The high court ruled it’s okay for Hollywood to sue Internet companies that help distribute pirated digital music and video. While I can certainly understand the weeping and gnashing of teeth from the freedom crowd — of which I’m a card-carrying member — this was inevitable. The man, as we used to call it, simply isn’t going to lay down and let people run all over him, not with a legal system that supports the modernist, top-down infrastructure.

If, in fact, we’re in a bottom-up, personal media revolution, in which, as Adam Curry noted at Gnomedex, we’re “taking back the media,” then this should be viewed as just another example of the status quo rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Let them. Let the RIAA be the RIAA. Let the motion picture crowd be the motion picture crowd. We’ll simply move our business elsewhere. There’s some great music being written and performed at the bottom. So, too, with videos. One day, great films will be done likewise. The message of this revolution ought to be that we really don’t care what the top has to say or do.

And the lesson for developers and artists alike is to stop trying to fight the man and be the man at the same time. I’m amazed at the number of smart tech people who have the bottom-up vision but choose instead to attack the personal media revolution’s business potential from the top-down. Why do we do that?

Let’s just build our culture and get on with it.

Stewart Pittman’s (aka “Lenslinger”) latest is another beauty. Stewart is a contemporary news photographer who understands what’s taking place in the media world. Go read it.

(Disclosure: WKRN and KRON are my clients)

The audience at Gnomedex was gracious and warm as they sat and listened to what’s happening with WKRN-TV in Nashville. I was surrounded by people with business cards after the presentation, and I assume that means it went over well. Hey, they applauded. I’ll write a summary of the pioneering efforts of WKRN after I get back to Nashville, but for now I want to post a few thoughts about the conference itself.

The best presentation was from Julie Leung, who writes “images and insight from an island in the Pacific Northwest.” Her blog is a wonderful and creative look at her life, one that is humorous, wondrous and often profound. She wrote and delivered a 40-minute slide-show about how her own blogging has lifted her sense of belonging in many ways and how that impacts society. It was compelling, emotional and beyond anything I can put into words. Gnomedex will be making audio and video segments, and I hope you get the chance to hear this. The real joy of working with the blogosphere for me is the discovery of the vast talent that exists in the homes and neighborhoods around us. Thank you, Julie.

Adam Curry had the line of the conference: “We’re taking back our media.” This is what the personal media revolution is all about. Curry told the stories of a band and a piano player, whose careers have been jump-started, because he played their tunes on his podcast show. He spoke of returning music to the people and yanking it away from the machine that determines what’s good and what’s not.

All throughout this event, I felt the winds of change and had the distinct feeling that something enormous is brewing. I felt it once before, during the 60s, and I thought I’d never feel that again. Some compared this Gnomedex to Woodstock. I smiled and then got serious as they spoke of the global impact of what’s happening on the cutting edge (aka: the lunatic fringe). This is bigger than the 60s.

I’m forever grateful to Harry Hayes of Sausage Software for being my gracious host and for introducing me to Chris Pirillo, the “image” of Gnomedex.

I’ll be heading back over to Gnomedex in a little while, and I’m hoping the rain will hold off until I get there. I’m presenting to this “Who’s Who of the Tech World” this afternoon as part of a panel on the future of media. With me will be J.D. Lasica and Cory Bergman. Cory runs the top television news blog in the world, Lost Remote. Both of these guys are friends.

I’m going to be talking publicly for the first time about one of my clients, WKRN-TV in Nashville — specifically, their involvement in the local blogosphere in Nashville. When people speak of “the blogosphere,” it’s usually like talking about “the world.” This global context is misleading, for the blogosphere is a bottom-up communications phenomenon, and where is the bottom? It’s at the local level in a thousand places. It is a fantastic resource for local media, and I encourage my clients to get involved. WKRN has done that in spades, and I’m proud to be associated with them. Mike Sechrist is the most clued-in general manager in all of television.

Time to hit the shower.

What follows will be a love fest for Dave Winer, so if that might offend you, I encourage you to stop reading.

Dave was in Nashville for BlogNashville in early May, and I was among the voices that criticized him for what happened in a session he was leading. Comments were made on other blogs, and that led to some pretty hard feelings. I believe I called him an ass.

I want to take this moment to publicly apologize to Dave for that and to tell you all why.

Firstly, as someone who preaches the value of argument in communications, I reserve the right to have my mind changed from time-to-time. This is the risk that must be taken in order to participate in conversations, especially those that involve argument. It’s a risk many aren’t willing to take, and this is rampant in the cocoon of contemporary mass media.

Secondly, Dave Winer’s pioneering efforts in new media warrant respect whether he opens his mouth or not. You don’t have to like the guy, but you damned well better respect the work he’s done.

I’ve done a lot of soul searching since that day at BlogNashville, and I’d been looking forward to seeing Dave here at Gnomedex. We had a chance to talk, and I listened to what he said. We may never be friends in the way I’d like us to be, but I have an entirely different opinion of the guy after seeing him keynote the opening session. There are people who like Dave Winer here and there are people who don’t. He handled a couple of harsh digs gracefully and with humor, and his demand that the participants follow his lead in the session was more understandable here than it was in Nashville. He did qualify his presentation here by saying, “I have opinions, and some of you may not like them.”

The point is I have a much better understanding about what happened in Nashville, and I think I was far too snarky in my commentary. Dave coined the term “unconference,” so he knew the unwritten rules, while most present in Nashville did not. Those were understood up front here, so even though there was disagreement, at least it was civil. Nobody got their feelings hurt, and I think that largely due to this understanding.

I hope that history rightly reflects his contributions to the personal media revolution and that his role isn’t colored by surface judgments and political differences. Up close and personal, he is as warm and friendly a human being as you’ll ever encounter. To those predisposed to a red state mindset, he’s standoffish, opinionated and wrong. He’s opinionated, true. But that doesn’t make him less of a person than the next guy.

I just wish I’d known him better before leaping to conclusions.

Dave, I’m sorry.

Here’s more.

So here I am in Seattle at Gnomedex5. For those unfamiliar, this is THE gathering of geeks on the planet (smile when you say that). Actually, it’s more than that. These are the folks who are driving tomorrow’s disruptive technologies. I’m on a panel tomorrow about the future of media.

I’m reading an interesting book called “WHAT THE DORMOUSE SAID, How the 60s Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry.” It chronicles the life and times of the people who developed what we now take for granted, and I get a sense of that kind of history here.

I’m also getting to spend some time with Harry Hayes of Sausage Software, a man and a company with which I’ll be doing a lot of business downstream (already am). Harry was kind enough to pay for my hotel room, and I thought you’d enjoy the view.

Here is the latest essay in the series TV News in a Postmodern World. This one flows from my participation with the Ball State University think tank that I’ve written about previously in this blog. The quotes from Henry Adams alone are worth a few minutes of your time. Enjoy.

Chaos at the Door

BONUS: Note the comment by Susan. Great stuff.

BONUS2: Alex Rowland adds his typically insightful spin:

It’s not even like I’m 60 and looking back at “them young whippersnappers.” I’m 33 and most of my friends are in their 30s and 40s. And most of them, while technically adept, don’t have a clue about much of what is coming down the pike. They can barely use Bloglines effectively, let alone Del.icio.us. This used to be true of people in their 50s and 60s a decade ago. It’s as if wisdom is taking a quick flip from old to young. It’s now those at the beginning of life that hold the keys to knowledge. The older you get, the more experience you have, but the less valuable this experience becomes as the utility of experience approaches obsolescence at an ever increasing pace.

David Weinberger is feeling snippy this morning:

From USA Today:

With boy safe, searchers celebrate
Prayers answerd in Utah mountains as lost 11-year-old is found after 4 days

Maybe I’m feeling snippy this morning, but in the interest of fairness, I expect to see a headline like the following soon:

Body of missing pretty white woman found
God turns deaf ear to distraught parents

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