Everything is a Remix

Everything is a Remix.   Kirby Ferguson, a New York film maker sets out to prove this in a series of Web videos he has produced.  This interesting documentary takes a look at popular culture from the perspective that we all "borrow" from one another in our artistic endeavors.  He examines music, film and more in this 4 part film project.  Below is part 1 from the project. Although there are some discrepancies in Part 1 that he illuminates later on in his blog, this is quite interesting and a awesome project.  Make sure you follow Kirby at Twitter to find out when his next film is released.

Everything is a Remix from Kirby Ferguson on Vimeo.

Remixing is a folk art but the techniques involved — collecting material, combining it, transforming it — are the same ones used at any level of creation. You could even say that everything is a remix.
To support this series please visit http://www.everythingisaremix.info/?page_id=14

Digital Music Consumption in 2010

This is a really interesting Music Website "Heat map" put together by the good folks over at Virtual Music. This represents overall usage of all of the major music websites where music is streamed or downloaded. The green color indicates growth where the red color indicates a decline.

The most interesting part of this visualization is the reality of where all of these services stand in comparison with Youtube and Pandora (see below). Be sure to go over to their site to see the actual usage numbers (hover your mouse over each section of the map for user numbers and other detail

Thou Shalt Not Steal- Digital Media Consumption Manifesto

This was just forwarded to me.  The Digital Media Consumption Manifesto breaks down some very realistic guidelines for remaining lawful with digital media.  I personally find their pricing guidelines a bit interesting but nevertheless this is an noble effort.  Sign the manifesto if you can commit.

Piracy counts for 25% of the World's Internet Traffic

Imagine if 1/4 of all of the food sold in the grocery store were stolen.  Imagine 1/4 of all of the cars driven on the streets as having been stolen off of a dealership lot.  Impossible!  There is no way our society would allow such arrogant defiance of the law.  Well, a report issued yesterday by Envisional, a firm hired by NBC Universal found that nearly 1/4 of all internet traffic is "digital theft."  Of all of the illegal traffic, BitTorrent accounts for about 50%, Cyberlockers account for a scant 5.1 percent, illegal streaming video sites grab 1.4% and the rest from P2P.

So what does this mean for music?  According to Digital Music News, music accounts for just 3% of the media pirated on BitTorrent while hollywood grabs a solid 35%. Hopefully our friends out west will be able to make some noise to slow this trend better than the music industry has... Otherwise we might just all be doomed.