Blog  ⌇ What was I thinking…?

(Un)read in the ledger: Monday 11–Sunday 17 November 2024

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A pattern made up of a repeated icon of two books on top of each other. The top book has a bright green cover, the middle book has an orange cover and the bottom book has a teal cover. The piles of books are on a pink background.

My weekly reading list

Employment in the arts is in crisis, there are calls to keep games out of the social media ban, the ATOM H1 takes a different apporach to content marking to Content Credentials.


Read

Here’s what I’ve been reading this week:

Online games should not be included in Australia’s social media ban – they are crucial for kids’ social lives

Depending how the Australian government defines social media for its under 16s ban it may unintentionally ban online video games for children and young people too.

As the debate on whether Australia should introduce a social media age limit – and indeed, whether such a ban would even work if imposed – continues, two Univeristy of Sydney academics have weighed in arguing that if such a ban is introduced, it should not include online video games, citing the value of social gaming to children’s social lives and learning, personal growth and identity development as a reason why. The authors are concerned that the introduction of a definition of social media in implementation legislation that takes in such games would cut children off from numerous beneficial outcomes they provide, including “rich spaces for play” that are “critical for children’s identity formation, social lives and imagination”. As the authors note, it is not like online video games don’t have concerning issues as well, but just banning them will not make children’s online lives better and there is always a risk bans are circumvented.

While we haven’t seen a definition in legislative drafting yet, I and others are Wikimedia Australia are similarly concerned about how defining social media could unintendedly take in websites such as Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia platforms. Depending how social media is defined, it may include hosting user-generated content (UGC), issuing users unique profiles, allowing users to interact with each other such as by commenting on content or direct messaging each other – all of which arguably occur on Wikipedia and Wikimedia platforms. Like video games, Wikimedia platforms are not perfect but blanket banning them would have more negatives for children and young people than benefits.

The Conversation

Arts Workforce Scoping Study Interim Findings

The interim findings of the Arts Workforce Scoping Study confirm what meany of us already knew: the state of employment in the arts is in crisis.

Services and Creative Skills Australia and Creative Australia have released a interim findings of an Arts Workforce Scoping Study which was commissioned as part of the National Cultural Policy. Looking at skills shortages and recruitment issues across six sectors in the arts and creative industries – performing arts, visual arts, craft and design, writing and publishing, digital games, screen and music – the study shows that we are facing acute workforce shortages in many areas, including:

  • Production and technical roles across all creative sectors
  • Off-stage creative roles in the performing arts, especially lighting designers
  • Creative roles in digital games development, such as game artists, art direction/production design, creative directors and writers
  • Creative, production and technical roles in the screen sector
  • Finance and accounting skills and workers in all sectors except games
  • Marketing and communications skills and works in the performing arts and the visual arts, craft and design

The report also notes that recruitment and retention issues are exacerbated in regional and remote areas 

Factors impacting retention include perceived low incomes and poor working conditions, limited career development opportunities and a lack of awareness and understanding of available training options. The study also highlights that new skills are needed in the sectors, including around digitalization and AI. And it also identifies that, while some efforts have been made to recruit from historically underrepresented groups, the need for greater diversity and inclusion in the creative workforce remains.

Services and Creative Skills Australia (SaCSA) and Creative Australia

Also worth reading on this topic:

Arts Workforce Scoping Study interim findings indicate crisis across sectors

ArtsHub

Why does Pharrell’s biopic sidestep Blurred Lines?

How can a documentary about Pharrell Williams not look at the Blurred Lines case?

There’s a new documentary about Pharrell Williams out called Piece By Piece which is odd for two reasons: firstly, it is entirely animated in Lego and secondly, the film does not include the Blurred Lines court case at all. ⟨ For the purposes of this listing I am not writing about the filmmaking specifically, but it does sound interesting and the article shares a bit about the style and process. ⟩ The film’s director, Morgan Neville, said he wanted to include the case but it “ultimately derailed the story he was trying to tell.” That doesn’t mean Neville doesn’t think the case was important. Quite the contrary, in fact: Neville says “My take on the Blurred Lines case is that it’s one of the worst judicial decisions about creativity in history. I think Pharrell was in the right on it, and I think most creatives agree with him.” Even if the copyright matter isn’t taken up directly, the interview hints at the film exploring aspects of Pharrell William’s music making, including his synaesthesia and visual experience of music, getting lost, creatively and dealing with your musical sound going from unorthodox.

BBC News, British Broadcasting Corporation

This New Device Establishes Content Authenticity Using Any Digital Camera

The Atom H1 is a more cost friendly device to mark photos as authentic.

I have written a bit recently about the Content Credentials content marking initiative Adobe is pushing, but importantly there are other approaches to marking authentic images. Atom Images’ ATOM H1 is a device photographers can use to “capture trusted, authentic images in a world where the line between real and fake is becoming blurrier by the day.” It connects to any digital camera and ‘signs’ images created using that camera with a unique ‘fingerprint’. Like Content Credentials, ATOM H1 and its digital platofrm focuses on marking authentic content rather than focusing on identifying fakes. What makes the ATOM H1 different is that it allows users to compare media to a ‘ground truth image’, with areas of the image that have been changed marked with colour coded frames. The device is also much more affordable than replacing your existing digital camera with one that complies with the Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA) standard by default. As Stuart Sevier, founder of Atom Images, says “… you should have to go buy a new $5,000 camera to get some of these [content authenticity] solutions.”

PetaPixel

Retirement is difficult and unaffordable. Our super funds must step up

Superannuation is increasingly falling short for retirees and pre-retirees are underprepared for retirement.

The 2024 Brighter Super & Investment Trends Retirement Income Report highlights a concerning decline in retirement preparedness among pre-retirees Australians and a significant income shortfall actual and needed retirement income – on average $1,300. Unsurprisingly, inflation and cost-of-living pressures have contributed to this reality for retirees and pre-retirees. While people are generally satisfied with their superannuation funds, the report suggests super funds need to step up and provide better support to their members, particularly upping awareness of and access to financial advice and retirement planning education they provide.

The Sydney Morning Herald

More to read

Of course, there’s lots of other stuff I have been reading that doesn’t make it into the weekly round up. If the long list is too much, I also group links into collections:

If you have a Google Account you can even share links with me.

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Disclosure

Conflict of interest

I am the President of Wikimedia Australia (WMAU). The views expressed in this blog post are my own and do not express the views of WMAU.

AI use

This blog post was drafted using Google Docs. No part of the text of this blog post was generated using AI. The original text was not modified or improved using AI. No text suggested by AI was incorporated. If spelling or grammar corrections were suggested by AI they were accepted or rejected based on my discretion (however, sometimes spelling, grammar and corrections of typos may have occurred automatically in Google Docs).

The repeated icon in the banner image (i.e. the first image at the top of the blog post) was generated by AI using Text to Vector Graphic (Beta) in Adobe Illustrator.


Credits

A pattern made up of a repeated icon of two books on top of each other. The top book has a bright green cover, the middle book has an orange cover and the bottom book has a teal cover. The piles of books are on a pink background.

Image: A pattern made up of a repeated icon of two books on top of each other. The top book has a bright green cover, the middle book has an orange cover and the bottom book has a teal cover. The piles of books are on a pink background. The icon is an adaptation of an vector graphic generated by Elliott Bledsoe using the AI tool Text to Vector Graphic (Beta) in Adobe Illustrator. Prompt: ‘A simple hand drawn pile of books’.


Provenance

This blog post was produced by Elliott Bledsoe from Agentry, an arts marketing micro-consultancy. It was first published on 17 Nov 2024. It has not been updated. This is version 1.0. Questions, comments and corrections are welcome – get in touch any time.


Reuse

Good ideas shouldn’t be kept to yourself. I believe in the power of open access to information and creativity and a thriving commons of shared knowledge and culture. That’s why this blog post is licensed for reuse under a Creative Commons licence.

A bright green version of the Creative Commons brand icon. It is two lowercase letter Cs styled similar to the global symbol for copyright but with a second C. Like the C in the copyright symbol, the two Cs are enclosed in a circle.A bright green version of the Creative Commons brand icon. It is two lowercase letter Cs styled similar to the global symbol for copyright but with a second C. Like the C in the copyright symbol, the two Cs are enclosed in a circle.

Unless otherwise stated or indicated, this blog post – (Un)read in the ledger: Monday 11–Sunday 17 November 2024 – is licensed under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence (CC BY 4.0). Please attribute Elliott Bledsoe as the original creator. View the full copyright licensing information for clarification.

Under the licence, you are free to copyshare and adapt this blog post, or any modified version you create from it, even commercially, as long as you give credit to Elliott Bledsoe as the original creator of it. So please make use of this blog post as you see fit.

Please note: Whether AI-generated outputs are protected by copyright remains contested. To the extent that copyright exists, if at all, in the icon I generated using AI or the banner image I compiled using that icon for this blog post (i.e. the first image at the top of the blog post), I also license it for reuse under the terms of the Creative Commons licence (CC BY 4.0).



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