My weekly reading list
Much ado about music, more AIAI is tech and marketing speak for a range of technology that imitates human intellect. Learn more → creation tools and principles and young people in bookshops.
Read
I had a busy week just gone and there were some complex topics doing the rounds so it’s a shorter list this week, but here’s what I’ve been reading this week:
Generative AI and creative work: Creative Australia Principles
Centering human creativity, ethical AIAI is tech and marketing speak for a range of technology that imitates human intellect. Learn more → use, transparency and more in Creative Australia’s AIAI is tech and marketing speak for a range of technology that imitates human intellect. Learn more → principles.
Creative Australia has released six principles about generative AIWhen text, images and other content are generated by AI (hence why it is called generative AI). Learn more → and creative work.
The principles:
- centre human creativity,
- encourage ethical AIAI is tech and marketing speak for a range of technology that imitates human intellect. Learn more → use (by artists and others),
- call for transparency around AIAI is tech and marketing speak for a range of technology that imitates human intellect. Learn more → use,
- want policy approaches that enable innovation and support Australia’s unique cultural and creative identity,
- caution that concentrated and global ownership of AIAI is tech and marketing speak for a range of technology that imitates human intellect. Learn more → systems impact accountability of AIAI is tech and marketing speak for a range of technology that imitates human intellect. Learn more → developers and effective regulation of AIAI is tech and marketing speak for a range of technology that imitates human intellect. Learn more →.
Around the principles the document looks at the increase in the use of AIAI is tech and marketing speak for a range of technology that imitates human intellect. Learn more → by artists and other creators in their creative practices, as well as use by other users. Unsurprisingly, it raises concerns about the unauthorised use of copyright material in training data without recognition, remuneration or disclosure, and the potential for creative labour displacement because of AIAI is tech and marketing speak for a range of technology that imitates human intellect. Learn more →, particularly because “Creative work can now be produced by anyone, with significant potential impact on the financial viability of creative careers, and this content is being produced off existing creative work without compensation.” Ownership of AIAI is tech and marketing speak for a range of technology that imitates human intellect. Learn more → systems by large technology companies, the costs for new entrants to the market and the difficulty regulating AIAI is tech and marketing speak for a range of technology that imitates human intellect. Learn more → developers given their size and multinational operations is also mentioned. All in all there is nothing radical or unexpected in it but it does align with other AIAI is tech and marketing speak for a range of technology that imitates human intellect. Learn more → regulatory work going on, including the Proposals Paper for introducing mandatory guardrails for AI in high-risk settings AI guardrails put out by the Department of Industry, Science and Resources.
Wednesday 9 October 2024
Creative Australia
‘I love the whole atmosphere and can spend hours browsing’: how did bookshops suddenly become cool?
Younger generations in the UK are going to bookstores, but it may not be entirely about digital disconnection.
This came out at the end of last week but I only saw it this week. This Guardian article reports on the results of a Booksellers Association survey that indicates that bookshops are popular with UK gen Zers and millennials. It seems they are also more likely to make purchase decisions about books based on bookseller’s recommendations – 49 percent and 56 percent respectively, compared with 37 percent of gen X and 31 percent of baby boomers. What’s interesting is the way the article and quotes from survey respondents frame the IRLNetspeak for In real life. Learn more → bookshop experience, the word-of-mouth value of booksellers’ recommendations and connections gen Z and millennial readers form with bookshops, their staff and the authors who do events at them as an antidote to algorithmic and influencer pushed book titles. I like that the article looks a range of digital and non-digital dynamics at play for different readers in the gen Z and millennial groups: everything from bookshops as social media backdrops and books as accessories to BookTok as a way to discover new books and bookstores and the appeal of special editions, signed copies and author talks to these readers.
Sarah Manavis – Friday 11 October 2024
The Guardian
Adobe Launches Firefly Video Model and Enhances Image, Vector and Design Models
Adobe announces a range of Firefly AIAI is tech and marketing speak for a range of technology that imitates human intellect. Learn more → video tools.
Adobe is the latest AIAI is tech and marketing speak for a range of technology that imitates human intellect. Learn more → company to roll out a video AIAI is tech and marketing speak for a range of technology that imitates human intellect. Learn more → tool. Their Video Model expands the current suite of AIAI is tech and marketing speak for a range of technology that imitates human intellect. Learn more → tools under the Firefly brand. New AIAI is tech and marketing speak for a range of technology that imitates human intellect. Learn more → video capabilities filling footage gaps, smoothing transitions, extending shots, creating video from text prompts, turning still images into video assets. It is currently in limited betaBeta is an early release of software or some other product or service to see how users use it to inform further development of it…. Learn more → so it may be awhile before the general Creative Cloud subscribers see Video AIAI is tech and marketing speak for a range of technology that imitates human intellect. Learn more → generation in their apps. We also don’t know what the pricing for the Firefly Video Model will be when it leaves betaBeta is an early release of software or some other product or service to see how users use it to inform further development of it…. Learn more →. Adobe also announced faster image generation in Firefly, improvements to AIAI is tech and marketing speak for a range of technology that imitates human intellect. Learn more → vector tools in Illustrator and new was to ideate and iterate in Photoshop.
In the media release Adobe hammers hard it’s focus on ‘responsible innovation’ and emphasises that its video model was trained “… on licensed content, such as Adobe Stock and public domain content” and “… designed to be commercially safe.” It rattles off brands such as PepsiCo/Gatorade, IBM, Mattel and Deloitte to add weight to the claim. This is punctuated by Adobe restating that it founded the Content Authenticity Initiative and championed the adoption of Content CredentialsA content label and verification process created by Adobe for disclosing information about content. Learn more →.
Monday 14 October 2024
Adobe
Also worth reading on this topic:
Bringing generative AI to video with Adobe Firefly Video Model
Ashley Still – Friday 11 October 2024
Adobe Blog
Adobe’s AI video model is here, and it’s already inside Premiere Pro
Jess Weatherbed – Monday 14 October 2024
The Verge
Live Nation’s industry takeover tearing the Australian music scene apart
Four Corners accuses Live Nation and others of opaque ticket fees.
The ABC’s Four Corners had a segment looking at live entertainment giant Live Nation and their operations in Australia. I have not seen the Four Corners episode this article is based on, but the article is telling enough. It made some pretty big claims, including that the average cost of a gig ticket here in Australia now hovers around the $100 mark and some punters may mistakenly think that most of the money is going to the artist but in reality there is a significant number of hidden fees that Ticketmaster (and its main competitor Ticketek) tack on. These are called transaction fees, booking fees, service fees, infrastructure fees and ‘inside charges’. Unsurprisingly Live Nation Australia hit back with a statement clearing up ‘factual inaccuracies’. Interestingly, Live Performance Australia (LPA) also put out a statement which reads as highly defensive of Live Nation to me. Certainly, separate investigation by The Guardian shows that unquestionably Ticketmaster and Ticketek add significantly more additional fees.
I am by no means an expert on the Australian music industry but shit seems bad and the increasing presence of live entertainment giant Live Nation in the local scene is exacerbating things. Locally they own ticketing companies Ticketmaster and Moshtix, own or operate a few music venues, and, through Secret Sounds, they run Splendour in the Grass, Falls Festival, booking agency Village Sounds, independent record labels Dew Process and Create/Control and much more. If Live Nation’s tactics in other countries such as the United States are anything to go by they are absolutely working their way up to a vertically integrated monopoly and monospony here in Australia, and hidden fees is only one tactic in their playbook. I remember reading about Live Nation’s thug-like tactics in Rebecca Giblin and Cory Doctorow’s Chokepoint Capitalism style: italics https://chokepointcapitalism.com/ which I have summarised in Re-read below.
Avani Dias, Amy Donaldson and Lara Sonnenschein – Monday 14 October 2024
Four Corners and ABC News, Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Also worth reading on this topic:
Live Nation Australia
Australia’s live music industry: let’s focus on some facts
Evelyn Richardson – Tuesday 15 October 2024
Live Performance Australia
The crisis facing Australian live music is older and bigger than just Live Nation
Andrew Stafford – Tuesday 15 October 2024
The Guardian
Knives out for Live Nation after Four Corners doco
Tuesday 15 October 2024
CIM
Ben Green and Sam Whiting – Tuesday 15 October 2024
The Conversation
Kelly Burke – Saturday 19 October 2024
The Guardian
Re-read
What I’ve circled back to this week:
Chapter 8 of Chokepoint Capitalism – How Live Nation Chickenized Live Music
Rebecca Giblin and Cory Doctorow detail how Live Nation uses thug tactics to control the music industry.
There’s been a lot of comments about Live Nation’s stake in the Australian music scene flying around recently which reminded me of Chapter 8 of Chapter 8 of Chokepoint Capitalism which looks at how they build their anticompetitive flywheel and defend it. Here’s my summary of the chapter:
Historically independent entities ran all the aspects needed to put on a music gig. Live Nation has bought up players in all these areas to vertically and horizontally integrate across the music industry in the United States. As Giblin and Doctorow say:
“Previously, running live events required artist managers, talent bookers, event promoters, venues, and ticketers, each operating largely independently from the rest. Now, though, a leviathan called Live Nation Entertainment has vertically integrated every element. It manages artists and books and promotes talent to play in venues it owns, runs, and tickets. It’s horizontally integrated too, tot he point where it’s the world’s largest live entertianment company, the largest producer of live music concerts, one of the world’s biggest artists management companies (representing more than five hundred of the world’s biggest artists), and the world’s biggest live entertainment ticketer. All this gives it enormous control over live music.”
Beyond integration, other actions the group of companies take firm up their anticompetitive fly wheel. Giblin and Doctorow detail quite a list:
- When Live Nation is ticketing competitor’s events “… it gets detailed real-time insights into their financial positions, programming innovations, successes, and failures, which is can then imitate or avoid.”
- This allows them “… to make better decisions about who to book and how much to pay them (in the venue market), and also enables it to swoop in and take over acts that hae been developed by independent managers when they’re just about to break through (in the management space).”
- Being in so many parts of the music industry creates conflicts of interest; as artist managers they should want to limit ticket scalping because it diverts money from artists by it can attract significant additional revenue from the reselling secondary market as a ticketer.
- Allegedly, while the organisation seems to try to stop scalping, it offers fee discounts to resellers who have half a million or more in annual ticket resales
- Live Nation tries to sure up Ticketmaster as the ticketing provider at venues they don’t own because “… refusing to contract with Ticketmaster w[ould] result in the venue receiving fewer Live Nation concerts or none at all.”
- This has reduced the ability for other ticketing companies to compete.
- Remedies placed on them by regulators such as the US Department of Jusice “art too easily ignored or abused … because the benefits of violation often outweigh the punishment.”
- Live Nation and Ticketmaster terms mean ticket purchasers have waivered their class action rights.
- Live Nation steps in and ‘strategically purchases’ small to medium players in the market struggling under current market stresses at ‘fire sale prices’.
It’s all pretty grim!
Rebecca Giblin and Cory Doctorow – 2022
Scribe Publications
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
AI use
This blog post was drafted using Google Docs. No part of the text of this blog post was generated using AIAI is tech and marketing speak for a range of technology that imitates human intellect. Learn more →. The original text was not modified or improved using AIAI is tech and marketing speak for a range of technology that imitates human intellect. Learn more →. No text suggested by AIAI is tech and marketing speak for a range of technology that imitates human intellect. Learn more → was incorporated. If spelling or grammar corrections were suggested by AIAI is tech and marketing speak for a range of technology that imitates human intellect. Learn more → 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 banner image (i.e. the first image at the top of the blog post) was generated by AIAI is tech and marketing speak for a range of technology that imitates human intellect. Learn more → using Text to Vector Graphic (BetaBeta is an early release of software or some other product or service to see how users use it to inform further development of it…. Learn more →) in Adobe Illustrator.
Credits
Image: A pattern made up of a repeated icon of three books in a pile on top of each other. The top book has a lavender cover, the middle book has a forest green cover and the bottom book has an pastel pink cover. The piles of books are on an electric blue background. The icon is an adaptation of an vector graphic generated by Elliott Bledsoe using the AIAI is tech and marketing speak for a range of technology that imitates human intellect. Learn more → tool Text to Vector Graphic (BetaBeta is an early release of software or some other product or service to see how users use it to inform further development of it…. Learn more →) in Adobe Illustrator. Prompt: ‘Hand drawn pile of books simple lines’.
Provenance
This blog post was produced by Elliott Bledsoe from Agentry, an arts marketing micro-consultancy. It was first published on 20 Oct 2024. It has not been updated. This is version 1.0. Questions, comments and corrections are welcome – get in touch any time.
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Unless otherwise stated or indicated, this blog post – (Un)read in the ledger: Monday 7–Sunday 13 October 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.
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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 AIAI is tech and marketing speak for a range of technology that imitates human intellect. Learn more → 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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