Duke Center for the Study of the Public Domain – Works from 1926 are open to all, as is a cornucopia of recorded music: an estimated 400,000 sound recordings: “On January 1, 2022, copyrighted works from 1926 will enter the US public domain, where they will be free for all to copy, share, and build upon. The line-up this year is stunning. It includes books such as A. A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh, Felix Salten’s Bambi, Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, Langston Hughes’ The Weary Blues, and Dorothy Parker’s Enough Rope. There are scores of silent films—including titles featuring Harold Lloyd, Buster Keaton, and Greta Garbo, famous Broadway songs, and well-known jazz standards. But that’s not all. In 2022 we get a bonus: an estimated 400,000 sound recordings from before 1923 will be entering the public domain too!
How Public Workers Can Stop The Privatization of Everything Counterpunch
The week in wildlife – in pictures Guardian
Washington Post: “…It’s the rare thing that Americans of all ages and across the political spectrum largely seem to agree on: They don’t trust social media services with their information and they view targeted ads as annoying and invasive, according to a Washington Post-Schar School poll. Many Americans use social media — and most use Facebook — but 64 percent say the government should do more to rein in big tech companies. People are caught in thrall to platforms and devices that increasingly shape the way we communicate, shop, store important information and otherwise manage the most fundamental parts of our lives. With nearly 3 billion monthly users around the world, Facebook can seem particularly inescapable. Most Americans say they are skeptical that several Internet giants will responsibly handle their personal information and data about their online activity. And an overwhelming majority say they think tech companies don’t provide people with enough control over how their activities are tracked and used. The survey was conducted in November among a random sample of 1,122 adults nationwide…”
The New York Times – “Brands are flocking to the platform like never before, drawn by its more than 1 billion users and its algorithm, which can make an ad seem like just another video…TikTok has been working to make the platform more lucrative for marketers and the creators they work with. And TikTok’s popularity with Generation Z and millennials, who are lured by its addictive algorithm and its setup as an entertainment destination versus a social network, has made the appeal undeniable for retailers. “The growth that we’ve seen is insane,” said Krishna Subramanian, a founder of the influencer marketing firm Captiv8, where roughly a dozen employees are focused on TikTok. “Brands have moved from just testing out TikTok to making it a budget line item or creating dedicated campaigns for TikTok specifically.”…Since August, at least 18 public retail brands, in apparel, footwear, makeup and accessories, have referred to their efforts on TikTok on calls with analysts and investors. Competitors have also taken notice. Instagram, for instance, has developed a TikTok-like feature called Reels and has been working to lure creators. In reports shared with advertisers and obtained by The New York Times, TikTok said Gen Z users, defined as 18- to 24-year-olds, watched an average of more than 233 TikToks a day and spent 14 percent more time on the app than millennials or Gen Xers on a daily basis. TikTok also told one agency that 48 percent of millennial mothers were on the platform, and that women ages 25 to 34 spent an average of 60 minutes on the TikTok app a day…”
Quartz at Work: “…Tactical empathy requires demonstrating to your counterpart how deeply you’re listening to their words and, in effect, how thoughtfully you’re considering their position…A negotiation is typically portrayed as a winner-take-all skirmish. Be it haggling for a higher salary, asking for a promotion, or closing a deal, the process might summon tactics, for example, from Sun Tzu’s The Art of War.Countless MBA courses and textbooks have taught us that business is a battlefield. Ironically, Chris Voss, a top hostage negotiator turned leadership coach, has a different take.
Years with the FBI, and later running a leadership training consultancy called the Black Swan Group, have taught Voss that negotiations entail trust and teamwork more than pinning an opponent to the ground. “I believe in a collaborative approach to conflict,” he says. “One definition of a confrontation is a focused comparison. If we start looking at stuff together, we both get an instinct that what we’re attacking is the problem.” In other words, pushing one’s agenda first entails understanding your counterpart’s motivations. In a four-week MasterClass course titled “Win Workplace Negotiations,” Voss instead suggests tactical empathy—”intentionally using concepts from neuroscience to influence emotions”—as a core stratagem in navigating any type of friction. Helped by the Hollywood-caliber production value that MasterClass has made its signature, the resulting session is like a workplace training video that’s actually engrossing…”