« Update on YouTube and NBC scuffle | Main | Google Video Getter again »
February 22, 2006
Lightnet is a new fault line in digital politics
Lucas Gonze picked up on my argument with Xeni Jardin regarding YouTube and the SNL Lazy Sunday fiasco. His deconstruction of the issue is pretty interesting:
Both Josh and Xeni are part of the bleeding edge, and not long ago it would have been very surprising to see such a stark difference in their views. What this exchange shows is that lightnet is a new fault line in digital politics. Is the work at hand about samizdat, as Xeni thinks, or about participatory media, as Josh thinks?
I confess, I had to look up samizdat on Wikipedia:
Samizdat (Russian: самиздат) was the clandestine copying and distribution of government-suppressed literature or other media in Soviet-bloc countries. The idea was that copies were made a few at a time, and anyone who had a copy would make more copies, often by handwriting or typing, because copy machines were guarded by what Mikhail Bulgakov called "the secret service" (see KGB, Soviet censorship).
This made me think of Kenyatta's post about Lightnet v. Darknet a few months back where he describes the role Darknets play in disseminating suppressed information in opressive circumstances. This is true samizdat and I agree that an underground economy can help empower the oppressed and lead to important social outcomes.... for instance, distribution of the photos from Abu Gharib could circulate through P2P networks and other Darknets in a way that protects the identities of the distributors and disseminates the information effectively.
However, redistribution of pirated Saturday Night Live videos is hardly a cause worth fighting for, and that seems to be what YouTube has really attached its star to.
Its really unfortunate when such a high-profile (read, high traffic) site like YouTube serves as a bad example. It reflects poorly on everyone working hard to enable a true participatory media culture. I think Lucas hit it on the head by saying Lightnet is the fault line here, and I think its something truly worth fighting for.
Posted by jkinberg at February 22, 2006 7:34 PM
Comments
As an aside, lightnet needs a non-darknet logo.
Posted by: jim at February 24, 2006 12:51 PM
FYI, not only am I in agreement with you... but I'll further back this up.
I'd never heard of Samizdat before I read this post. Indeed it is a very interesting term... Your example with pictures of Abu Gharib is in the two spirit of the term... I will acknowlege P2P as perhaps in this spirit... but there's one HUGE distinction between even fileswapping on P2P networks... and it's not that P2P networks are darknets... Youtube directly and obviously profited from it... The rise of popularity and traffic to youtube were direct and obvious, if only on this one principal this is not Samizat... it's not even P2P, it's freaking profiteering copyright infringement.
I guess the real reason I don't like Yooutube is not just because they're a content trap... what goes in does not come out... but because they're success is completely false built on the back of copyright infringement... we can only guess at the degree, but it's certainly not sustainable. It's 7 million dollars and a whole lot of copyright infringement.
One final point... it also has nothing to do with true video sharing... I look at Blip.tv, Vimeo, Mefeedia, Flickr, DeviantART, and dozens of other so called media sharing sites and they all have a true spirit of sharing and an interest in the craft, the creation and the dialogue... on mefeedia I don't get the sense of any hand in the videos... any sense of community and the pride and respect in sharing what one creates is completely lost among the conterfieting of videos. Google doesn't have this sense of community either... but then google definitely doesn't claim to.
This is likely to get me flamed with the popularity and shear amount of Yooutube users... and I need to do a blog post on it, but...
can Youtube survive under it's users own steam?
That's the essential question once we get beyond all the copyinfringment. I've come across links to Youtube very often on everything from digg to their champions on Boingboing.net, and while I'll admit to not having browsed around youtube, absolutely every one of these 20 or so videos have obviously NOT been posted by an actual owner.
The only thing i can see that youtube could do is start canning any user account who posted illegal copyright material. They have a powerful mess.
Posted by: Michael Meiser at March 5, 2006 2:22 AM
I am the Founder of 
