We Walked The Line

WGA Strike     Day 16     Hollywood Blvd. Rally

Who are these people, why are they on cell phones in the middle of the WGA strike rally in Hollywood, and why is JS smiling at Ray Romano?

Tuesday, Nov. 20, was day 16 of the WGA strike and thousands of WGA writers, producer/showrunners, and SAG actors showed up to march down Hollywood Blvd.  in support of the ongoing walkout.  Also there to lend some muscle was the Teamsters Union, who parked three enormous rigs on Hollywood Blvd. 
  It seems that lots of folk are jumping on the bandwagon (there was an actual band wagon, where Alicia Keys performed two songs) to support the striking writers. I even saw a small contingency of nurses, who arrived with their union signs and joined the march.  Lending culinary support were members of CAA who walked around with mountainous trays of scrumptious scones and provided hot cider.

So, who are my mystery people on phones and why was JS at the rally? I was invited to join entertainment professional Philippa Burgess, of Creative Convergence, pictured in the above left photo with the showrunner/executive producer of “Lost” Carlton Cuse.  Philippa and her partners were conducting a live teleconference with over 100 emerging writers around the country, letting them experience the strike first hand.  Philippa and I marched with the strikers and lent our support while we asked anyone we recognized within range to give the teleconference writers some words of advice and/or encouragement and answer the big question of the day “how can these writers who live far away support the strike?”  

 Besides Mr. Cuse, also joining the teleconference were Ray Romano (pictured above with yours truly) and, on the right, Jonathan Lisco, showrunner/executive producer of the new TV show “K-Ville“.  In addition, speaking to the cell conference was a showrunner from the Disney Channel and the very gracious and lovely Debra Messing.

Talk about a moveable feast! Or was that a moveable feat?  While marching with thousands of people shouting strike slogans, and the ever present choppers above, we could barely hear each other speak, yet somehow these notables managed to keep pace with the crowds and talk on the cell phone to the writers around the country. My hats off to them for a) being troupers and showing up for the strike with no fanfare or self-agrandizing and b) lending their impromptu support to strangers on a phone thousands of miles away.

The rally ended two hours later at Grauman’s Chinese Theater with some rousing speeches by the WGA and Teamsters reps and a heartfelt talk by Sandra Oh.  All left feeling well supported and pumped, and hoping for a happy Hollywood ending.  Soon.

The Mayor, The Arts and the Town Hall Meeting

Officially titled the “2007  LA Arts Town Hall”,  a rousing turnout of 800 artists and arts organizers gathered downtown this past Saturday at 9:30 a.m. to hear the mayor and a distinguished panel of LA and California arts leaders discuss the state of the arts in LA. Held in the auditorium of the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center, the main event was the two hour plenary session, kicked off by the opening remarks of Mayor Anthony Villaraigosa, who very graciously posed for this photo.

The mayor was introduced by Claire Peeps, Executive Director of The Durfee Foundation and the co-moderator of the panel, who set the tone for the day’s discussion about collaboration amongst LA’s arts organizations. Villaraigosa then launched into an inspiring speech on the importance of the arts in LA, a subject about which he feels passionately.  Reminding the assembled of how he saved the Department of Cultural Affairs from extinction only a few years ago, he mapped out his new direction for the arts in LA.  The mayor’s grand vision  for the city of Los Angeles is  a “Venice of the 21st century, thriving at the crossroads of culture and trade”, and he congratulated the artistic community here for “pushing the envelope” in music, art and theater.  He insists that this creativity defines LA as a city, and that he sees LA as the cultural capital of the country.  Making his case, he pointed out that more people who come to LA visit the Getty Museum than Universal Studios.  While acknowledging that for their own sake, “arts have a way of lifting the soul”, for the sake of the city the arts here generate $140 billion dollars in revenues.  One can only wonder how that figure is arrived at, but it is impressive. Concluding, Villaraigoa mapped out his agenda for promoting the arts: increasing public support of the arts and artists by creating public/private partnerships.  His first act in this regard was to hire Olga Garay, the mayor’s choice for General Manager of the Department of Cultural Affairs, who participated on the plenary panel, as she insisted “just to listen”.

Olga Garay, soon-to-be General Manager, LA DCA

But, in fact, Ms. Garay had much to add to the discussion, having just arrived from New York City, where she was a major arts consultant and former program director of the Doris Duke Foundation, and ready to start her job here on August 1. The official title of the panel discussion was “The Arts in LA-Taking Charge of our Future”, and this is one sharp arts administrator who is ready and able to take charge. In explaining how she came to be enticed to take the job and move to LA, Ms. Garay laid out her main reasons:
1) LA has world class cultural institutions
2) LA has the largest creative workforce in the U.S.
3) LA has a “vibrant neighborhood structure and a plethora of ethnicities”
4) LA has an active “eco-system for the arts and culture”. 
As if she didn’t heart LA enough, she is of the opinion that LA is a “national and international leader and crossroads in the arts”.   We can only wish her well and look forward to see what she will do in this important position.  I, for one, personally welcomed her and promised to send a fruit basket. In my opinion, this city is lucky to have such a delightfully vibrant and experienced arts manager.

Next to speak was Laura Zucker, Executive Director of the Los Angeles Arts Commission. In 2005 Zucker partnered with Eli Broad, with whom she developed and launched Arts + Culture LA, a nonprofit that promotes and markets LA as a cultural destination.  A dedicated arts administrator with a very positive outlook, Ms. Zucker sees the LA arts community as a “vast marketplace with room for everyone”. She expressed the need for a comprehensive cultural calendar, a particular challenge for the 88 municipalities of LA county, the largest county in the U.S., and also reiterated the morning’s theme of more collaboration amongst arts organizations. 

Speaker John E. McGuirk is the new Arts Program Director of the San Francisco based The James Irvine Foundation, the largest multi-discipline arts funder in California, with an arts grants budget of $20 million.  His talk focused on a recent working paper by the Foundation and AEA Consulting, called “Critical Issues Facing The Arts in California”.  The paper identifies five critical challenges facing the arts: access, cultural policy, arts education, the outmoded nonprofit business model and preparing the next generation of artists and arts managers. You can read it here. 

Sam Miller, President and CEO of Leveraging Investments in Creativity (LINC) is working on healthcare issues for artists, which he claims will also impact any type of self-employed person. Working with the Actors Fund, he has created a group called “Artists United for Healthcare”. Learn more about them here:  artistsunitedforhealthcare.org.

The final speaker was Danielle Brazell, who is the Managing Director of Arts LA, a nonprofit arts advocacy organization.  She began by praising the arts community of LA, which she characterized as “a visionary arts community that does more with less and who know how to work together.”  Unfortunately, in this case, less is not more, although Ms. Brazell herself tripped over those words.  She has been working to create and build relationships with policy makers in local and national government and stressed advocacy as a top priority for arts groups. 

A question and answer session led by co-moderator Cora Mirikitani, President and CEO of the Center for Cultural Innovation then followed. Ms. Mirikitani also organized Saturday’s event, for which she got a standing ovation.  Three salient points emerged during the Q & A as agendas for the LA arts community: 1) a need to collaborate with and be more involved with the private sector; 2) a need to bring together and film/TV and arts community; and 3) more engagement between the arts community and civic leaders.

Here are some salient facts and statistics offered by panelists and publications that were mentioned at the event:

City of Los Angeles
GOOD numbers:
*LA generates $140 billion in revenues from the arts
*There are over 15,000 arts related businesses in Los Angeles
*As a group, 87% of artists vote, in disproportion to the general population
*LA outranks NYC in the number of creative establishments (27,121–13% higher) and creative workers (346,000–47% higher than NYC’s 236,000). [Figures are from the Otis College report "Creative Capital" and are based on the 2005 ES 202 data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics].
Baaad Numbers:
*The LA Department of Cultural Affairs currently contributes LESS money to the arts of Los Angeles than does the post-Katrina City of New Orleans. 

State of California: (statistics are from The James Irvine Foundation brochure)
GOOD numbers:
*Nonprofit organizations add $5.4 billion to the state economy
*California has the largest number of artists in the country: 330,635
*California has 10,000 arts organizations
*There are 86,012 arts related businesses that employ 484,657 people
Baaad numbers:
*California spends only 11 cents per person on the arts, ranking it as LAST in the nation in per capita arts spending at number 50.

For lots more statistics and fabulous research on the arts, see the following reports and studies:

The James Irvine Foundation:
“Critical Issues Facing The Arts In California”

“Crossover: How Artists Build Careers Across Commercial, Nonprofit and Community Work”

Otis College of Art and Design:
(Thanks go to Matthew Fleischer of LA Weekly for posting a link to this report in his article about the study on March 1, 2007 ["Creative Capital: New Otis Study"]
“The Creative Economy of LA”

National Endowment for the Arts (NEA):
“The Arts and Civic Engagement: Involved in Arts, Involved in Life”
(Did you know that arts fans are sports fans? Check it out.)

Come on LA and California, step up to the plate. See my future post on why the U.S. needs a department of culture.

Stalk the Stalkarazzi? LA Press Club Panelists Ponder Paparazzi Pandemonium

David Willis, Allison Hope Weiner, Giles Harrison, Blair Berk, Rob Nelson

More accurately, last Thursday night’s panelists vigorously discussed and debated the question of celebrity “news” and the “stalkarazzi”, but I do love alliteration.  Officially titled “HOLLYWOOD GROUND ZERO: Where Celebrity, Paparazzi and the First Amendment Collide”, the event was sponsored by the LA Press Club and PR Newswire  and took place at the Steve Allen Theater in Hollywood.

Moderated by BBC World News correspondent David Willis, the panel consisted of Blair Berk, a Los Angeles criminal defense attorney whose client list includes numerous A-list celebrities; Giles Harrison, top-earning paparazzo of London Entertainment/Splash News; Rob Nelson of KABC-AM790 and E! Entertainment THS Investigates; and Allison Hope Weiner, a Los Angeles based reporter for The New York Times (who is currently covering the Anthony Pellicano story).

The evening began with a ten minute viewing of the E! channel’s hour long program THS Investigates: Paparazzi. Hosted by panelist Rob Nelson, the investigative story covered the current state of celebrities and the paparazzi in Los Angeles and the legal issues involved. Two of the panelists had appeared in the story: Berk was interviewed in her office, and Harrison took Nelson with him one day as he drove around in his vehicle, on the job as a paparazzo. In one scene of Nelson’s story, we see Katie Holmes with baby Suri emerge from a building and arrive at the sidewalk. As the paps lunge for her, they practically knock down the woman next to her–Tom Cruise’s mother.  Another issue is that car chases become commonplace on the highways when the paparazzi spot a celebrity in their car, knowing not only the type of car they drive but also the license plate number. In another scenario, Jude Law leaves his house with his children. When he spots the cameras on them, he crosses the street to where the paparazzi are standing, blocks the TV camera lens with his body and in a very angry tone of voice threatens to turn in the photographers for being pedophiles if they don’t take their cameras off his kids. End of scene.

After introductions by the panelists, Willis got the discussion going by asking the important questions: Do the paparazzi go too far? Should the press and/or the paparazzi be regulated?  Who are these people? He called on the expertise of each panelist and asked for their take on the situation.  Panelist’s positions were clearly defined: Weiner was opposed to any press regulation, defending a free press and fearful that trying to regulate the tabloids could lead to putting a stranglehold on all press. Berk defended the rights of celebrities as individuals who deserved a degree of privacy and spelled out the personal and public safety issues of paparazzi gone wild. Harrison tried to create a more balanced view of the paparazzi, reminding the panel and audience that they are not all aggressive stalkers, including himself.  Harrison, who prides himself on his forthright behavior as a paparazzo, was introduced as someone who had once spent time in jail for an incident early in his career. 

Why all the paparazzi madness? With the proliferation of supermarket tabloids and the pressure for lurid stories and photos, there is more money than ever for the photo agencies and the swarms of paparazzi have increasing competition for the high-paying scoop shots.  ”Reality” TV shows also feed into our voyeuristic culture, often including celebrities who expose far too many details of their private lives. At the same time, there is the growing mainstreaming of an industry of “celebrity news”, for example AOL owned TMZ.com.  But is it really “news”–stories about actual events?  Or just old-fashioned gossip–innuendo, hearsay and outright lies?

After the much publicized car crashes of Lindsay Lohan and Scarlett Johansson (see “Scarlett Johansson Crashes Car While Fleeing Paparazzi”), both of which were caused by being chased by paparazzi, as well as the actions of an aggressive photographer at the Disney theme park with Reese Witherspoon and her children, Democratic Assemblywoman Cindy Montanez introduced a California state bill aimed at the paparazzi. The bill, which became law on January 1, 2007, triples the damages celebrities can claim from paparazzi if they are assaulted while being photographed. Further, the bill prohibits photographers from making money on any photographs taken during an altercation. 

But, commenting on this new law Thursday night, lawyer Berk deemed it virtually ”useless”, as it calls on celebrities to press charges and file lawsuits, which most are reluctant to do since that only draws more attention to the situation and then creates …another tabloid story! 

Nonetheless, Gov. Swarzzenager was more than happy to sign the bill. As reported on MTV.com “When Schwarzenegger was an actor, he testified against two photographers who used their cars to surround his as he was picking up one of his kids from school in a 1998 incident. At one point, Schwarzenegger had suggested creating a buffer zone between paparazzi and celebrities.”  In fact, it turns out that panelist Harrison was one of those photographers.

This particular incident was mentioned in today’s Sunday LA Times West Magazine cover story by Robin Abcarian, which profiles the owners of the X17 photo agency.  X17 is noted for hiring amateurs, including former waiters and valet parkers, and “it is considered to be something of a rogue.”  According to Abcarian’s story: ” X17 is understood to be the Britney Spears specialist, with a seven-man team devoted just to her. She is their bread and butter…Each morning, MBF [name of the Britney team] arrives at Spears’ doorstep off Mulholland Drive around 10 a.m. and follows her around town until she retires for the night.” 

Sounds like stalking to me.

The problem, of course, is that the celebrities don’t mind a little of this; they want to be noticed in a positive light at least and seen in the tabloids for the free publicity. But the relentless chase for photos has gotten to the point of being non-stop, excessively invasive, overly aggressive and overtly dangerous.  As Berk says on camera in Nelson’s THS story “It’s not a matter of if, but when” someone is going to get killed.  Commenting on her onscreen prediction, she said at the panel that she believes it won’t be another celebrity, like Princess Diana; it will be the innocent bystander on the street or someone in a car who is driving nearby on the highway.

For an example of this paparazzi pandemonium in the streets, see the video here posted by TMZ.com on February 21, 2007. Britney Spears is mobbed by paparazzi as she steps into a car, which is being driven by a friend [?]. (Be sure to listen for the number of camera shutters you can hear clicking away).  A police car comes to their rescue (did they dial 911?), disperses the paparazzi on foot in the street who are blocking the car and other traffic, and, over a foghorn, instructs Britney and friend to make an illegal and potentially dangerous right hand turn from the left lane and around the other cars stopped at a red light in front of them.

Throughout the panel proceedings, Willis would ask Harrison his opinion on issues brought up by the other panel members. Harrison would invariably preface his answer with the caveat “Well, I don’t do that but…”  Finally, unable to contain his skepticism or curiosity any longer, Willis asked Harrison directly, if he was saying that he had never done anything wrong?  Harrison admitted only that one early altercation, for which he spent 39 days in jail, but since then he adamantly maintained that he has been as rigorous as he can in “not crossing the line”.  Willis then asked to what did he attribute such a high degree of professional integrity.  Without taking a breath, Harrison replied “39 days in jail.”

David Hiller is a Brave Man

And, as it turns out, a very congenial man as well. I had the surprising but good fortune of meeting Mr. Hiller yesterday at the well attended 12th Annual Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, “the country’s largest celebration of the written word”.  Vaguely aware that he was scheduled to speak, I passed over sitting inside at the panels for walking around outside on the beautiful, rambling UCLA campus in the breezy, Sunday afternoon sunshine. So, I was taken aback when there he was, looking very casual chic in his off-white sports coat, standing in the middle of the main LA Times booth, greeting anyone who happened to stroll in.  As Mr. Hiller isn’t exactly face recognizable to the average person, staff member Tracy Boucher was on hand, enthusiastically introducing him to anyone within range:  ”This is David Hiller, the publisher of the LA Times!” Well, it was remarkable when you think about it.  I heart LA, where just about anyone in town you’d ever want to meet becomes, at any given moment, oddly accessible. 

 I was delighted to meet this man of the newspaper hour and feel him out.  I introduced myself, told him I thought he was a brave man to stand there so openly, and mentioned that I write a blog on the media.  His immediate reaction was, “Have you written about the LA Times?”  to which I responded,  “Not yet.” But since you asked, David, this one’s for you:

As the Festival is, after all, an LA Times sponsored event, the paper had a large presence with a number of booths. (FYI, this is a very fun event and well organized, so go next year if you missed this one). 

The first LA Times booth I stopped at was selling subscriptions for the print edition of the paper. In particular, the Festival only “special offer” was for a weekend deal of Thursday through Sunday, for $39.00 a year delivered plastic wrapped to your door. Good deal, and perfect for me, as I work with designers, artists and entertainment projects in this city. So, I said sure, whipping out my debit card and making the salesman deliriously happy. But I wasn’t so sure about his sales pitch, which included his reminding me that the print version is sooo much better than the online version because one shouldn’t be looking at those computer screens for too long at a time, you know.  At which point I mildly suggested that he might want to tone down his sales pitch a bit: didn’t he know that the LA Times is trying to build up its online presence and viewers? 

 A short while later, there was another booth, this one with two young women and a sign that said, “Work for the LA Times”.  Huh? What sort of bad joke was this? I asked the two, “I thought the Times was downsizing and laying off people in the newsroom. What do you mean you’re hiring?”  Yes, they said they’re laying off on the editorial side, but on the business side, they’re hiring, like in the accounting department, for example.  Curiouser and curiouser.

Shortly thereafter I  arrived at the main booth, where Mr. Hiller and Ms. Boucher were so affably greeting visitors.  You have to give him a lot of credit.  The publisher and CEO of the LA Times was listening to comments and whatnot from the general public, being as amiable to everyone as he could.   As Deputy Innovation Editor, Ms. Boucher’s job is a new position created to coordinate innovations between the print and online departments. No small undertaking and so very needed and so commendable of the Times to create such a position.  They both seemed open to suggestion and willing to make changes that will help this paper thrive and grow.  I had a polite conversation with Mr. Hiller about the pain of editorial changes, having personally been on an editorial staff in the past where major shifts had happened.  I got the distinct feeling from him that this is one head coach who is not about to let his team down anytime too soon.

But David Hiller is a publisher and his job is to sell papers. I felt for him this morning, as the  Audit Bureau of Circulations revealed its most recent findings.  Reported online by Jennifer Saba in Editor & Publisher the ABC’s calculations comparing the numbers for the “six-month period ending March 2007 and the six-month period ending March 2006″ found newspaper circulations continuing to slide downwards.  The LA Times was particularly hit:  “The Lost Angeles Times lost 4.2% of its weekday circulation to 815, 723. Sunday was down 4.7%. to 1,173,096.”  Ouch. 

Even the numbers for The New York Times went down:  “The New York Times, which usually experiences small gains, lost daily circulation, down 1.9% to 1,120, 420 while Sunday fell 3.3% to 1,627, 062″. 

The LA Times has a long, tough season ahead of it, but as I said to Mr. Hiller on my way out of the booth, “I’m rooting for you”.   Let’s hear one for the home team. 

Sorry for the hiatus…

Good morning, readers. Where has this month gone? I apologize for the long hiatus in posting, but I’ve been out of town and then busy creating new projects, which I will let you know about when they are more tangible. 

I’m working on a new post this morning, which should be up in a few hours.

Regards, JS

Ladies Who Launch Great Thoughts

 If you’re wondering who is the woman standing next to Arianna Huffington in this photo, it’s none other than your fearless blogger JS.  Many thanks to Courtney Newman, who took this picture for JS Media Blog.  Yes, I’m short but please note that Ms. H. is wearing flats, because, as she candidly told the gathered crowd of 400 women, she can’t wear heels anymore.

I met the ever gracious Arianna Huffington this past Saturday at an event called “Ladies Who Launch Live”, which was held  in Carson City, Ca., at the headquarters of Dermologica, one of the sponsors of the all day conference. (For those non-SoCals, that’s a little south of LAX.)  Ladies Who Launch is an organization founded by Victoria Colligan and Beth Schoenfeldt, who quit their corporate day jobs and started a company that encourages and supports other women who also want to quit their day jobs and start their own companies. The organization and website offer workshops and services to women entrepreneurs, whom they claim launch differently than men.

Ms. Huffington was one of the keynote speakers, along with best-selling author Jackie Collins, and an assortment of other entrepreneurial women with businesses and books. In her workshops and new book Zero to Zillionaire: 8 Foolproof Steps to Financial Peace of Mind, financial advisor Chellie Campbell teaches how to reduce financial stress [move over Suze Orman] and affirms affirmations: “People love to give me money;” ”I make lots of money doing the things I love”.  And my personal favorite: “My affirmations work, even if I don’t believe in them”.

On the lighter side was syndicated humor columnist Lisa Earle McLeod and author of Finding Grace When You Can’t Even Find Clean Underwear.  Even the founders of LWL now have a book coming out soon, called Ladies Who Launch: Embracing Entrepreneurship & Creativity As A Lifestyle, which they wrote with Amy Smart, coordinator of the LA chapter of LWL.

Ms. Huffington offered insights from her book Becoming Fearless: in love, work and life and shared how she has handled her personal and professional life and struggles and how she launched her own entrepreneurial effort–The Huffington Post.  She also announced–and we can’t wait for this–that she is about to launch a second blog called “23/6″, which will be a satirical look at politics and the news.  As she described it, the new site will be a 24/7 blog in the style of The Colbert Report, except “you know we’re busy so we can only do it 23/6″.   It’s even funnier when she says it in that signature Greek accent.

Jackie Collins, who couldn’t be more genuine or more unlike her scandalous characters, spoke to us in a deliciously still discernible British accent about being a teenager in Hollywood, her writing process, her two independent daughters and her wildly successful career.  Statistics hard to grasp are the fact that she has sold 400 million books in a career that has spanned almost four decades, while each of her 26 books are still in print.  For those who wanted, she signed her latest in paperback Lovers & Players and announced that #27, a new Lucky Santangelo novel called Drop Dead Beautiful, will be out in June. 

After a long day of listening, meeting, card swapping, and being inspired to launch with hundreds of other women, it was awfully nice of sponsor Naturalizer to give us each a pair of comfortable shoes.  A little Oprah moment there. 

So, what am I launching?  My freelance career, of course.  “I make LOTS of money doing the things I love”.

Best Campaign Website: Presidential Candidate Susie Flynn

Surfing the late night Tube last evening, I paused at Tavis Smiley, who was in the midst of an onscreen interview with one of my favorite Americans, the inimitable  and articulate Marian Wright Edelman,  head of the Children’s Defense Fund, or as I like to call her, “the smartest woman in Washington”.   Not only is the CDF behind the children’s health insurance initiative, I discovered they are running their own candidate for President.  Her name is Susie Flynn, a bright young woman who is running on the issue of universal health care for children.  However, her name will never make it to the ballot. Presidential candidate Susie Flynn is 10-years-old. 

This doesn’t stop me from giving her my vote–for the Best Campaign Website and, most importantly, Best Use of New Media in the 2008 presidential campaign, so far.  Candidates, take notes.

I don’t know who is responsible for the creation and execution of this brilliant idea, but you have to hand it to the CDF team for getting it all right.  At this point, it is clear that the 2008 campaign will be made on the Internet, and may the best web developers win.  Political TV commercials are so last century.

Here’s what they’re up to on the electsusie.com website:

HOME page:
As they say in their campaign slogan, there are 9 million uninsured children in this country, so they are trying to collect 9 million signatures on their petition. The platform is laid out simply on the Home page, where you  sign and click your name onto the petition.  The petition counter is right there, so you see that your name has been added and counted. The left hand column is a blog where you can leave a comment, and you also see Susie’s latest campaign videos, posted on YouTube.

Click on “GET INVOLVED” and you see a map with icon push pins of how many have signed the petition where.  On “Supporter Pics“  you get two options:  1) download the PDF of Susie’s campaign yard sign and 2) upload photos of you and your clan with your campaign yard sign to Susie’s–you guessed it–Flickr page.  “My Banners” gives you the html code to paste the campaign banners on your website or blog. “Tell A Friend” sends a message to your contacts with all the appropriate links.  And that’s just the beginning.

“LINKS” is where the real fun begins.  Not only will you find, finally, the links to CDF’s fund and issue topics, you are also linked to Susie’s MySpace page, Facebook page, and Care2 page.

See below my favorite campaign video called “My attempt to get a Susie Flynn yard sign at the White House”.  Then directly after that watch part two in that series called, “Susie Flynn takes her campaign to the White House”.

The mystery remains, who is this charming gap-toothed girl. Talk about fresh faces in Washington. Finally, candidates might also be wise to take some cues from Hollywood:  cute kids will always upstage you.

Susie Flynn on YouTube:

My attempt to get a Susie Flynn yard sign in the white house

Re: Greetings From Brazil

I was pleasantly surprised to get a comment from my post on The Brazilian Solution from Jose Murilo Junior of the Brazilian Ministry of Culture. [See Comment on Pirates of the Millennium Part II: The Brazilian Solution].  He is also spearheading one of the Ministry’s innovative cultural programs, which uses web technology to reach low-income youths called “Hotspots“.  According to the description on Murilo’s eco-rama blog: “A hotspot is established with a broadband connection, infrastructure made with recycled equipments and, most of all, technical workshops of open-source software, allowing anyone to digitalize their creativity.”

I’d love to see programs like this in the U.S.  Also, I like the implications for these youths to be able to connect with people outside of their immediate environment.  Instead of sister cities, we could have brother/sister Hotspots.

The Brazilian kids already have a blog, flickr page and a video on YouTube. Unfortunately, for us, they are all in Portuguese. But the body language is loud and clear. These kids have something to tell us. And lots of creativity. Check out their flickr photos. However you say it in your language, you go, Brazil!  Greetings from America!

Pirates of the Millennium Part II: The Brazilian Solution

As promised, here is the second part of the Pirates 2007 saga.  Our story continues as a new hero of digital downloading emerges in the guise of international musical artist Gilberto Gil and now, Brazil’s new Minister of Culture.

As I’ve been absorbing the myriad media stories about piracy and such, a mantra has been repeating itself in my head: “the real problem is that we have an antique model for copyrights law, and we need a totally new system to address all the new technology and forms of distribution in the digital age of the 21st century.  I say just scrap the system and start over”.  

Sails into our harbor, Mr. Gil who recently spoke at the SXSW Music conference in Austin, TX.  As reported by Larry Rohter in The New York Times [sorry it's a Times Select story, for those of you who aren't subscribers to this service], Gil and Brazil’s Creative Commons movement, have done just that:  devised a new system of ownership and copyrights protection that looks like a real working model for the digital dilemmas we are now facing.

More elegantly put by Mr. Gil as quoted in the article: “I think we are moving rapidly toward the obsolescence and eventual disappearance of a single traditional model and its replacement by others that are hybrids…My personal view is that digital culture brings with it a new idea of intellectual property, and that this new culture of sharing can and should inform government policies.”

As the copyrights controversy heats up, I am now noticing other commentaries expressing similar thoughts. 

Here’s the Brazilian solution:

As Minister of Culture, Gil is working with the Creative Commons  movement, which has come up with a new system of ownership.  Creative Commons was started in 2001 to address the issue of all rights reserved copyright ownership. The movement is comprised of disparate groups, from “scientists and artists to lawyers and consumers” who believe that the “all rights reserved” system “impeded creativity and the sharing of knowledge in the Internet age”.

The Creative Commons movement has devised a three-tiered structure that retains some rights, shares some and gives some away.

For example, in the new system called “Copyleft” a musical artist would own all the rights on some songs, share the rights with a publisher on others and then have another group of songs with “no rights reserved”.  Those songs would be free and clear, to download, remix, copy, whatever.  One for me, one for you, one for everyone else.  The Copyleft system is already operating in Brazil with a huge database of registered properties.

The other thing Copyleft does is give all the rights back to the artist or creator.  Using this model, artists don’t have to give away all of their rights to studios or record companies. They get to choose which rights they want to keep and which rights they want to share.

This model makes so much sense.  You can control the mix and also the distribution.  Put watermarks on the copyrighted properties and none on the free properties.  

Let’s stop litigating and start creating copyright systems that work. For everyone.

Since the word “left” in America is so loaded, I propose that we call our new system “No Rights Left Behind”.

See my next post for why I think the U.S. should have a Minister of Culture.

To watch a few minutes of Gilberto Gil talking about music at SXSW go here (scroll down almost to the bottom of the page).