This is first installment of the Open Media Web series, featuring Lucas Gonze of Yahoo!, recorded at the Neue Songbird Nest in San Francisco during the second Open Media Web Meetup called Portable Playlists and other POSH-ibilities.
In this interview, conducted by Chris Messina and Brian Oberkirch, Lucas discusses his thoughts on the Open Media Web, on user-respectful business models and coercive business practices, and business opportunities for open systems and data. He ends by discussing a simple and straightforward thing that web developers can do today to support the media web.
Download original (87MB, Quicktime).
fuzzy copyright by PugnoM on Flickr
Fairly recently, well known Silicon Valley photographer, Lane Hartwell, raised the issue of copyright infringement over the use of her and others photography (used without attribution) in a music video done by San Francisco musical group, Richter Scales. Within this back and forth, Lane and others raised an important issue: the desire of the content producers…the photographers, the writers, the artists, etc. Many of the current sites displaying original works, such as Flickr, YouTube, etc. have implemented Creative Commons licensing, but is that a positive or negative move? Do people know what the different licenses mean? Are we encouraging people to ’steal’ original works because we are increasing accessibility while failing to educate? What are ways in which we can work on the education? Will it help?
These questions and more are issues we will be covering on our January 8 Media Web Meetup at Songbirdnest from 6-8pm. We have Lane Hartwell, herself, coming down to tell the story from her perspective as well as illuminate multiple examples of similar frustration from other photographers. We have Jason Schultz from the EFF coming down to talk about the EFF legal positions on the DMCA as well as the ethical obligations from his perspective. And we have Jim Goldstein, photographer and podcaster (EXIF and Beyond) coming down to discuss this widely discussed issue, fresh off of an interview with Lawrence Lessig, inventor of Creative Commons. We are also confirming the final guest to be announced here.
We hope to get further on the issue of, “Yep. We want loads of creative content being shared, but, yep, we agree that the producers themselves should benefit from their contributions. What can we do to make that happen?” We hope you’ll join us. 
This short introductory video gives a general overview of this project and discusses the general opportunities that an “Open Media Web” might off the web at large. It’s the first video in what will become a regular series of interviews, meetups and related events.
Download original (17MB, Quicktime).
