ROFLCon RE: Panel with Christian Lander of “Stuff White People Like”

Posted on 30 April 2008 by Alex Leavitt

Before reading this notescription (which I actually reformatted for your viewing pleasure!), please see my article regarding accuracy and note-taking. “I,” here, does not connote a direct quote from Christian Lander.

FROM WORDPRESS TO THE NEW YORK TIMES
with Christian Lander of
Stuff White People Like
Saturday 26 April 2008, 1:30 pm

Dude, how STUFF WHITE PEOPLE LIKE went from just another blog to over 20 million page views in 3 months. What happened?

——
Christian’s introduction follows.
——
Christian apologized for being a white privileged male.

“Stuff White People Like” was started and the first post published on January 18th of 2008. It is his second blog. His first blog revolved around rating video games which he received for free, starting with NCAA Football 2007 for the X-Box.

The site started when he and his friend Myles were watching The Wire. Myles said that he didn’t trust white people who didn’t watch The Wire. They thought, What about the white people that aren’t watching The Wire? What are they up to? The duo kept listing things and thought it was funny.

Christian went online, typed in and registered the URL at WordPress, and started writing. He only expected it to be read by Myles and maybe two or three friends in Toronto, their hometown.

Nine or ten posts later, Christian’s friend Shawn needed to find a project for a book design layout. The two decided that Christian would set a goal of fifty posts, after which they would put the entries into a book and self-publish in Victoria for the project. To reach that goal, Christian wrote quickly. Traffic started to pick up, reaching maybe 300 hits in one day. Once the website was forwarded to more friends, Christian received up to 1000 hits per day.

Christian heard that a friend had received up to $34 a month using Google ads on his blog. You can’t use these ads on an ordinary WordPress blog, so Christian bought a domain and hosting and then proceeded to install everything on the WordPress server. He registered a .com and .org (because white people as an organization is funny) and added the Google ads, expecting to receive about $40 per month in revenue.

Christian said that as soon as the URL changed from ~.wordpress.com to a regular .com address, the site went from 1000 to over 30,000 hits in one day. The traffic bogged down the website and it went down. People emailed Christian wondering when his blog would be back online (they kept reading his WordPress blog, which was still up).

Talking to the web hosts, Christian figured out that it would be too much money to host independently (and he hadn’t even received his first check from Google!). He decided to move the blog back to WordPress, which would handle the traffic. Apparently, the spike in traffic flow was caused by Comedy Central and Good Magazine (Al Gore’s son’s blog for his magazine) linking to Christian’s website on the same day it was registered.

Once more people heard about Stuff White People Like, more media got hold of the hype. When post #34 (about NPR) was published, NPR interviewed Christian (he biked to the studio). After the website’s publicity on the radio station, SWPL got even more hits.

SWPL was featured in the New York Magazine approval matrix, where it was marked as “low-brow” and “brilliant.” The LA Times and other newspapers picked up the show, as did radio shows. By then, Christian was still working full time.

The media wasn’t behind all of the hype. As people started mentioning that the site read like a book, the idea of publishing one started to mature. Christian said that LOLcats, though funny, would not make a simple transition from the Web to a book. Eventually, WSPL got enough attention that Christian hired a literary agent and there’s a book deal for a publication release this July.

After the news about the book deal was made public, the backlash arrived. Christian said he hates negative responses, which he received from New Republic, Slate.com, and Gawker. He mentioned it is strange being attacked, because the popularity was completely unexpected. He referred to Friday’s LOLcat panel, where it was said that digital authors have to ignore the hatemail, which can be tough. Christian found more dissenters in the comments section of his blog.

He stated that the problem with racism originated from the horrible comments, which were then attributed to the content of the blog. He said that the same thing happens on YouTube, where in just ten posts hateful arguments can easily crop up.

Regarding the website’s statistics, Christian said that it took only thirty days to reach 1 million page views, and then only thirty-three days total (three days later) to reach 2 million page views. Now, the website has received up to 24 million hits in three months. Christian has been able to leave his job (he gets enough money from Google) to pursue the completion of the book.

——
The Q&A session with the audience follows.
——

Q: What is your biographical information? It’s not clear that you are white.

A: I am. One reader wrote four pages about how he thought I might be Asian. A T-shirt I wore in a picture featured on the website conjured thoughts of me being Jewish. I was born and raised in Toronto, and graduated from McGill University. I tried freelance writing in Montreal, then went to graduate school at the University of Arizona for film. I attempted academic writing and a PhD program at Indiana University, but really hated it after two years, so I moved to Los Angeles for an industry job.

Q: How much of the site describes the generic white person, and how much describes you yourself?

A: Almost all of the website describes me. It’s hard to fix on how pretentious I really am, such as how much I really talk about biking in real life. I think that the post about outdoor gear is least like me.

Q: There are many different ways to be white, so do you think that SWPL is focused on any subgroup of white people, or multiple groups?

A: It’s easy to tell this is some group. Today people are trying to find a term to describe the current generation of 25 to 35 year olds. Society needs a new “yuppie” term. What I’m writing about is in the same mentality, that there is a subset of white people who are left-leaning and want to be patted on the back for it.

Q: What would someone who is white and super poor say about the website?

A: Squidbillies is one of my favorite shows. I have received positive feedback from conservatives, who think that SWPL has done a good job poking fun at those people who poked fun at conservatives.

Q: What do you think of the derivatives of your blog? Are they accurate?

A: The ones I’m aware of are “Stuff x People Like”: Asian, educated Black, White parents, gay, Hill, dirtbags, White trash, gay parents, Mexicans. His favorite is “White Stuff People Like,” such as flour, sugar, or drywall. When I started SWPL, I considered it would be hilarious if there were spinoff sites. Like LOLcats, I have to let all of the bad responses go. A lot of the spinoffs are not very funny, because they simply try to catalogue items and it doesn’t come off well. As long as SWPL isn’t directly attached to the spinoffs, then I am fine with them.

Q: A lot of people who read the blog think they’re being made fun of. Why do people like that? Is it unique to white people to enjoy being made fun of?

A: “How many derogatory terms for white people do you know of?” Cracker and honkey are examples, but the response is humored. The key is to not be purposefully hurtful; I have not meant to insight any racial hatred. It’s OK if you can enjoy it. Poking fun at stuff I believe, like about a dumb bicycle, in a non-hurtful or non-demeaning way is fine.

Q: The website has persistent fame that keeps coming back, without people passing around the URL and forgetting about it. How much is attributed to a specific angle or topic, and how much is attributed to the initial push to put content up really quickly?

A: I never thought it’d be big. The one thing that amazed me was how many people feel they’re being described. Most people live being told to think that you’re unique. Writing about that ideal, it was amazing to see how many people are really exactly the same, in spite of also being “unique.”

Q: Would that change if the blog had been written at a normal pace?

A: I’m not really sure.

Q: To leave the horrible comments section in… is there a benefit to having comments enabled?

A: Yes, a comment that a guy made about in my Prius post. I like to give people the chance to participate and talk to each other. Everyone needs a form and a place to write somewhere.

Q: What is the number one thing white people like?

A: Barack Obama.

Q: ROFLcon has been about the relationships between big media and Internet media and their conflict and collaboration. What is your opinion of the alternate media and how it works versus digital media like blogging? Will changing to the other media (ie. the SWPL book) affect the site?

A: In terms of big media, I always wanted to be a journalist. I did internships with radio, magazines, and newspapers, and was always impressed at how big media moved so quickly. With NPR, the show had me interviewed really soon. For Wired and Comedy Central, they try to be on the cutting edge and move quicker than expected. They are listening and paying attention. The book has changed the writing for the site because there’s more being written for the book.

Q: What is your view of alternate media? Where do white people go to get new media?

A: The site that sent the most people to SWPL was Stumble Upon. Another was the blog for the Atlantic by Andrew Sullivan. The section called White People in the News got traffic from the New York Times.

Q: A lot of posts that come up are about white racism. Is there a guilt about that racism, because it’s not on purpose? What do you think about the backlash against it, that white people are being outed as racist?

A: White guilt is a large focus of the website.

Q: The comments on racism are about white people not changing it. Is there backlash from people seeing they’re “racist” and not wanting to be?

A: Most of the backlash hasn’t really been about racial stuff, which is really interesting considering what the site is. The interesting question about race is that I think a lot of people don’t know what to do about it. People believe that if they eat in the right restaurants and give to the right causes, that they’re doing the right thing. Blackpeopleloveus.com is a great site at pointing those things out.

Q: The friend at EA (Myles) who co-conceived the site…

A: He wrote six posts.

Q: How much was he involved?

A: He wrote some content in the book. His writing style is different: more anger and hatred is portrayed.

Q: The focus seems to be communities on the Internet. Where do you live on the Internet? Where do you frequent?

A: Digg and Facebook. The Facebook group for the website got a whole bunch of members. For Wikipedia, Myles and I tried to update the page to link to their profiles, but there were problems. Some nerdy forms of entertainment from my childhood were video games.

Q: Have you been contacted by anyone else to hear more?

A: A few people. SWPL would make a good mockumentary, but it wouldn’t translate well to a film like the story behind One Red Paper Clip.

Q: Race was a big issue at the keynote yesterday, but white people are a big group. How can you subdivide race? Is there a class issue here? You said earlier you were “privileged.”

A: It’s entirely about class, and that’s pretty much obvious whether or not it’s stated. For a long time, white people wanted to believe they were classified as working class or really rich WASPS. The class issue is about the second generation of upper middle class whites, and the growing gap between the upper and the lower middle class. It’s mainstream that a lot of stuff about opportunities and privileges belong to the upper middle class. A belief is that whites can do whatever they want, that being white is not a luxury that everyone has. Being upper class comes with the freedom to do what you want without having to seriously worry about money, to know that you always have a safety net there. It’s really all about freedom.

Q: Is the website changing anything, or just entertaining people, to get people to look at themselves and reconsider their behavior?

A: I don’t want people to actually change, but I don’t like things the way they are. When it’s wrapped up in humor, it’s easier to talk about race. With the election as it is, it’s also an interesting time to discuss race. People are talking about it because of the website. In academic life, people do a lot of talking and not a lot of doing. My only goal was to produce a lot of laughing.

Q: What are the differences between white Canadians and white Americans?

A: White left-leaning Canadians are exactly the same in every single way. Americans, though, pronounce the last latter of the alphabet wrong (it’s “zed”). “English” is the name of the language, so if there’s a dispute, the experts of the language are in England. Also, a wool hat is never a beanie (they have propellers) but a “took.”

Q: Now that you’re moving from the blog to a book, is there any different way you think about writing?

A: The main difference is linking, because you simply can’t do that in a book. In his post on dogs, I mentioned a few things and linked to other funny websites. With the book, that comic element is removed. However, the site is written in a serialized book format, so it is not unique to the book.

Q: What is the usefulness of the comments section? What constitutes selling out? Since it was intended just for you at first, is there a point where you were trying to pull in an audience with certain topics rather than just write things?

A: No, I didn’t want to write to get more people reading, because that would be more controversial. Anything written has to be funny to me first. Referring to Jay, the Tron Guy, when you can detect if someone is trying to do something to be famous, then it becomes really obvious and unenjoyable to watch or read. My stance has never changed, even when a reader sent in a margarita machine in hopes that I would write a post about it.

Q: Regarding the editorial process, have you ever had to go back and reconsider if what you wrote was true?

A: It hasn’t happened yet. But white people like grammar so much that in fifteen minutes I will receive emails full of corrections to grammar and punctuation.

Q: Based on the critiques, how do you respond to very negative comments? For example, do you serve up softball questions or use metaquestions? Do critics misunderstand the website? How do you address these people when they say you’re going easy on Whites?

A: I don’t want to hear the word “meta” again, since I heard it too much in graduate English classes. For the critics, it’s strange when I create something that means another thing to other people. It’s implied that the writer needs to have responsibility. For me, that responsibility is to be funny to myself. It can be tough to do that, but I just can’t listen to the haters.

Q: What is the whitest part of LA?

A: Santa Monica. I can’t stand it.

Q: What’s your favorite meme?

A: LOLcats. I love them because they always make me laugh.

Q: How did you decide to write in the style you did? Could you change it?

A: I wish I had thought it out more at the beginning. I considered the funniest way to go about writing it, then just started composing, and everything grew on its own. I don’t remember making a conscious decision. It’s funny how it all worked out. The strange little decisions are the ones that make the big impacts.

Q: Do you ever think you’ll run out of things to write about?

A: No, but I might. Organic bakeries are opening up all the time. Boston has provided a lot of good ideas.

Q: Why do white people like the things they like?

A: “That’s a deep question…”

Q: “Why do I like the same things that you like?”

A: I don’t have an answer and wish I had a clearer understanding. When I answer the question of what is funny, then everything is answered. I’m not there yet, but I’m close.

Q: Has the website turned into more of a job with a planned out schedule? Or is it still just made of ideas that pop up? Has SWPL become your new job?

A: There’s a very tight deadline for finishing the book, so the real focus at the moment is getting that done. I don’t view the site as regularly scheduled like the others. Everything’s done by me and put up when I’m ready and when I think it’s funny. There will always be tons of new content for LOLcats, but SWPL won’t be around forever.

Notescribing, or The Problem of Accuracy

Posted on 30 April 2008 by Alex Leavitt

When I take notes in class, they tend to become rather extensive. If the professor turns out to be particularly engaging, I may end up with three or four pages of arrows connecting a multitude of disjointed phrases. I will admit though that I compose most of my notes verbatim, or at least recording the precise phrasing used by the instructor.

I continue to wonder now whether or not documenting lectures in this way imitates some sort of plagiarism, or bluntly is a pen-and-paper piracy. I don’t open and close my lecture notes with quotation marks, nor have I ever written the date, time, and name of the presenter as an excuse for a citation.

Recently, when I have attended lectures relevant to the content on my blog, I’ve lugged my laptop to the event and furiously banged out notes via keyboard. In the past few posts, I’ve simply copy and pasted the sketchy outlines directly from my text editor, sans paraphrasing or formatting. However, I doubt many, if not all, members of my audience cannot extract even a basic meaning from these digital (fingers, not technology) excreta. They’re in my own note-taking language, so I don’t blame anyone.

But how do I reformat the notes and then publish them? As I mentioned before, most of the notes I take are fairly verbatim from the presentation. If I translate from notes to prose, and I feel the need to write in a style that includes the first person (“I”), does such a strategy not only plagiarize but also possibly infer misquotations? I decided to call the results of my note-taking methods “notescriptions,” a bastardization of “note” and “transcription” (the latter used because I am sooo close to transcribing word-for-word). So, from a journalistic perspective, I can only hope that no reader will attack me for transcribing, paraphrasing, or simply “notescribing.” I do not intend to misquote in the least. Yet if a reader considers my published notes an attempt at literal faithfulness, then I’ll certainly feel the blow. I recently finished listening to a podcast from MIT’s Communications Forum of a lecture entitled The Emergence of Citizens’ Media, in which one speaker, commenting on the aspiration of newspapers to remain ahead of digital journalism, stated that print journalism must strive not for the truth, but for accuracy. Certainly, as a blogger (read: journalist), I must endeavor for precision. But I’m not recording audio. I’m not video taping. I publish my notes so that people can gain a better sense of the event I attended, the lecture that I sat in on, the generalities of the debate that I am trying to discuss in any of my blogged articles.

My point in direct terms:
I will publish my notes (or, “notescriptions”). They will contain a significant amount of verbatim language. Please do not view the notes as complete and literal transcriptions, nor quote from them as such. Please do regard them as comprehensive (though not perfect) window into a lecture (or any other event) you may have not attended.

Notes from the Q&A with RIAA Reps @ Boston University

Posted on 19 April 2008 by Alex Leavitt

On Thursday, the Office of the Dean of Students hosted a panel discussion and Q&A with two members of the RIAA. Besides my surprise at the scarcity of scathing questions, the panel was informative yet also rhetorically dissuasive.

In terms of this post… I took more extensive notes at the event and will post them below. At the moment, I’m still ambivalent over the issue of liveblogging. I recently came across some liveblogging over on a post on Sam Jackson’s blog (about the college admissions process and his experiences at Yale), and I am still irritated with the compositional style. For now, I’ll be “note-ing,” I suppose. And by that, I mean I’ll simply copy and paste my unformatted, transcribed notes, unedited from the time written. I suppose it would be easier on you readers if I were to organize my note structure so that you could derive the maximal message from these briskly-typed words and erratic punctuation. If I agree with myself in the near future, I will. For now, my notes…

Notes from “RIAA Presentation w/Q&A” at Boston University

(G) Mitch Glazier – Executive Vice President, Government and Industry Relations
(L) Jonathan Lamy – Senior Vice President, Communications
(P) a professor at the College of Communications (whose name I didn’t record)
(Q) questions from the audience

G: music industry: in place in history of great transition: have to implement enforcement program against individuals (unexpected, didn’t ‘want’ to do it); position: if have to do it, done in way that’s fair/effective

worked on: judiciary committee: has jurisdiction over intellectual property issues; about same time: Napster commercialized; misimpression: enforcement is what we do; 3-5% of time spent on enforcement;

RIAA: tradegroup: represents major record companies and labels; federal/state/artist/industry relations; only a few artists make the money that people associate with top artists; creators: make little money, rights they have to make this amount: important; advocating for those rights: then becomes important
also run Gold/Platinum Record program
on lobbying side: tradework: to make sure artists have access in new markets, work against piracy of American products abroad

L: job: put happy face on unpleasant task; how we got to where we are today in terms of lawsuits: we didn’t want to do it, reluctant: came to point 2002/04: industry had lost 1/3 of revenue, had to lay off thousands of people; pursued Napster/Kazaa, some success: piracy still prevalent; penetrated public consciousness
also: educate: younger kids; try to offer music in legal ways: 3-4 years ago: crit: industry: not moving fast enough; now: untrue; marketplace will only work if distanced from methods to get music for free;

G: record company: used to be marketing/distribution company; now: not distribution company (Apple, Amazon, Microsoft); record companies: good news: more people innovating, RIAA: can only license them to do it; licensing: can’t control it; biggest complaints: not against music or record companies; used to be: intellectual property: used to be niche piece of law, now: comm/IP law: blended together; business models that work in legal standpoint: must be created
in standpoint: must find new business models while keeping law
effects of lumpy period: lawsuits

Q: why aren’t going after companies (ie. Kazaa) instead of individuals:

L: we are: lawsuit against Napster: successful; Kazaa: settled; Grokster: went to Supreme Court in 2006: court ruled in RIAA favor: BearShare/eDonkey, etc: worked out deals; lawsuit: pending for Limewire;
answers: 1) it is preference for what want to do

G: users: who are actually stealing; right/wrong: based in individuals; pulling down estimated $10 mill/month; users: benefitting as time goes on; going after services: absolutely necessary: but not going to solve problem by itself
any other industry in US: if had lost 1/3 industry in 5 year period: would have been widespread panic

Q: fair/efffective/reasonable: damages: can exceed $750/song; legitimate purchases of media: when downloaded: not intentional act; fair to be punishing them? tendency of individual to share; where is the incentive for the RIAA to seek a new business model; overall question: why make media?

L: not money making exercise: lose money in lawsuits; how to manage program w/ effective deterents but with sense of reasonableness about it; allow people to settle; up to $4/5k if case goes far; minimum under law: $750 per infringement: will use that amount even if user has thousands of songs;

G: do want deterrents; this IS theft: we and artists view this as theft; coming up w/ reasonable way to enforce: kind of anomaly; have to respect fact that people are in certain income bracket/demographic; when RIAA goes looking on public networks: don’t know who person is, just have number; if have lawsuit: against number; may know if at university or organization or commercial organization (.uni, .org, .com); don’t know who in household could download it, just IP at a computer;
tactic: send letters to universities before have to deal with IP addresses: to settle before we have to approach you directly

Q: don’t always specify damages: $220,000 situated by jury in Jamie ~ case

L: RIAA: didn’t ask for specific amount, left it up to the jurors

G: watch interviews w/ jurors

Q: jurors didn’t just come up with a number

L: judge gave them range under law, jury decided based on variety factors

P: bad experience with jury duty: don’t entrust your case to a court jury

Q: look at statistics for piracy; bulk: occurs overseas; what is RIAA doing to pursue these interests?; why haven’t seen same sort of enforcement in sp. China?

G: time spent in China; IFPI in London: part of big national group; ARIA: RIAA equivalent in Asia; spend so much time through lobbying and trade pressure: to put intellectual property provisions in government

L: RIAA/U.S. just sued China, we’re threatened trade sanctions; China: focused on image; huge: censorship issues; dealing with market where only 2% of artists can be shown; benefit of US: intellectual property engine: produce most information that people want; problem: rest of the world: the user, US: the owner; short-term: when trying to bolster economy: doing it on counterfeiting: works; long-term: will fail

Q: lawsuits: not moneymaking exercise; do you make money off of lawsuits, where does money go?

L: back into program

Q: not given back to artists

G: doesn’t even pay for program

Q: large sums of money made/lost: whatever profit goes back into simply RIAA or record labels

L: not profit, helps pay for program, doesn’t cover cost of program

G: program: not self funded; RIAA: subsidizes the program

Q: how do companies generate revenue? ie. Limewire

G: changed business model; a lot of people pay Limewire $29 for use of limewire client with no advertising; used to sell upgraded version: no advertising, no software client (aka spyware client); spyware: bugs, privacy issues, also responsible for crashing computers; Limewire: new business decision: instead of making money simply through advertising, switched to offering ad-free version for a fee; millions: pay $29 to exchange files w/ other people w/o burden of advertising; now how they mostly make their money; past: banners, spyware, & alternate version; now: from $29 program

Q: give us timeline of how to find someone illegally downloading, send out notification, when it gets to person, when people go to court

L: daily basis: online investigative team: anonymous sweep: can’t target any university or particular person; once evidence is collected: ie user uploading # of songs: after weeks: new wave of prelawsuit letters: will be included in that wave; entity: will show IP: letters sent to IT person at university: forwarded on to student or faculty: given 20 days to contact RIAA and hopefully resolve problem: from when letter is sent (not received); encourage university to forward letters: why deprive student opportunity to settle?; if not heard from, RIAA goes on john doe front: look at IP, try to subpoena university to find person’s identity; if letter is still ignored: will file named complaint: filed in federal court that says you’re sued;

Q: when would the settlement be off the table?

L: original settlement: 20 days to contact; after next letter: original settlement is off the table; costs more money to go to court

Q: why 20 day period?

G: have to pick period: talked to universities: what’s process, how long is reasonable to be forwarded

Q: IT guy: student doesn’t even start clock; time period in past: 30 days starts after student gets letters; BU needs time to
last set of letters: came with 20 day period w/ no explanation; wanted to push back to 30 days: needed time to find student, contact parents/lawyer, etc; can time period change back to 30? because once period is gone, settlement is off the table; w/ short window: doesn’t give student enough time to consider settling
how long does it take at BU? — goes through IT, general council office, dean of students office (who sends out actual letters); students receive letters; emails/phone calls exchanged for technical & legal questions; BU: tries to do it as fast as possible; 2-4 days before student even hears

L: wants contact information for BU IT guy

Q: “worst company”; angered people; lost fans for musicians; what is endgame? where will you be in 10 years?

G: multiply new marketing strategies & business models by 10 or 100: so many new ways to approach situation; endgame: business models that come from consumer demand, that match technological capabilities that mirror those available in the market; working with licensing & distribution partners: necessary;

L: before began litigation: P2P traffic: growing; now: flatter: partly reflection of RIAA’s action; now: public awareness of what you can/can’t do; legal marketplace: grown: 2/3 years ago: revenue streams: zero, now: 25%; legal marketplace: given footing to succeed; had nothing happened: P2P piracy: more significant; people: not buying based on perception of RIAA

Q: detection methods: not stated by partners

G: how to discover violations: P2P open network: advertising infringement to rest of world; would they explicitly state their methods? crawler technologies;

Q: education: most people not education about copyright law, even lawyers: not educated; how will consumer know if website is properly licensed? how many people know how to share their songs, etc legally?

G: P2P: legal technology; not that itself, but if you’re abusing technology to achieve end; media & even academic articles: question: whether or not business model of these companies: “legal”? surveys done by RIAA: people said: looks like it was legitimate; general confusion about if OK to take files/someone else’s work; consumers: duped; [section 106/107 of copyright act]

P: question of whether P2P was legal: debate: substantial non-infringing use? judges: 3 said yes, 3 said no, 3 said maybe;

L: no dispute over law that is clear; we’re enforcing our rights based on law; what we’re bringing lawsuits about is clear-cut: pure old copyright law; no court: has rejected any cases

G: 1995: intellectual property treaties; US: signed onto treaty: demand that countries signed: making available right; US: took pronounced position: don’t need to amend laws because have already right of publication; publication/distribution: synonymous?

Q: clarification: how you determine if you were actually infringing; ie. wireless routers; UMG v. Lindor

L: not interested in suing someone not liable for their actions; want to determine actual infringer

G: also don’t want to provide game map for beating the system; ultimately: important to enforce rights against the correct person

Q: digital marketplace correcting itself; cooperation with users; DRM & the future of linking to music

G: most of linked sites now: licensed sites; future of digital marketplace: will exist of many sites/services by small innovators and others who achieve licensing & who work to distribute with creators in an official way;
record companies: own the copyrights
notice of takedown: website or service is free from liability, until receive notice: then lose immunity & can be taken down for liability