Monday, September 15, 2014

Introduction to Aaron Wolf and Snowdift.coop

This is not legal advice. Leave audio feedback at (512) 686-6329.

Expected Audience: Those interested in financially supporting free culture and having their free culture works financially supported.


mp3 audio | ogg audio | torrent (CC BY)

Ever since Nick and I decided to start what would become Netizen Empowerment Federation in January 2012, I have been thinking a lot about financial sustainability. It's the main reason I decided to broaden the scope of the Lawcast.

I think snowdrift.coop has a lot of promise for financial sustainability, but it isn't ready yet. I've spent some time today preparing to get people together to discuss what can be done now - or if waiting really is the best option. I decided that having a discussion where the focus was "get us from now to snowdrift.coop" did not make a lot of sense if people weren't familiar with snowdrift.coop.

Snowdrift.coop has an overwhelming amount of documentation and even if it was a little less overwhelming, some people wouldn't read it. That's why I have decided to provide subscribers with the audio to this interview.

Unfortunately, the audio is still a bit overwhelming at over two hours. Perhaps Aaron has the time to make it to our panel. Perhaps Aaron and I can do a shorter interview. I'll see what I can do.

For now, as said by Aaron:
"The show is a bit over two hours long and covers topics including: copyright, music business, economics, participatory vs performance-based music, philosophy of art, barbershop harmony, software freedom, and more. Overall, it's a good casual summary of my whole personal story of my life and career and how I came to my current understanding and feelings on these topics."



Here are the links (with just a bit of commentary) from the original post.


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Friday, September 12, 2014

Ongoing Lawcast Hiatus, but Broader Focus

This is not legal advice. Leave audio feedback at (512) 686-6329.

I. Ongoing Hiatus

I don't think this needs a lot. The reasons for the hiatus were briefly documented here before and there's been even more on my personal blog.

I will add two things.

First, I will confirm that there is no schedule for returning. I will develop a plan after October 8. I'm in a bit of a holding pattern until then. I am unsure of how long after Oct 8 it will take me. That will depend on what I find out on Oct 8.

Second, I will note that I have a new Patreon listing. I suppose I should add a tier where I end the hiatus. That will be my next step after publishing this!

The hiatus from blogs and audio shows doesn't mean I haven't been thinking about things...

II. Broader Focus

I have already mentioned this in public, but not on the blog. Recent discussions about projectEqualize prompted me to make sure it was on the blog. The Lawcast is going to become a location for academic-type discussions around music, including panel discussions about the future of Creative Commons music.

As of the moment, I am calling this "Law & Policy" but I'm thinking music education, music technology, and basically, the type of stuff that doesn't really fit in the weekly Music Manumit show. Also, it will give me the opportunity to bring people into Music Manumit that can't work on the normal Music Manumit schedule. For example, Jason of Lame Drivers has a Friday night conflict.

Basically, since the Lawcast is only me now (although I'm happy to have this change), there's no reason for it not to have more of my voice. The end of Brian's involvement was the trademark show, so I guess it makes sense that the next post after that would be an announcement of this sort.

III. Panel

If I were ready to end the hiatus, this is where I'd announce a panel discussion on what the community wants out of projectEqualize. I really would like to do that, but I don't have time to put something like that together right now. Based on the loose timetable Mike recently gave, it seems reasonable to think I can pull together a panel before projectEqualize is complete. At this point, all I can say, is watch this space.

Get in Touch
Music Manumit Last.fm group
My Last.fm: DouglasAWh.
Libre.fm: douglasawh.
GNU Social: daw
Donate
Help Doug pay off law school debt! Buy him a book or food!
Flattr