputy director of MoMA, admired the way Orchard "…put the artist front and centre, not only as the maker but as the interpreter (there was always one of the partners present to talk to). The artists also reinterpreted the machine – and made a place for conversation, the latter being crucial, in my mind, to what I would hope for MoMA."

High praise and, one can only hope, a model for more established venues. But most of all, Orchard was about agency. Twelve people, dissatisfied with the artworld and the political world, and adrift after the death in 2003 of Colin de Land (the founder of American Fine Art, where many of them had exhibited), put their time, money, and commitment into creating a different situation. It's a classic model of grassroots activism and a call to all of us wringing our hands over the intellectual vapidity in many of our galleries and museums to visit and participate in the spaces, which thankfully do exist in New York, whose programs provide a meaningful alternative. Resistance, however, lies not in institutions – hence the original decision of Orchard's members to close after three years – but in action, change, movement. As the gallery closed this Sunday, Guagnini was canvassing the area, visiting sister galleries Miguel Abreu and Reena Spaulings. Then, at 6pm, when Orchard closed its door for the last time, his own solo at Fruit and Flowers Deli was opening.               

KRIEGSPIEL
Guy Debord's 1978 "Game of War"
Produced for computer by RSG
Screen shot courtesy of m.river, flickr.com

via post.thing.net and interactivist info exchange, 04/23/2008:
{additional links courtesy of newsgrist}

Guy Debord's Widow Threatens NYU Professor with Copyright Violation Professor Is Accused of Infringing the Copyright of a Man Who Opposed Copyright

By ANDREA L. FOSTER, http://chronicle.com/weekly/v54/i33/33a01603.htm

Guy Debord, a Marxist philosopher who died in 1994, was no fan of private property. But apparently his widow is one.

A lawyer representing the widow, Alice Becker-Ho, has threatened Alexander R. Galloway, an associate professor of culture and communication at New York University, with legal action. Mr. Galloway says the lawyer has sent him a letter demanding that he stop distributing his online war game, which the lawyer says infringes a copyright held by the Debord estate. The French philosopher had created a similar board game 30 years ago.

But copyrights and some forms of intellectual property were anathema to Debord, says Mr. Galloway. The Situationist International movement, which Debord founded, in 1957, is a mix of anarchism and Marxism. Its followers scrawled "Abolish copyright" on walls during the May 1968 student uprisings in Paris.

The humor in defending the property rights of Debord, a Marxist, has not been lost on scholars, who have publicized the case on their blogs.

Mr. Galloway does not deny that the two-person computer game he developed is based on Debord's creation, the Game of War. The philosopher, an avid student of war strategy, released a few handcrafted copies of the board game in 1978. The object of the game, which resembles chess, is to corner and destroy opposing pieces. Debord and his wife wrote a book about it that was translated into English last year.

<Image via, tirée du film In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni, Guy Debord, 1978.

One of Debord's games, cast in silver and copper, is on display at Columbia University's Buell Center for the Study of Architecture, alongside Mr. Galloway's computer version, called Kriegspiel. The object of Kriegspiel, German for a generic 18th-century war game, is the same as in Debord's game.

A computer programmer, Mr. Galloway says he spent about a year designing the digital game, which can be downloaded from the Web at no charge. "It's part of my scholarly research into how antagonism is simulated in war games and computer games," he said. "It's also part of my research into the work of Debord."

Despite the similarities between his creation and Debord's, Mr. Galloway disagrees that he is breaking the law. "I don't think I'm infringing on anyone's copyright in the creation of this game," he says, declining to discuss his legal situation further.

John Beckman, a spokesman for New York University, says only that it received a similar cease-and-desist letter and has responded.

Wendy M. Seltzer, a fellow at Harvard University's Berkman Center for
Internet & Society, is familiar with Mr. Galloway's case. The Debord estate, she says, is overreaching in accusing him of copyright infringement.

The idea for a game is not copyrightable, she argues; only the image of a game is. Mr. Galloway's game uses the idea of Debord's game, she says, but does not duplicate its artistry and detail. {note: this perfectly illustrates the Idea-Expression Dichotomy }

Ms. Seltzer, a visiting assistant professor at Northeastern University School of Law, sees similarities between Mr. Galloway's case and one involving the Facebook-based word game Scrabulous. In that case, the owners of the board game Scrabble have accused the developers of Scrabulous of infringing their copyright. Ms. Seltzer says that claim, too, is without merit.

via The Guardian's art + architecture blog (found on C-Monster):

Making a bloody mess of the art world   

April 24, 2008  5:00 PM

An American artist claims to have repeatedly self-impregnated and self-aborted for her senior year project. Why does this feel like old hat?

The art student Aliza Shvarts has caused controversy in the United States with her performance art piece in which she artificially inseminated herself repeatedly and then self-aborted. It is still unclear whether the performance actually happened, but in these media-saturated days it doesn't really matter. True or not, the result is a hot press topic and Shvarts has been re-christened the Abortion Girl.

Naturally the act (if it happened at all) has upset a vast section of the American right, and no doubt it was Shvart's intention to highlight a woman's right to choose what she does with her body. But what really seems to be getting the goat of the American public is its assumption of a cynical publicity stunt on the part of the artist.

Let's remember that Shvarts is just one in a long line of performance artists who have used their bodies to reach out to an anaesthetised and alienated society: one so inured from the shoot-from-the-hip tragedies on the evening news that it takes a willful, self-inflicted act to make us sit up.

The 1970s were of course the heyday of ritualised mutilation of this kind. Gina Pane, Marina Abramovic, VALIE EXPORT and Rudolf Schwarzkogler all self-inflicted bodily harm in an attempt to understand the connections between the body and the self. Chris Burden got his assistant to shoot him in the left arm while the legendary Czech performance artist Tomas Ruller set fire to himself in memory of the 1968 Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia.

The only difference between these artists and Shvarts is today's publicity machine. The artists of the 1970s rarely made the headlines, but when they did there was never a question of cynicism attached. By the 1980s, thanks to a few gallery owners, their media-hungry clients and some canny marketing gurus, the artist became a star and consequently very rich, and since that time a disproportionate attention to hype has dogged the political artist. We now have the dilettante Sebastian Horsley travelling to the Philippines to have himself crucified or the slack-faced David Blane shut up in a glass box in the name of art.

So what should we make of Shvarts? Art tart or savage political artist? It doesn't really matter. Her work is terrifying territory for so many reasons that it cannot fail to make an impact. It is not about Neo-cons or Christianity: it is about the body, the self and our disconnection from reality. For this reason it is art.

Artist:   Nina Sobell
Exhibition Title:   The Long Performance: Internal Message Search
Dates:   Fri. April 18 through Wednesday April 30
Hours:   Tues - Sat, 12-6 pm  (until 8pm on April 18 & 24)
Where:   Location One   26 Greene Street (Canal and Grand) New York City
phone:   212-334-3347
Subway:  Canal Street stop on N,R,Q,W - 6 - A,C,E
Website:  www.location1.org

Nina Sobell presents the artist-in-studio as spectacle, allowing the audience to share the private rituals of the art making process. She will install her Location One artist residency studio in the Location One Project Space.

The installation includes recent wax sculptures, molds-in-the-making and drawings that share space with musical instruments.

Visitors to the gallery will be able to engage in a dialog with the artist about her work, and may also bring their own instruments for improvisational jams on CamJam, the 24/7 webcast of the installation at http://www.location1.org/nina-sobell

Sobell pioneered the use of video, computers, and interactivity in art, as well as performance on the Web. Since 1969, when she first used video to document participants’ undirected interactions with her sculptures, she investigates the extent to which video enables her to manipulate the relation between time and space, and to create a vortex for human experience, in which the mediated event coincides with public experience, memory, and relationships. Groundbreaking projects include ParkBench and VirtuAlice, and the ongoing Interactive Encephalographic Brainwave Drawings.

Nina’s work has been shown throughout the US, Europe, and Japan. An award-winning printmaker and figurative sculptor, an avid improvisational guitarist and keyboardist, she can be seen sculpting Emily in the ParkBench Performance Archives and heard playing music there as well.