2012 is the year that the internet became a political force. What took so long? Well, the majority of us have surely been distracted by LOLcats and pr0nz.

Full disclosure: I work on issues at the intersection of technology, copyright and policy. In recent months, I’ve been able to observe firsthand the impact of internet-powered social movements. To wit: the unprecedented outrage around the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and PROTECT-IP (PIPA) stopped either bill from becoming law — something many in Congress assumed was a fait accompli.

Then there’s the immense pressure brought on Susan G. Komen for the Cure after the organization pulled funding to Planned Parenthood. The swift disapproval — again, largely web-driven — was so intense that Komen’s VP is now stepping down.

The “bitroots” blowback is hardly limited to the US. Public demonstrations are currently taking place in the EU over ACTA, an international intellectual property agreement that some think goes too far. Protests have spilled into the streets, with more than 20,000 people participating in Poland alone. But the real engine of dissent is online.

Powerful as this new form of protest is, it’s hardly perfect. Oversimplifications are common, which is to be expected when complex policy matters are condensed into viral action items. Still, there is one clear takeaway: the world’s netizens will no longer lay back while decisions are made that impact their lives, online and otherwise.

From my experience, I can say that the anti-SOPA/PIPA movement was broad and remarkably diffuse. Internet users are now stakeholders, and they have countless ways to share information and amplify their voices. And, although it would be incorrect to call them a monolithic group, they are perfectly capable of representing their own self-interests when push comes to shove.

It’s unfair to characterize the SOPA/PIPA skirmish as one between Hollywood and Silicon Valley (read: Google). While some major tech companies were certainly involved, most of the push happened at the netroots level. I’d say it went down something like this:

1. Tumblr saw the liabilities they’d face under this overly-broad legislation and independently decided to black out their pages in protest. This woke a lot of folks up right quick.
2. The Reddit community started paying attention, and more people became very well-informed on the issue (and got pretty pissed off).
3. Wikipedia joined the loosely-organized “blackout,” and in the process inspired millions more people to call their representatives. (I think Google put a widget next to the search field on their home page, but they didn’t go dark.)
4. Some of us goobers in Washington — completely outnumbered by the well-heeled entertainment industry goons — pointed out that a lot of constituents (including tens of thousands of copyright holders) weren’t comfortable with this legislation as drafted.

The true action came from internet users who found themselves in a position to push back against a fairly draconian set of proposals. The technology itself amplified their message to the extent that a bill that had already passed out of full committee in the US Senate was put on ice, and the House companion never even made it past markup. You can believe me when I tell you that this is a new dynamic in Washington. I’m not sure anyone has fully wrapped their heads around what it means.

So, are these movements merely lighting in a bottle, or the foundations of a new and lasting form of advocacy? Can these spontaneous yet incredibly potent movements be transitioned from something reactive to something proactive? We may have to wait a while to find out. For now, if I was the MPAA or the RIAA, I might consider internalizing the lesson, instead of blithely dismissing the movement as ill-informed, or worse, driven by tech companies.

What do you bet they won’t?

Dear Big Content,

I love your movies. Especially the ones that are all s’plodey and where stuff flies off the screen. And I love your records, the Led Zeppelin catalog in particular. I’ve always been a good customer: I don’t infringe, and I’m loyal to a fault. But I do have a few questions for you.

First, why do you treat me and my friends like punks? We buy your stuff. But you make it really hard to do it in a way that fits with our digital reality. I’m looking at you, movie and TV peeps. You really want me to accept the violation of a decades-old consumer compact whereby we could rent a movie on the same day it was available to purchase? Do you really think that making me wait TWO MONTHS to be able to rent Mars Needs Moms on DVD (I’m not even talking streaming) is going to drive me into Best Buy to plunk down for the petrochemical disc? Do you secretly like piracy? Because that’s exactly what you’re encouraging.

And music guys: how come you create the conditions where there are only three companies that can afford to offer your wares? Do you know how much fucking money you’re leaving on the table by clinging to your prehistoric licensing terms? Once upon a time there was this disruptive, infringing technology called radio. Completely freaked song publishers out. They wanted to force every broadcaster to pay an individually negotiated amount for every spin. In hindsight, that seems not only inefficient but imbecilic. Maybe the government needs to step up and prod you goofballs towards more internet-friendly terms. I bet you could even keep your car service! Now, I know that you fought the phonograph. And the CD. And the MP3. But you don’t have much fight left in you. So the time to get your shit together is probably now. And yes, me and my friends will be paying VERY close attention to make sure that the artist splits are fair. Because frankly, I’m not all that convinced that you’re providing much value anymore. Consider this your opportunity to be cut into the future while you still have a chance.

And would you please get a basic grasp of how the internet works? Why are you so keen to demonize an entire class of technology? Let’s take search for example. I can look up a recipe to make hash brownies. Or I can look up a recipe to make regular brownies. Now, we all know that those criminal scumbags offering the former must be dealt with in the severest possible manner. But what you’re proposing is like blowing up the entire library because you don’t like that the card catalog system tells you which shelf has the book on hash brownies. Are you really this boneheaded? I get that you’re jealous about Google making bajillions from search. But is that a reason to compromise a mechanism upon which millions of global internet users rely? I guess it’s true what they say: the entertainment industry isn’t all about the money — it’s about ALL the money.

Also, could you please stop pretending that the SOPA/PIPA debacle was about Silicon Valley vs. Hollywood? (Or, as you prefer to characterize it, homespun creators vs. Google.) Literally millions of internet users — many of them copyright holders — had issues with your overreaching bills. They didn’t jump into a controversial intellectual property debate because they wanted to. They felt compelled to, due to the fact that big-money industry lobbying groups like yours were attempting to speak for them.

So kindly cut it out.

I want to be your friend. But you don’t make it easy. The arrogance, belligerence and outright bullying that you employ is hardly endearing yourselves to an entire new generation of creators and rightsholders. If I wasn’t so goddamn genteel, I’d go ahead and list some of that stuff. But unlike you, I have a modicum of class.

Consider this a friendly bit of advice from someone who cares. The road you’re going down leads to disaster and heartbreak. But it’s not too late to turn around.

Your pal,
Casey

Check out Lux Eterna Records for more sonic goodness…

I’ve censored the following, in protest of a bill that gives any corporation and the US government the power to censor the internet — legislation that could pass THIS WEEK. To see the uncensored text, and to stop internet censorship, visit: http://americancensorship.org/posts/15233/uncensor

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I live in Washington, DC and work in tech policy (as it relates to creative content). This means I have the dubious privilege of seeing how the sausage is made when it comes to the laws that shape our digital future. Increasingly, I’m witnessing a convergence of some pretty hairy issues that previously had limited public impact. And, for better or worse, policymakers — domestic and international — have started to pay attention.

There are three core concerns that will have an outsized effect on how we all experience technology. The first one encompasses the other two, which are of nearly equal importance. Bookmark this page, and we can talk about it in 10 years (provided we’re all still here).

1. Internet freedom
2. Intellectual Property Enforcement
3. Data Privacy/Security

Before I explain how these issues are converging, let’s look at what each means individually.

Internet Freedom
This is the mother of all tech-policy debates, and the one with the most potential to impact every facet of your online experience. The internet is essentially a packet-switching information exchange network that uses a simple protocol to allow all these interconnected machines to “talk” to each other. Its process is, by and large, neutral with regard to content. This is what has allowed it to become the most powerful engine for democratic speech in the history of humanity. That speech may very well be 90 percent LOLcats, but it also includes political speech and practically every other flavor of expression. In the United States, this means that our First Amendment rights are automatically ported over to this digital conduit. That may not be the case with other countries, which is why you see a lot of high-falutin’ talk from the State Department about the importance of maintaining global networks where free expression can flourish.

Unfortunately, recent American trends giving corporate speech unparalleled weight means that your own online speech could depend on how deep your pockets are. This is the crux of the so-called “net neutrality” debate, in which the Internet Service Providers (ISPs) want to charge a premium for the faster delivery of content, sites and services. Without clear rules of the road, speech that does not benefit the ISP’s bottom lines — or those of their corporate partners — may be delayed, or worse still, blocked. There has been progress in achieving at least some protections here. But these rules — promulgated by the Federal Communications Commission — are currently in danger of being stripped away by Congress.

Another thing to keep in mind is that the FCC established separate rules for the “wired” web vs. internet accessed on mobile devices. This distinction, to me, is arbitrary and pointless. There is ONE internet, regardless of how you connect to it. Having a tiered internet for wireless may end up impacting those whose speech has historically been at the greatest disadvantage, as underprivileged and minority communities are more likely to access the internet via mobile devices.

It will be very interesting to see how the American virtue of free expression plays out on our domestic networks, especially as we promote open technology platforms as a means of democratic participation overseas.

2. Intellectual Property Enforcement
Wikipedia defines Intellectual Property (IP) as “a term referring to a number of distinct types of creations of the mind for which a set of exclusive rights are recognized… common types of intellectual property rights include copyrights, trademarks, patents, industrial design rights and trade secrets in some jurisdictions.”

IP is big business. REALLY big business here in America. Which is why there are so many large stakeholders pushing for stronger intellectual property laws on the internet. I have no problem with this in theory, as I am a copyright holder myself, and believe that I should have exclusive rights over how my expression is capitalized upon in the marketplace – that is, for a limited term, which was the balance struck by Congress when it devised our laws governing this part of IP. There are different rules for trademarks and patents, on which I am no expert. So I’ll stick with what I know.

Increasingly, copyright law is coming to loggerheads with the consumptive behaviors of internet users. This is something I’ve written about and spoken on extensively in my professional life. In the interest of space, and without picking sides, I can say this: rightsholders are currently pushing hard on Congress to pass laws that, to my reading, look like blunt instruments when it comes to protecting IP online. And by this I mean legislation currently proposed could, at worst, restrict legitimate speech and compromise the underlying security of the internet. For further details, I point you to my DC colleagues, Public Knowledge. (Full disclosure: my wife works for them.)

3. Data Privacy/Security
Which brings me to my final issue, data privacy/security. Again, I can’t claim to be an expert here, but on the other hand, not many can. Here, we have everything from domestic defense to corporate espionage to individual rights and even First Amendment concerns. Some may have heard Eric Schmidt of Google‘s statement on total data transparency being the key to informational security. I’m sure the NSA would agree, so long as they are the ones with “total” access to the data. I bring this up because at no other point in history has informational privacy been of such import — perceived and actual. I can remember people on the street where I grew up being hesitant about having their name listed in the phone book. Now, everything we do and say online leaves a digital trace. Before you get yourself in some Philip K. Dick psychological tailspin, keep in mind that there’s a big difference between personally-identifying data and non-personally-identifying data. The former can be used to target, track and harass individuals; the latter is basically why Amazon knows what books you might be interested in reading next. Still, there is a lot of grey area with regard to how this information is collected, shared and exploited. And, at the moment, US privacy law is a patchwork of state-by-state regulations and jurisprudence. That might not be the case forever, as Congress has shown interest in establishing a federal privacy standard. Obviously, that could cut both ways.

Data security is the other side of the coin. Here, we reach the queasy intersection of defense, espionage — corporate and state — and hackerdom. Much of what occurs in the world of data security happens privately, or though private-public contracts between government and IT wizards. Obviously, any breach of US information security comes with pretty severe (domestic) penalties, but that doesn’t mean that hackers here and abroad aren’t trying to break into our informational infrastructure every second of every day. A serious breach is practically guaranteed, as is the subsequent crackdown. I believe this is what is referred to as the “Internet 9/11.”

The US isn’t just playing defense here. I’ve followed closely reports of how the administration very seriously considered a cyberattack on Libya’s air defense network in the lead-up to the NATO engagement. We ultimately decided against it, likely for a combination of reasons: one, we may not have wanted to be the first country to open the Pandora’s Box of cyberwar; two, we didn’t have enough time to pinpoint and exploit weaknesses in the Libyan network before airstrikes were scheduled to commence; and three, there were lingering legal questions about whether cyberattacks are considered “hostilities” subject to Congressional oversight within the War Powers Act. I guarantee these questions will soon be answered one way or another. And this will undoubtedly impact the evolution of global information networks.

All three of these issues intersect in myriad ways. The economics of digital entertainment is related to open networks vs. walled gardens, and also bumps up against data privacy/security on both the consumer and corporate end of the spectrum. Participatory democracy depends on open tech platforms and access to robust data pipelines and mobile spectrum. Overly-broad IP enforcement has the potential to limit exactly that openness while sending the signal to other nations that censorship is OK. Digital networks can also be exploited by despots (and even less-nefarious governments) to monitor the speech and movement of a populace. And around and around we go.

Taken together, as they are destined to be, these three issues represent the last tech-policy debate. How we respond will shape human interaction for decades, if not centuries to come.

As far as hoary, oft-repeated sayings go, it’s hard to beat “rock is dead.” The origin of the phrase is shrouded in mystery — like the etymology of “heavy metal” — but it’s not hard to picture Lester Bangs coining it while reviewing the latest Lou Reed long-player in his underwear, specks of Robitussin drying on his mustachioed upper lip.

In reality, people have been claiming “rock is dead” since the genre wriggled its way into the repressed loins of America’s bobbysockers. Every so often, a new pack of scruffy young kids with guitars are labeled as its saviors, but it never lasts. ROCK IS DEAD. Long live paper and scissors!

But what if we had empirical evidence that rock really was dead? Or at least in a state of such dissolution that its resurgence was a probabilistic impossibility? To know for sure, we’d need data.

Now we’ve got some.

This article in The Hollywood Reporter indicates that rock is a spent force in the marketplace, squeezed out by more persistent pop forms. Based on a recent study highlighting the ubiquity of synth-pop, the news may be the final nail in rock’s coffin. (I’m just shocked that there was room for one more.)

According to Hit Songs Deconstructed, 79 percent of top 10 pop hits used a synthesizer as the song’s primary instrument. That’s up from 62 percent a year ago and seems to signal that the current electro-pop fad is here to stay — at least a little while longer. Further boosting that theory: the fact that 88 percent of Top 10 songs used electric-based instrumentation. As for the least popular instrument? The guitar, which hit a low of 4 percent during the second quarter of 2011….

…as for lyrical themes in pop music, “hooking up” is the most popular so far in 2011, prevalent in 38 percent of hit songs, followed by “inspirational” songs, which have steadily increased to account for 25 percent of the Top 10 in the second quarter of 2011, “partying/clubbing” (21 percent) and “love/relationships” at 17 percent. Curiously, any “other” categories of lyrical themes have failed to register at all, coming in at zero percent so far in 2011. Last year, when music listeners were seemingly interested in a little more than sex, it was at 9 percent.

Now, it’s easy to come right back and say that the vast majority of rock songs have been about fucking. That may be true, but the flexibility and durability of the form was such that it could include both “Wango Tango” and “Roundabout” in the same canon. I’m not sure that today’s pop will evolve to the same extent.

For those of us who still traffic in this antiquated form, there are more troubling indicators:

Other curious trends pointed to a steep drop in solos, down from 17 percent to 5 percent of hits, and the once popular bridge portion of a song now only exists in 42 percent of songs, down from 54 percent last quarter and 55 percent a year ago.

You may think that it’s perfectly fine to eliminate the guitar solo. Years of co-existing with jam bands elicits a certain sympathy for that worldview. I still enjoy them (if they’re well-placed and say something), but they aren’t a musical necessity. I have more of a problem with the idea that nobody employs bridges anymore. Sure, some of them are useless, but they are a time-honored construct that helps to give songcraft a form. I’m all for experimental art, but eliminating the bridge is kind of like saying we’re no longer going to bother with paragraph breaks. Can you get away with it? Probably. But it says something about our society if we abandon such formalities. It’s a short hop from here to anarchy. Anarchy, I tell you!

One thing that I like about having quantitative data on the death of rock is that it liberates me to keep making it. I am The Contrarian, after all. It would hardly befit my status to toil in a popular genre.

As always, we’re interested in your reactions. What do you think of this data? Was rock dead all along, and we’re just now noticing? What if it turns into a zombie? Are we prepared for that?

It has been noted that this is no ordinary economic downturn. One of the reasons it seems unlikely that the American economy will emerge from current conditions anytime soon is that there are no sure bets for growth. Some would suggest that we can magically repair the damage by reducing the deficit; not a bad idea, but this will have a negligible impact on, say, jobs — especially in the short-to-medium term. How did we get here? An almost religious conviction in systems that should have been recognized as unsustainable.

This has happened before, albeit on a smaller scale. The bad news is, when a collapse of this size occurs, recovery doesn’t happen overnight. Just ask the music industry, which has been trying to go back to its heyday of control and collusion for more than a decade. The problem is, the more they cling to their old systems, the worse it is for the actual creators. Just like the more policymakers attempt to peg progress to Wall Street’s whims, the more American workers are imperiled.

Had anyone made the connection, the music industry’s response to its paradigm shift could have told us a lot about how to deal with the financial meltdown. The root causes are more similar than not: a misguided belief in the ability to engineer permanent growth. In fact, Peak Music was a part of the very same Wall Street philosophy that pushed us to the brink of disaster.

The record industry in the 1990s was rapidly consolidating, with large multinational corporations getting into music as a portfolio-enhancing diversification. From there, executives sought new ways to produce shareholder growth. The music business became like the movie business, but instead of s’plodey movies with big opening weekends, you had spendy boy bands with huge debut Tuesdays. Manufacturing consumer consent was fairly easy, especially with distribution locked down and broadcast media owned by just a handful of companies. You could practically plot a year’s returns with just a handful of guys in a room.

With radio a hyper-concentrated market dominated by payola and retail under the thumb of the major labels, the consumer became trained to accept what was spoon fed to them. $18.98 a CD with a single good song on it? No problem!

Then the unexpected happened. The Internet came along.

The recorded music industry, like Wall Street following the banking crisis, had no clue how to respond. Most kids, when they find out that there is no Santa Claus, go through a period of grief and disaffection, but then they get over it. The music industry has been trying to find a new Saint Nick for more than a decade. I worry that our policymakers will do the same with the American economy.

The old ideas won’t work. That’s the nature of paradigm shift. You can’t build anything lasting according to the previous blueprint. No matter how hard you try, no matter how much money you throw at the problem (or at policymakers), any edifice constructed using the old engineering will not stand. Sure, you can prop it up for a little while, or set to rebuilding over and over and over, but the exercise is ultimately fruitless. Eventually, the way forward will reveal itself, but the will be little continuity between the old and the new, other than the fact that the replacement construct will eventually fail, too.

Repeat after me: you cannot engineer away failure.

But you can prolong the mighty crash by accepting the natural rhythms of growth and contraction. Had the Wizards of Wall Street not entered the dangerous game of financial derivatives, we surely would have experienced recession-like events, but there’s would have been far less danger of a total systems collapse. Had the music industry focused on offering the best product in a reasonably open marketplace, they may have been able to retain some consumer loyalty when the internet came along (their response to the technology itself is its own separate topic).

At the end of the day, the true tragedy is who bears the brunt of these traumas. In the music business, it’s largely the creators (though I do know for a fact that a lot of good people in the industry lost out, too). With the overall American economy, it’s the majority of the public.

None of this was an inevitability. Something for the next generation of wizards to consider.

My organization, Future of Music Coalition (FMC) exists to ensure that artists can make a living making music. You’d be surprised at how much policy affects how things shake out for artists, which is why I’m in DC doing what I do.

FMC has been around for 11 years, and in that time we’ve observed and analyzed many changes to the traditional music industry. Some of these changes have been beneficial to musicians (lower barrier to entry for reaching audiences); others less so (uncertainty around business models). What we’re starting to realize is that in order to chart a way forward, we need to better understand how musicians are making a living. With technology continuing to drive change, this is no time for guesswork.

Which is why we launched the Artist Revenue Streams (ARS) — a multi-stage research project to assess whether and how musicians’ revenue streams are changing in this new music landscape.

Why is this work important? Well, for one, we don’t have a lot of great data on what’s happening in the field. Many observers are quick to categorize industry changes as positive improvements for musicians, particularly when compared with the music industry of the past. It’s true that musicians’ access to the marketplace has greatly improved, but how have these changes impacted musicians’ ability to generate revenue based on their creative work? Almost all analyses of the effects of these changes rest purely on assumptions that they have improved musicians’ bottom lines, or on top-level assessments of the music industry based on traditional metrics: number of albums sold, number of spins on radio, even stock price valuations. Clearly, there is a bigger picture that we need to take into account. (Check out our 29 Streams post, which gave us the kick in the pants to launch this study.)

We’ve also laid out just some of the ways we think this data will prove useful.

The Artist Revenue Streams project is based on a very basic research question: what percentage of musicians’ income comes from each possible revenue source? What is the ratio among different sources, whether it be royalties, money from gigs, t-shirt sales, or any of the 29 other meaningful revenue streams that FMC has identified? Has the ratio changed over time and, if so, what are the factors that have conditioned these changes? Finally, are the revenue stream ratios different for artists working in different genres and at different stages of their careers?

We’ve already conducted case studies with a diverse array of artists — now it’s time to go wide. Earlier this month, we launched an online survey for musicians, songwriters and composers that will help us better understand current trends in artist compensation. This will position FMC and our allies to advocate for policies that help musicians sustain careers.

The survey, which runs through October 28, 2008, offers three paths for musicians and composers to choose from, requiring 10, 20, or 30 minutes of their time. We encourage all musicians, songwriters, and composers to take the survey here. And if you work with, or have friends or family who are musicians, please spread the word!

Our audio division, Lux Eterna Records, is giving away a FREE EP from The Contrarian. In case you didn’t know, that’s me. Here’s what I have to say about the release:

I’m currently in that uncomfortable period between albums, but I’m still recording as often as possible. The four songs on the Margins EP are, to some degree, a continuation of Farewell Plutonia. Which is why I’m not considering them for the next record. But rather than abandon them, I figured I’d release them to the world just to clear the slate. Hopefully, these tracks will tide people over until the next record makes its presence known.

Download the Margins EP below. (Existing LUX ETERNA customers may have to provide their e-mail again.)

I was originally scheduled to appear on American Public Media’s “Marketplace Tech” program to talk about the rumored launch of a Facebook music platform. Unfortunately, they ran out of space for me, which is fine — I’ve talked to them before, and I’m sure I will again. But since I’d already done some thinking on the subject, I figured I might as well share some of those thoughts here.

One of the greatest promises of the digital revolution is that it would remove many of the barriers to instant listening gratification. For example, having to purchase a physical product from a retail establishment with limited shelf space, or waiting for a song you liked to come on the radio. To a large degree, that’s been accomplished — at no other point in history has it been easier to access vast catalogs of music online. The tension, however, has always been in finding business models that make sense for both creators and consumers. Today’s marketplace has a number of innovative, fully licensed music services, which is definitely encouraging.

Social music initiatives like the one that Facebook is rumored to be launching have had mixed success. Not all that long ago, MySpace revamped their site as a media content destination. The recent sale of the company for far less than its peak worth is an indication of how successful that attempt was. Apple’s Ping didn’t really take off with consumers, and Google seems to be in a perpetual “beta” phase. Facebook, on the other hand, looks to have some real potential, simply based on the sheer volume of users. One would have thought that they’d have been ready to launch the music initiative to coincide with Spotify’s arrival in the U.S., but better late than never, right? Also, rumors indicate that the Facebook revamp will also include similar services like Rdio, which might be why it’s taken a little while to get their ducks in a row.

Now, it’s important to keep in mind that some music services are already integrated with Facebook to a degree. For example, Spotify lets you send updates to your Facebook page about what you’re listening to. What we’re likely to see in a revamped Facebook music platform is the ability to listen within the application. Remember, Facebook wins by keeping you within their sandbox so they can sell you ads. The mystery at the moment is how compensation works within this new system. Keep in mind that the more Spotify or Rdio tracks are played, the more money they have to pay to rightsholders. Facebook might help bump up usage (and visibility), but the music services still need to convert casual listeners into paying subscribers in order to make the math work.

Chances are we’ll know more on September 22, when Facebook does the big reveal at the F8 Developer Conference in San Francisco. Stay tuned…