Copy left or right?

Remix seems to be a common trend in modern North American society. The most common forms of it that we think of is in music and video with people gaining worldwide popularity from honing their craft, such as Dj Dangermouse and Girl Talk. Passionate debate ensues not on the fact that this behavior is happening, or even that is increasing. The feverish discussion surrounds the topic of legitimacy, is it stealing the work of others or creating something new entirely?

The one side which can identified as those in favor of copyrighting, believe that intellectual material should be protected the same as physical property, with strict ownership laws and restriction of use. On the other side is the ‘copyleft’ believe in less restrictive uses of intellectual property, where open sharing of materials is allowed and even appreciated.

In order to fully understand where I stand on the issue I thought about my uses of creative content. For the most part, my tendencies are not to be on the side of creating new intellectual material, I don’t sing or play and instrument successfully enough for anyone to want to use my material. However as a communications student its possible that one day I come up with an amazing idea at work, like a successful advertising campaign or promotional concept. If the stars align and I come up with something thats genius, I would expect to be the one to profit from my work. As unfortunate as this is going to sound, our capitalist society is profit focused and many of the great intellectual property of our time has been created for the purpose of making money, if one doesn’t stand to profit from his ideas they might no longer exist, some might not put their time and effort into creating genius intellectual property without it.

I suppose the way to get the two sides to coexist surrounds the idea of intent. How does the ‘pirate’ or ‘remixer’ intend to use the intellectual property of others? As Sousa points out, the content should be legally used to display ones creativity and passion, just as cover-bands or a musician with a guitar around a campfire use songs they don’t own. I agree with the laws that stop others from using others intellectual property to profit, in the cases where the profit is averted from the rightful owner.

An example of this is the 'pirate' that leaked the movie ‘The Dark Knight’ before its official release date. The perpetrator has just recently been sentenced for his 2008 crime, and stands to serve two years in prison for attempting to sell the film on counterfeit dvds. Since the sale of these counterfeits takes away from the possible profits of those who own the intellectual property behind the movie then it his punishment seems rational, and I think Lessing would agree. There is no doubt that the current laws are outdated, but the direction and extent of the new laws is still largely unknown territory.

Do you youtube?

In ‘The Cord’ newspaper’s New Years edition there was an article that discussed the most influential technologies of the last decade. I remember when I read it I was surprised by how many of the items that we use daily, that most of us couldn’t imagine our lives without, had only been developed and gained popularity in the past ten years. Two social networking inventions that were specified were Facebook and Youtube, both of which you’d be hard pressed to find a student who doesn’t use one or both of these websites in some capacity each and every day.

The discussion in class on February first questioned how we use youtube, how often, and for what purposes. These questions would be different for all of us, but the class all agreed that we had all used both facebook and youtube at least once that day. The magnitude of this realization is important to understanding our socio-political culture.

Depending on who you ask, youtube was released in either 2005 or 2006 ... only 4 or 5 years ago! One thing we all agree on however, is how quickly it was included into our society and the extent of its popularity. Mcquire would point out, we should not understand it to be a result of technological determinism, technologies don’t change things, we do by how we use them. This brings me back to the questions about how I personally use youtube. I guess I would be considered a passive user. I don’t “broadcast myself,” add to the discourse on other peoples uploaded videos, or even spend much time searching for videos.

Michael Wesch demonstrated in his video that youtube broadcasts about 9000 hours everyday, and that 88% of that is new and original. And also that my age group is one of the top contributers, so I perhaps Im behind the times. Now that Im a blogger perhaps I’m on my way to advancing the scope of my involvement in the public sphere even further.. I’ve already decided that if I do decide to participate, I want to join the “global mixer” and do the numa numa dance!

Bloggers have it right?

This class is my first encounter with blogging and my first time contributing in any meaningful way to the public sphere. Perhaps it is for this reason that I continue to be surprised by the dedication of some bloggers to their ‘work’ and the social influence they can have. It makes perfect sense that I have been naive to the importance of the blogosphere as the majority of the information I am surrounded with comes from mainstream news outlets. As was demonstrated in this weeks presentation through the use of a political youtube clip about why a candidate dropped out of the running, blogs are often immediately discredited in the ‘Liberal Media.’

I had not previously considered the relationship some bloggers have to the public discourse they contribute. The case of the Hilary Clinton supporters from the blog ‘The Daily KOS,’ blogging to some people has increasingly been viewed as an important Since we live in a capitalist, economy based society one would expect obtaining capital would be at the heart of all labour intensive avocations. The fact that one could strike from a self imposed past time is an interesting concept. Usually when we hear of a strike it is a union or a group of people who want more money, as has been far too many times in my educational career. With the absence of money prompting this strike it made me wonder what is driving this level of dedication. Without monetary distractions bloggers focus often shifts towards more meaningful purposes. Maybe they’re on to something?