What the hell have I been doing?

I have been completely derelict in my writing responsibilities with respect to this blog. In my own defense, I've been working on a lot of different things, including a new gig, starting a creative agency (http://www.shadowpropaganda.com), specializing in strategic and non-traditional marketing, writing ANOTHER blog (http://www.stephenchukumba.wordpress.com), planning, attending and moderating panels at conferences across the country (and overseas), and generally being bout-it bout-it.

But, I recognize that I have a duty to keep the content flowing, so I return, after my extended hiatus, and re-engage.

What's been going on? Well, since I last posted up, Apple released the iPhone 3G (which I resisted getting) the new MacBook (with the aluminum casing like the Pro) and the MacBook Pro, both of which include many of the features contained in the Air (like the multi-touch track pad). I've got to cop at least one of these bad boys.

There have been a number of handsets released featuring Google's Android operating system, and the industry is a flutter with excitement over it. T-Mobile released the G1, and the reviews so far have been quite positive. Whether any of these new devices will unseat Apple's iPhone remains to be seen.

Verizon Wireless tried to increase its rates for SMS on its networks, only to beat a hasty retreat in the face of a malestrom of criticism and alarm. It was, to say the least, a public relations nightmare, and still signals the end-of-days for content providers and aggregators relying solely on premium SMS as a revenue source.

W-A-P. Get with it, its the wave of the future. WAP will enable content providers to monetize their content withouth the carriers taking 40-60% of the puchase price away. With the number of smart phones capable of seamless m-commerce transactions on the mobile web growing from 15% to over 65% by the year 2012, carriers will have little option but to decrease their percentage take, or risk being foreclosed permanantly from the premium content market.

The stock market rollercoaster ride and the presidential election are the two really big things that have taken place in my absence. Obama won the Democratic nomination, and McCain the Republican. Obama selected Joe Biden as his VP, while McCain selected a political novice, Sarah Palin. Currently, Obama has a seven point lead nationally, but if the Bradley effect comes into play, that lead may be meaningless. November 4th is not far away, we'll see.

That's about it for now.

Pro IP Act 0f 2007, Oh Please!

The House of Representatives just passed H.R. 4279, a bill whose stated purpose is to "enhance remedies for violations of intellectual property laws, and for other purposes."  This bill was actually borne out of an earlier Senate effort with the same stated cause.  This House bill now goes to the Senate for passage there, and its likely to pass.

The unfortunate thing about this law is that its too little too late.  Of course the RIAA and the Motion Picture Association will applaud loudly because it strengthens the penalties for anyone deemed to have infringed on the intellectual property rights of another.  And I am not one for violating anyone's IP.  I believe that content creators should eat from their labor.  But do you remember those cases, where college students (or their unsuspecting parents) were sued by the RIAA, these IP laws (and the RIAA's lawyer's unscrupulous use of the legal system) only served to severely punish the unsuspecting (and often innocent).  These enhanced penalties will only serve to drive people to be more surreptitious about how they illegally get content, not more fearful of the penalties.

Let's face it, for all of the suits brought by the RIAA, did it actually stem the tide of file-swapping?  Did people uninstall P2P applications from their computers?  Even after the Napster lawsuit, there was still Kaaza, Morpheus, Limewire, BitTorrent, etc.  There was not even a perceptible ripple in the rate at which 'illegal' downloads occurred.  Is this law, if enacted, going to stop all the unscrupulous cats who review Hollywood movies (and get digital copies in advance of theatrical releases) from making a quick buck or stop them from selling copies to bootleggers?  I think not.

I read over 4279, and its  a beast.  I'd be scared if I was bootlegging copyrighted works or other forms of IP, but thats just me.  The people this law is designed to deter and punish could care less.  They're not worried about getting caught in the first place, and they're certainly not concerned about 'enhanced' penalties.  Is it really going to make a difference to the dude in the Wendy's parking lot peddling "There Will Be Blood," or "300" that the penalties have all doubled?  Probably not.  Are mix tapes featuring copyrighted songs going to stop appearing on mixtapes?  Doubtful.

I'm not suggesting that copyright or trademark owners should simply throw up their hands in frustration or give up fighting to protect their work.  I do think that there should be more effort made to create disincentives for consumers to patronize bootleggers and less than legal means of obtaining content.  Everyone knows that the law cannot keep up with the rate at which technology is advancing.  4279 is already ten years late in my opinion, and its not even law yet!  I remember when they passed the "cybersquatting" law.  That thing had no teeth, and did it really stop the practice of people 'squatting' on domain names to which they had no valid claim (aside from the owner's misfortune of failing to renew?)?  No, not really.

I suspect that, if it becomes law, 4279 will be relegated to "too-little-too-late" status, like so much IP legislation.  Cats on Capitol Hill need to sit down with kids that are file-swapping on high school and college campuses to find out what's driving them, and then base their activities on addressing the causes, rather than wasting time 'enhancing' the penalties.

Obama vs. Hillary, What Does It All Mean

I spent most of yesterday glued to my television watching commentary about the primaries in North Carolina and Indiana.  To be honest, I think that Barak Obama is a shoe-in for the Democratic nomination, and Hillary Clinton needs to bow out gracefully.  

Throughout the day (when I wasn't in front of the set watching CNN or CSPAN), I was getting New York Times text alerts to my iPhone, with the latest tallies after the polls had closed.  I found my self oddly transfixed by the two contests, and worrying inordinately about the outcome.  Whether its Hillary or Obama or McCain for that matter (although I doubt the Democrats could flub it so badly as to permit another Republican to be at the helm), anything would be better than what we are suffering through right now (but I digress).

My point is that, instead of keeping up with Microsoft's failed bid for Yahoo (its not over, mark my words), or Qtrax's deal with UMG (allegedly its actually going down this time) or writing about the latest technology play by DJ Eddie F, Andre Harrell, James Dorsey and Lionel Ridenour (Musicwerks.com), I was transfixed by this ridiculous battle between Hillary and Barak. 

Needless to say, I shan't let that happen again.  But damn, Hillary isn't it really time to call it quits?

My iPhone Rocks!

Ever since the iPhone was released, people have been heatedly debating its virtues (and shortcomings).  One of its obvious flaws is that it just doesn't do everything that less sophisticated (and less expensive) smart phones do right out of the box.  For example, why can't I capture video with my iPhone (without a hack app)?  Why can't I create (or at the very least) edit documents on my phone?  Why can't I get a decent internet connection (and why is the Edge network as slow as molasses moving uphill on a sunny day)?

But on the flip side, its benefits are too numerous to drop here, so I won't bore you with effusive iPhone praise.  Suffice to say, while its no crack--I mean Blackberry, and doesn't support push email, its still one of the hottest devices out.

Now my comments are well out of time, in terms of anyone really caring about my iPhone two cents, but my iPhone really does rock, and I'm going to be on the iPhone bandwagon until someone comes out with something markedly better.  Now I say all that having been a die-hard Treo whore.  When the Treo dropped, Handspring/Palm could do no wrong.  I was pimping Treos from the gate.  I had the 180.  Then I copped the 270.  From there it was the 370, then the 600, then the 650 (am I missing one?)  

Needless to say, I was whipped.  I loved everything you could do with the Treos, the syncing with my Entourage over the air, typing with the full qwerty keyboard or using the stylus (when I was in the mood).  I was a wiz with the camera and captured some priceless vids with it as well.  I was playing mp3s and generally living la vida loca before I answered the siren song of the iPhone.

Once I got my iPhone, I dumped my Treo like a bad habit.  I was smitten, and my former love never again invaded my thoughts.  I was surfing the internet like I was sitting in front of my G4 (albeit with a really small screen) and I loved that whole two-finger expand/contract thing.  I was watching movies on my iPhone (MOVIES!!!!)  I mean, c'mon, really?  Can you really be mad at the iPhone?  I was texting, emailing, reading documents and pdfs, and I totally couldn't see how I had survived without the iPhone in my life.

Whenever I see Treos today, I think, "perhaps one day you'll graduate to the big leagues, poor sap."  I know that Treo owners universally long to feel the cool, sleek weight of an iPhone in their palms.  I feel their eyes gently caressing my iPhone whenever I pull it out to answer a call, check an email or simply watch a video.  They don't want to look, but they must.  But hey, what can I say?  My iPhone rocks!

Its Now or Never

I've been intending to put my thoughts down for years.  After several aborted starts, I've committed myself to sitting at this computer daily, and really pushing this agenda forward.  

Some background is appropriate.  I am a former attorney who has been in the entertainment/media/technology space for as long as I can remember.  In my youth, I used to hang out backstage at concerts with Nas, Biz Markie, Mary  J. Blige, Special Ed, A Tribe Called Quest, and countless others.  I'm sure none of these people, if pressed would have recalled meeting or even seeing me at any of the D.C. haunts, where they made their bones before hitting superstardom, but that's not my point.

I've worked on cybersquatting cases, filed a lawsuit against Funkmaster Flex, beta tested Russell Simmons' Global Grind, developed media delivery kiosks with Carnegie Mellon University's Entertainment Technology Center and created digital distribution platforms with software developers from Australia (and this is really a top-of-the-dome recollection of some of the things I have done or been involved with).

I offer that to show that my opinions (and those I will offer in the future) are grounded in experience.  A lot of bloggers, reporters (and really  people generally) will give their two-cents from a particularly detached perspective, leaving the reader no wiser.  My hope is that anyone reading my blog or anything else published by me is singularly informed, and can practically apply what they read about.

Most of what you'll read here will be about things that I am actually doing (to the extent that its not covered by some oppressive NDA), and/or things that are of particular interest to me.  You'll find, though, that I regularly interact with some of the most influential (and/or up-and-coming) personalities and businesses in the digital, technology and new media spaces.  Sometimes you'll know who I'm talking about, sometimes you won't.  But I'll always try to put whatever it is that I'm doing or writing about into some practical perspective.

What will I be talking about?  The iPhone, iTunes, iPods, DOT.TUNES, the Marksmen, Capitol Records, mobile phones and computing, recording artists, record labels, digital distribution, ringtones, the state of the music industry and why the RIAA is dying (or already dead), Live Nation, 360 deals, Gino Green, Omar Jermain, Selwyn Hinds, Russell Simmons, Global Grind, software, hardware, CEOs and CTO, virtually anything and everything relevant to the Digital Black Experience.

Oh yeah.  Why did I call this the Digital Black Experience?  Well, for starters, I wanted a name that I was certain people wouldn't forget.  I also wanted something that sounded great and had some brand appeal.  Since I am a person of color, I also wanted to be able to play with words, but not pigeon-hole myself into being perceived as a "black" blogger (although I do not eschew the association).  In the final analysis, I really wanted to call it 'digital black' full stop.  But that url was taken, so I decided upon the next best thing.