One great thing about open-source is that it allows you to remix your own operating system, build something that really fits e.g. a communities needs.

openArtist, based on the latest Ubuntu KarmicKoala, focuses on making sure that everything an artist will need

– is included in the standard installation
– comes with at least a short description or a longer help text
– is ready to be used “out of the box” or can easily be installed with an extra script

The distro’s maintainer is basically also doing a conferencier’s job, guiding you through your new virtual home, explaining almost each single menu item (hover with the mouse over an app’s icons in the menu for the extensive tooltips). This is an interesting and user friendly approach: an annotated Linux distro that really makes you want to explore everything…

From the openArtist online documentation:

Help and documentation is provided via “extended tooltips for the program launchers, documentation for (nearly) every program, ordered by appearance in the menu structure”. And the “applications are not only installed: They are configured”.

“openArtist features a streamlined interface (gnomebased), with integrated mousegestures, custom menus, reorganized and extended system configuration tools, terminal-on-desktop integration (guake, ctrl+esc), dropbox for collaboration between artists (…)”

For example video editing with Blender: the Blender VSE (Video Sequence Editor) comes with all those extra plug-ins already installed! (Installing these plug-ins is not a trivial task for new Blender users…)

See the openArtist website for the full list of 2D, 3D, Audio, Video, VJ etc. software that you get with openArtist.

Less is more: no PulseAudio (by default) in openArtist!

There is also one important difference between openArtist and KarmicKoala that matters a lot to me: there is no PulseAudio in openArtist. Here is why this is important:

I switched from OS X to Ubuntu (and standard PC hardware) about one and a half years ago when Ubuntu HardyHeron (8.04) came out. It took me about a year to figure out that I could solve most of the audio problems that I kept having (e.g. sound in only one app at the same time or no sound in Blender at all) by simply getting rid of PulseAudio. While you can easily remove PulseAudio in 8.04 this gets harder and harder with every Ubuntu release after that and this is one of the main reasons why I am still using 8.04.

There have been long discussions about why PulseAudio does not work for all users, some blame Ubuntu’s implementation of the technology, some blame PulseAudio’s design itself. As a user I am looking for a solution that works, Ubuntu without PulseAudio works for me.

OpenArtist now finally gives me a new Ubuntu version that I can actually use, it’s basically KarmicKoala but minus PulseAudio and plus a very fine selection of multimedia apps that are ready to use! (The documentation says a script will be provided later for those who want to install PulseAudio in openArtist.)

Getting started and some tips

Download openArtist directly from:

MKL Graz or
openMaterials or
groundhog media

Or download the torrent here.

If you need help with burning an ISO have a look at this Ubuntu help page (includes instructions for Ubuntu, OS X and Windows).

Like Ubuntu openArtist also works as a live disc, meaning you can simply boot from the DVD and have a look at everything without the need to install it.

Make sure to read the readme before/after installation files on the openArtist desktop!

As always with new software: before installing anything make sure to have recent and fully working (tested) back-ups in place!

The download is 3.47 GB and you will need about 12 GB of hard disc space. Have a look at the openArtist documentation for “how to make a persistent (=writeable) live USB stick” if you want that!

Also note that as with Ubuntu, due to legal reasons, you will still have to download the codices for multimedia playback separately. (This is e.g. done when you first attempt to play back an .mp3.) Just make sure to have an internet connection after installing openArtist for downloading everything else that you might need!

Current limitations

At the moment openArtist does not have a 64-bit version and is bound to one user (“tux”).

Disclaimer

openArtist also features my own Blender presets/tutorials (“Video Editing Preset”, “2D Title Presets”) for quickly getting started with open-source video editing using Blender. (See the “Vid” menu in openArtist.)

I have great interest in promoting Blender (works on all major platforms/.blends can be shared, see here for a list of features) as a video post tool since I am using it myself: a larger user base will attract even more developers, even more features will be added to this great, minimal style yet very powerful non-linear video editing solution…!

The post New version of openArtist released: an annotated multimedia Linux distro with focus on ease of use appeared first on P2P Foundation.

While the international edition of the BBC website is still my long time favorite for mainstream news, I more and more often find myself tuning in to the (on weekdays) daily Democracy Now! show: “A daily TV/radio news program, hosted by Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez, airing on over 700 stations, pioneering the largest community media collaboration in the U.S.” The news you get there might not be more uplifting than the one from the mainstream media, but at least you know that this is a show made by real people who really care about what is going on in their own country (and abroad) and who are not blinded by any government’s propaganda machine.

So if you are interested in American politics and want to know what those other political parties have to say (yes, there is really a quite active Green Party and they just nominated two women as candidates for the upcoming presidential elections) – if you want to see for yourself that there are critical and competent voices in the United States, representing an America that does not stand for oil, war, torture, wiretapping and corruption then tune in to Democracy Now! The first twelve minutes or so always offer a general news overview in case you don’t feel like watching the one hour program every day.

Real political change needs critical voices and Democracy Now! delivers just that.

The post Real independent news from the United States: Democracy Now! appeared first on P2P Foundation.

A selected list of quite brilliant free and open-source tools for beginners as well as experienced animators – be it for 2D, 3D or code based animation – can be found in our P2P Audiovisual Guide in the June 08 update (on the main page, just scroll down…). This update further includes some interesting (online) video related links…

With the June 08 update I am now stepping down as the guide’s maintainer, after working on it for the last two years the time has come for me to focus more on actually using some of the tools we list in the guide – it is no coincidence that the June update is about open-source animation – this is simply what I’ve been doing for a while now already. If you are interested in some results have a look at vivaldi rock, my latest 3D project, almost exclusively made with free and open-source software (I work with blender).

Reminder: Terms of Service

There is one thing I’d like to remind everyone of who uploads video, music or text works to any web 2.0 site: always make sure to read a site’s “Terms of Service” agreement (or TOS etc.). There are many, otherwise interesting services, that we never linked in the Audiovisual Wiki text for one simple reason: their TOS!

Why is this important? Some sites still make you hand over all sorts of rights (which often is bad enough in itself) – but not just for a limited period of time (until you decide to remove your work or close your account). They ask you to license your work to them forever and for free! Two words to watch out for in a Terms of Service agreement in this context are “perpetual” and “irrevocable”! Reading a TOS is not fun of course, but with a bit of practise (and by using your browser’s find/search in text options) you can do yourself a big favour…

Note that e.g. a Creative Commons license is also “non-revocable” (see the CC FAQ for details), but there is a big difference: by using a CC license you are allowing anyone to make copies of your work, basically encouraging free distribution (= free promotion for your work) and – depending on the kind of licence you choose, maybe even provide a foundation for others to build upon your work. But a TOS that asks you to license your work in a “perpetual” and “irrevocable” kind of way to one single company that makes money with your content is of course mainly in the interest of that one company and not so much in the interest of the general public!

I really don’t understand why sites with such Terms of Service agreements are still around, maybe someone else will put together a list with services to boycott because of their TOS. Better be safe than sorry and always read the small print before uploading your work to any web 2.0 service…!

The post Open-source animation update, reminder about Terms of Service agreements appeared first on P2P Foundation.

This month’s focus is on mobile phones – it now appears that Apple is overwhelmed by the interest in their iPhone as a platform and at the same time the official Apple iPhone SDK seems to bring some serious limitations for both users and developers – for the sake of a safe and stable platform as Apple argues.

As always there is no platform without the users and as always it is up to the users to decide how they want to use their phone – here alternatives to Apple’s iPhone ecosystem:

Free Your iPhone

If you don’t know why millions of iPhone users have a personal interest in what is know as “jailbraiking” start reading here:

While the iPhone Project is aiming at offering “the most valuable resources for iPhone users, available. From a repository, to open source software, a forum, and a wiki (…)” the iPhone Hacks site welcomes its readers “to the source for all iPhone Hacks.”

Players in the Free-Your-iPhone-Arena:

The iphone elite dev-team site is about “Replacing what Apple left out.” See also the project’s page on code.google.com.

Ziphone is “From Zibri with love” and “ZiPhone 2.6b had 3.000.000 downloads!”

iPlusPnws “was created to provide information about iPlus and related iPhone applications.” The download page offers iLiberty, iPlus and Ziphone among other iPhone related software.

iPhone Linux features iBooter an “interactive Apple Bootloader (iBoot) Console for the iPhone and iTouch. Support for WinXP/Linux/MacOSX 10.5.2”.

The iPhone Dev Team Portal lets us know that the “information, statements, articles, and releases here are official” and while they “have the approval of the combined Dev/Elite teams” the “site and its contents are in no way affiliated with, endorsed by, or supported by Apple Inc.” The Dev Team’s current coding effort is the Pwnage Tool, a full release for both Mac and Windows is expected for “sometime next week”. (* Note the date when visiting this site on the 1st April… *)

For more information about what can be done with other Apple products in case you are not fully satisfied with the officially supported functionality see the popular Hackint0sh forums.

Android, OpenMoko and Movino

Outside the somewhat not too well enclosed walled apple garden there are the Google backed Open Handset Alliance offering an “early look at the Android Software Development Kit (SDK)” as well as the other main open-source mobile phone contender OpenMoko, for more about this project see the OpenMoko Wiki.

The mobile web is thought to be one of the “next big things” and in that context it becomes clear that all the efforts mentioned above are asking one question: who should be in control of the software that runs your mobile phone…?

At the same time mobile phones are (next to making phone calls of course) not just for surfing the web but more and more turn into broadcasting devices. A promising project in that context seems to be Movino: “Broadcast LIVE video from your mobile phone over 3G or WiFi onto your website. Or use your phone as a bluetooth webcam in Mac OS X. Free and Open Source.”

Find all of this month’s new links on our P2P Audiovisual Guide’s main page. Link suggestions and ideas for improving the guide welcome as usual.

The post New links and highlights from the P2P Audiovisual Guide (April 08): Open-Source Mobile Options appeared first on P2P Foundation.

After a month they will be moved to their actual places in the guide and a new set of new links will be on the first page.

If you have any links you would like to see in the guide: leave a comment or add your links – there is now a convenient blue “Your Links” box on the main page!

Indie Media Publishing Options

Plumi, a “free Software video sharing Content Management System based on Plone” is a new interesting option if you want to “create a sophisticated video sharing and community site out-of-the-box”.

Show in a Box is interesting for those who use WordPress: “a package of free video-centric themes and plugins for WordPress, made by and for independent web video creators. All of these tools are open source and ready to be tweaked to look as good as your video content does.”

Of course there is also Miro (just updated to a 1.1 version) that offers one of the best ways to “to watch free internet video channels” – if you are new to online video publishing make sure to read our Beginner’s Guide!

For encoding your work to Ogg Theora (.ogg) have a look at FFMPEG2THEORA – there is good news (specially for Mac users): the Simple Theora Encoder seems to work as advertised – finally a user friendly open-source video encoding option for the desktop!

Have a look at all the other new links in the P2P Audiovisual Guide and let us know interesting links or your suggestions for improving the guide. Thanks!

The post New links and highlights from the P2P Audiovisual Guide (March ’08) appeared first on P2P Foundation.

There is another aspect to the recent TechCrunch stories (first one, follow up) about social media spamming that has not been focused on yet: the young entrepreneur/student who does all the dirty work has, as it seems, high profile clients paying him to do this. Comment no. 23 on the first TechCrunch story says:

“From LinkedIn:

Notable clients include: 20th Century Fox, Warner Bros Records, Fox Atomic, Walden Media, Yari Film Group, Nike, Oakley, …”

Interesting, isn’t it…? It looks like big media is scared, does not trust its own products and needs to play dirty in order to get the attention it seeks. This is the real story that we need to focus on! Forget the little fish, this guy still studies and, while I think he is wrong in doing what he does, he is still learning and maybe might change his business practices now that he sees how others think of him…?

What we bloggers, podcasters, vloggers, indie film makers, social media entrepreneurs, indie media publishers, P2P specialists, open-source coders and all those who think playing fair is not a luxury but a necessity (and of course the right thing to do) – what we all need to do is to stand up and let big media, Hollywood, the music industry, the MPAA, the RIAA (or is it the MAFIAA…?), let all of them know that:

• their time is running out
• we are prepared to play fair – as long as they are prepared to play fair
• we are powerful and we are everywhere: we have our blogs, podcasts, vlogs, social networks, mailings lists, forums, zines, mags, news networks, indie media distribution channels and of course free and open-source operating systems, office packages, 3D software, content publishing solutions and so much more
• we have the money because we are the consumers, they depend on us, not the other way round!

A consumer’s ultimatum

To further illustrate what Hollywood and the music industry is up against here the full comment from a digg user on a recent story titled “The Pirate Bay Cancels OiNK Replacement”.

Before reading any further note that:

I do not necessarily agree with everything that this digg user writes.

I personally do not download Hollywood movies from P2P networks for mainly one good reason: I almost stopped caring about Hollywood movies at some point after seeing “Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones” and “The Matrix Reloaded”. Those who were unfortunate enough to spend their time and money to see those movies will know what I mean…

Also: the following was a comment made on digg.com and the author uses rather strong language! But I do think it is funny and a very interesting read for anyone who tries to sell music or movies to consumers:

You know what! Seriously fuck the MPAA & RIAA.. Here is why.. they
are so far behind when it comes to distribution of their content.
Recently, I’ve tried to make an effort of purchasing the movies and
music I’ve downloaded off bittorrent, and that’s alot of content that I
was willing to legally purchase. I saved up to 1,000 $ and was ready to
pay back my dues. I was only paying for the stuff I enjoyed, and stuff
worth purchasing. That is the beauty of bittorrent.

**Sorry fellow diggers for my grammar, swearing etc.. english isn’t my first language and im a lil bit high…

Conclusion

The music industry and Hollywood still don’t get the internet, they now use dirty tricks to push their content on sites like YouTube, consumers are ready to write lists of demands to “MPAA, RIAA, IFPI, whoever you 4-initials bitches are” and let them know that “If those demands are not met by let’s say mid 2008, I am purchasing 4 2TB WD External Hard Disks, and you’ll never see a penny from me.“

Maybe it is time for Hollywood to focus on what they used to be good at: making good movies that people care enough about to buy tickets and DVDs…? Of course good movies need good scripts. Coincidence that right now there is this tiny little disagreement between the studios and the script writers…?

Hollywood, learn your own lessons: “If it’s not on the page it’s not on the stage.” Spamming YouTube won’t help your business.

Music industry: people stopped buying your music not because of BitTorrent but because there was nothing worth buying. Look at your content, look at your “stars”. We stopped caring. A while ago.

And think twice before spamming our networks with your content in the future!

Think twice before stealing someone else’s chances of having the “most viewed video” of the week.

Think twice before stealing our time when you make us watch content we don’t care about.

We, the internet users, we the bloggers, podcasters, vloggers and all the others now know your dirty tricks and we will watch you and document all of your moves. The recent TechCrunch article was only the beginning. Be sure of that.

hollywood, music industry, mafiaa, youtube, spam, social media, indie, media

The post The real social media spammers: Hollywood and the music industry…? appeared first on P2P Foundation.

It is still not quite clear to me whether the recent TechCrunch article “The Secret Strategies Behind Many “Viral” Videos” is some “clever” publicity stunt (as some comments suggest), or if indeed the author means and does what he claims to do.

It is an interesting article, so read it and make up your own mind about that one until Michael Arrington from TechCrunch will post his views – should be interesting because he writes in comment no.3 “I will post a longer response to this later, but frankly Iâ€m disgusted by this.” and in comment no. 5 “I think it would have been better to have published this anonymously, and certainly without the links to Danâ€s business.”

So for now I assume that this is not a fake or “clever” marketing campaign and that Dan Ackerman Greenberg, the author of the article (“co-founder of viral video marketing company The Comotion Group and lead TA for the Stanford Facebook Class. Dan will graduate from the Stanford Management Science & Engineering Masters program in June.”) is really the social network spammer he proudly claims to be.

To be fair: of course individuals as well as companies have tried to game video sites in the past. The techniques the author describes in the TechCrunch article are not really new, some of his tips like “Title Optimization” would even make sense – if only he would not suggest that lying, cheating and faking is a good thing as long as you get many views for your videos…

Highlights From A Viral Marketing Lowlife…?

From Dan Ackerman Greenberg’s article:

“Blogs: We reach out to individuals who run relevant blogs and actually pay them to post our embedded videos.”

“Forums: We start new threads and embed our videos. Sometimes, this means kickstarting the conversations by setting up multiple accounts on each forum and posting back and forth between a few different users.”

“Every power user on YouTube has a number of different accounts. So do we. A great way to maximize the number of people who watch our videos is to create some sort of controversy in the comments section below the video.”

“Also, we arenâ€t afraid to delete comments – if someone is saying our video (or your startup) sucks, we just delete their comment. We canâ€t let one userâ€s negativity taint everyone elseâ€s opinions.”

And he concludes:

“The Wild West days of Lonely Girl and Ask A Ninja are over. You simply canâ€t expect to post great videos on YouTube and have them go viral on their own, even if you think you have the best videos ever.“

This is of course totally arrogant and so narrow minded – and not true (watch the brilliant Chocolate Rain – 11 Million views so far). If Dan Ackerman Greenberg is for real I wonder what they teach their students at Stanford – it seems that business ethics is either not part of the curriculum or that Mr. Greenberg missed a couple of those classes…?!

Those Who Defend Spamming…

Maybe even more interesting – and shocking to me – are some of the comments made on TechCrunch and some of the other blog posts discussing this/what appears to be a social network’s spammer article. If it now all was to turn out to be a “clever” publicity stunt there will be some bloggers who’ll have quite a bit of explaining to do. But this would also be an interesting scenario – a bit like in “The Wave” by Morton Rhue.

Also interesting: as the Times Online reported back in February “Fake bloggers soon to be ‘named and shamed— (Shlashdot discussion) some of the practices that Dan Ackerman Greenberg seems to promote could be illegal in the UK from December 31 2007 onwards…

Of course laws and regulations can not be the only answer to social network spamming. More important I think are entrepreneurs who feel strongly about ethics – and they exist: Richard Branson (Virgin Records/Airlines etc.) is one of them. He is of course not related to online video in any way, but a good example for an extremely successful businessman who feels strongly about ethics and the choices he makes.

I always keep coming back to TechCrunch because Michael Arrington is also someone who repeatedly brought up the issue of business ethics on his highly successful blog. So it remains to be seen whether this was all a publicity stunt to uncover the tactics of social network spammers or, as I tend to think, the Stanford spammer is real and so is his sad business…

viral, video, techcrunch, stanford, spammer, web 2.0, youtube, ethics

The post Viral Video Marketing: They Call It Advertising, We Call It Spam appeared first on P2P Foundation.

Let us know how you find it, what could be improved, what might still be missing… And if you find it useful: please link it in your favourite bookmark sharing service, on your blog etc. – the best index is just as useful as the number of people actually knowing about it/using it!

The post D.I.Y. online media publishing how-to: P2P Audiovisual Guide restructured – “one paragraph” overview appeared first on P2P Foundation.

Click the image to watch the Flash video in your browser or download the video (MPEG-4/h.264 encoded) – free and open-source VLC media player available.

The video is licensed under a Creative Commons license that allows you to make derivative works – details here.

If you want to embed the video in your own blog get the JavaScript code from the video’s blip.tv page.

Enjoy!

Tags: p2p, peer to peer, video, interview, michel bauwens

The post “What is Peer to Peer?” – 4 min. version of Michel Bauwens video interview featuring CC licensed music appeared first on P2P Foundation.

Digg.com frontpage stories featuring the key disappeared and accounts were suspended. The result was a user revolt and around May 1st, 2007 almost every story on the digg frontpage featured the “illegal number”.

Users found all kinds of creative ways to mention the hex key, be it in form of a website’s URL, a myspace user profile or in an avatar’s greyscale image.

After a long day digg’s Kevin Rose gave in an posted the number himself in this blog post:

“But now, after seeing hundreds of stories and reading thousands of comments, youâ€ve made it clear. Youâ€d rather see Digg go down fighting than bow down to a bigger company. We hear you, and effective immediately we wonâ€t delete stories or comments containing the code and will deal with whatever the consequences might be.”

Here the story on Slashdot and the YouTube video Digg Users Revolt 5/1/2007:

Technorati Tags: mpaa, hd-dvd, digg, censorship, drm, copyright

The post Censorship backfires: thanks to MPAA takedown notice “illegal number” becomes popular on digg.com appeared first on P2P Foundation.