One of the distinctive features of Magnatune is that customers decide the price they pay for an album (between $5 and $18). Because buyers know that a full 50% of what they pay goes directly to the artist (rather than the measly 5% or so that artists usually get when you buy a CD), they are often willing to pay even more than is recommended.

Radiohead recently tried a similar scheme with its new album In Rainbows.  Similarly, they found that fans are even more willing to purchase music when they know their money isn’t being hoarded by a greedy middle-man.

Record companies were a necessity in an era when the cost of recording and production was prohibitively high for individual artists. The digital age has significantly lowered this entry barrier, and it is much easier for musicians (and film producers, and authors, and photographers, and …) to succeed without signing their rights over to massive businesses.

The record labels are right to be scared.

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An OpenStreetMap contributor recently moved out of London to the city of Durham, which has not yet been mapped in the OSM database.  He has decided not to use any map that he can’t legally modify and display however he likes, which basically leaves him with the dragons.   When friends invite him to a certain location, they need to sketch a map rather than simply give an address to look up.  That is, until he has added that location to the OpenStreetMap.

He is writing about his experiences as he maps Durham and evicts the dragons, and his determination not to use restrictive maps should make it interesting.

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I have never fully enjoyed listening to music while travelling in cars, because my brain ends up fighting to differentiate between the road noise and the recording. Speech, I have found, is much simpler to detect and thus more enjoyable while on the road. Having a flow of words to interpret also helps keep the brain active, which I strongly suspect diminishes the dangers of fatigue.

My recent “discovery” of audio books led me on a search to find whether this medium has been liberated by Free Culture, as Flickr did for photos and Wikipedia did for encycopaedic knowledge. I discovered LibriVox, which is a volunteer-driven project that aims to make all public domain books available as audio recordings. It is essentially a Project Gutenberg for audio books.

Naturally, some of the volunteers recording have better “reading voices” than others, but there are some LibriVox recordings which are very professional indeed. I might even contribute some time – it would be good motivation to practise dramatic skills.

I have already found half a dozen good LibriVox recordings that I’d like to listen to some time – but there are still a number of audio books in the library that Clansi and I want to hear. Maybe we’ll have to plan a road trip just to catch up!

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It turns out the photo was taken by Alison’s youth counsellor, Justin Ho-Wee Wong, who shares his photos on Flickr under a Creative Commons Atribution license.  It quickly becomes obvious how little people actually understand about Creative Commons.

Virgin included the Flickr URL in the ad, which is one of the best forms of attribution as it also implicitly points to the CC licensing information.  They have remixed (adapted the work), which is explicitly allowed under the CC Attribution license, and attributed the work as required.  They have played fair by the rules that the photographer himself chose.

But what about Alison?  I’ve had a search, and can’t find any information about the subject of a photograph having claim to the copyright.  I do remember from somewhere that if a photo is taken inside a private building then the subject (or is it the building owner?) owns the copyright, but I can’t find anything that says this.  Its a bit absurd, anyway, because obviously all the compromising magazine photos of celebrities were taken and published without their consent.

Alison and her family could have asked Justin to remove the photo from his Flickr profile if they did not wish for her image to be publicly displayed.  It seems, however, that they are only upset with Virgin’s use of the image.  Essentially, they are assuming that a person can have complete control over the use of any image of themselves – and this would be a scary precedent, as nobody would be able to take photos of other people without first having them sign consent.

While it seems that Virgin Mobile Australia understands Creative Commons licenses, it is obvious that there are many who don’t.  This blog post, for instance, shows not only an ignorance of permissive licenses but is quite derogatory about them.

 When alerted many of the victims described the unpaid use of their work as – inevitably – ‘cool’.

They can’t be victims when they have gone out of their way to make their photographs available under specific and carefully-crafted CC licenses.  Of course it is ‘cool’ that Virgin chose their images, its a tremendous compliment.

I’ll be interested to see how it all pans out.

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Not long ago I first heard about OpenMoko and liked the concept. The Phase 1 phones (still in the development stage) were released in July and Dr Shayne Flint had his here in Canberra by early August.

There are some remarkable differences between the Neo1973 (shown on the left) and the Iphone (click on image to enlarge). The Neo1973 has a full vga display of 640×480 pixels, which is twice the Iphone’s 320×480. It also has an SD slot for expandable storage, which the Iphone does not. Although not in the Phase 1 development version, the user version of the Neo1973 will have a GPS built in (yet to come for the Iphone). The Iphone has an accelerometer which allows the screen to automatically switch between portrait and landscape modes depending on how it is being held. The user Neo1973 will have two accelerometers, allowing game action like the Wii.

But the best difference is that while opening up the Iphone voids the warranty, the Neo1973 comes with a screwdriver!

As Dr Flint discussed at the CLUG meeting last night, the fully free (as in freedom) phone is driving innovation into a frenzy. Imagine being able to call a taxi simply by browsing OpenStreetMap and clicking on the screen where you want to go. The phone’s GPS knows where you are, and sends the appropriate information to the taxi service. One-click call-a-cab!

Or what about having your phone automatically switch to silent mode when it knows you are in or near a library or lecture theatre. How about having it remotely disabled by you when you loose it? Even better – get it to tell you where it is!

Everything that you thought was Sci-Fi will be one step closer to reality when the Neo1973 lands OpenMoko in userland a few months from now. Are you ready?

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In closing, the article concludes:

The Web 2.0 phenomenon which includes sites like MySpace, Facebook and YouTube has come under increasing fire from government and industry due to its largely user authored content which is notoriously difficult to regulate.

This raises an interesting issue – isn’t freedom of expression one of the highly esteemed aspects of the participatory Web 2.0? Re-emergence of independent and individual voices is one of the exciting things about read/write culture and the technologies that facilitate it. Why should it be regulated?

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This is more than just a novelty tool – it is a great way to show how many mistakes there are in Google’s maps. Within about 2 hours someone had emailed a link to the map of Delmeny (near Edinburgh in the UK), claiming there were at least 4 errors visible on the Google map. Twenty minutes later, someone had identified 7 incorrect features on the Google map!

A little closer to home is this section of Canberra. Although the OSM rendering (particularly street names) could be more nicely proportioned, it is apparent that the community-built map is simply more detailed and more accurate. Note especially the connection between North Road and Sullivan’s Creek Road on the left of the map frame.

Of course, there are still a great many places where the OSM map coverage is poor compared to commercial maps (even to the point of being non-existent). This problem, however, is gradually diminishing. Where OSM mappers have been, it is clear that Linus’s old adage holds true: many eyes do make bugs shallow.

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While Google supplies map and aerial photography free of charge, they do this only for a limited range of uses. You are allowed to embed a map (with a Google logo on it) in your website (as I have done), but you are not allowed to make a GPS car navigation system using this map information. Nor are you allowed to use Google Map information to create your own special purpose map (as Tom Chance wanted to). Unless you live in the USA, chances are you have to pay again for mapping information that was created using your taxes.

Just as Wikipedia is a collaborative community project making encyclopedic information freely available to every human on the planet, the OpenStreetMap (OSM) project aims to create and provide free geographic data such as street maps to anyone who wants them for any use they desire. Because there is no arbitrary legal limit on the use of the data, OpenStreetMap is pushing innovation in areas ranging from personal navigation systems to flight simulation.

I recently bought a Garmin Geko 201 handheld GPS device, primarily for use on hikes. I also found a free (as in speech) program that will let me use my laptop and connected GPS as a car navigation system. The catch is that there is no freely available street map data for Australian roads. Enter OSM.

Using OpenStreetMap data in a car navigation system requires, of course, that the map exist. I have taken to recording various routes as I cycle to Uni, and am thus adding ANU to the map. Riding slightly further abroad I have benefited from the exercise and contributed to the map of central Canberra. Taking my GPS in the car whenever I drive somewhere allows me to add to the map without making any special trips.

The OSM project started in the UK, and is still young in Australia. The huge holes in the map are extremely exciting – almost anywhere you go it is possible to contribute new information! OpenStreetMap might not yet be suitable for production-line use in Australia, but it is heralding in a new era of availability for geographic information. Its also addictive, and a wonderful excuse to get exercise!

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