week 1 - Response to Blogger - 1

Week 1 Reading - Blog Post 1

Copyright Issues Week 1 - edm613

After read-watching the plethora of information about copyright laws, sampling, fair-use policies and creative commons, I was was left with a much better understanding of the arguments au courant, but also a couple of questions of my own.

What happens when you put technology in the hands of cultures for which the concept of sharing and commerce is other than our own? I'm imaging the possible mindset of an individual in the culture that I was previously a part of and trying to empathize. In Papuan Amungme culture, not only do men have as many as 10 wives, but, at one time in their not so distant past, Amungme women lived in honai sharing men and breast-feeding the children of their "sisters". They lived communally in every sense of the word. It would have made no sense to them neither to request a fee for nursing nor to lay claim to a particular man of the tribe. Fast forward to today, when several Dani, 'Me and Komoro (Papuan tribes) are in possession of cellular phones. If someone in the “tribe” has music, then why not share it with everyone? And if for some reason, someone in the "tribe" happens to find a way to extract money from others for their recorded music, then they would be considered to have “good mojo/luck/sorte” and therefore their neighbor would likely open the very same music selling business right next door to them. Soon after, it would not be surprising to find fifteen others who've all set up shop in the same area. However, it is unlikely that any money would be made in the end. In Papuan culture, all distant "brothers" of the shop owner would be allowed to take their recordings for free. You can see how this issue would be compounded when your father may have nine other wives. The aforementioned being one of the reasons that most shops are owned by the settling cultures of Papua. Anyway, this is the way of the “developing world” I’ve had the great fortune to visit. I'm simply trying to empathize and can see that if the Papuan's had the voice that the Pirate Bay was afforded, that they might also be saying, "*&$% off!"

I saw the magnitude of the issue firsthand in the Blok M area of Jakarta and Plaza Azul market in Lima; that is, literally blocks of vendors selling bootleg merchandise. Their culture, not like that of the Amungme, did turn a profit despite the overrun market. This speaks volumes to the demand of cheap available, film and music. So, when I overheard someone in the film Good Copy, Bad Copy say something like, Everyone knows the only ones making any money here are the street vendors, I could totally relate. Furthermore, I concur that there is no easy way to put an end to the flagrant disregard for copyright law in other countries.

Could we charge a flat fee for Internet, mobile, or data plans, accepting that downloading would be happening? Sure, here in the States that might work. In some other countries, like Indonesia, only a few would have enough money to have their own connection and most are unlikely to fork-out the extra for unlimited downloading. So someone would still be sharing via USB swapping or hacking into corporate bandwidth and the problem would continue. Perhaps this is another issue for the gamers mentioned on Jane McGonigal’s Ted Talk titled Gaming can make a better world. If enough hours and minds were thrown at this dilemma, it might be solved. Still it is not an easy fix. "Who can compete with free?"

Couch Potato or Crouching Potato?

I tend to agree with the thoughts of my fellow couch potato gen-x’r(his name was not indicated)

as seen in Ralf Christensen’s film Good Copy, Bad Copy when he said, teens in this generation create and make material (i.e. sampling) and that is their natural way to understand the world around them for us in the “couch potato generation” this may be bizarre and difficult to understand. We can either create a bunch of laws, which make it impossible for them to do this or give them an even larger sampling from which to choose, so that they will have a better understanding of their history and ways to say something about their future.

Oh, and us couch potatoes, love propping our derrières on divan, laptop at our fingertips while we collage away, adding layer upon layer of copyrighted images to our rambling thoughts. Though I can safely say that all still images contained in this blog are downloadable via creative commons license.

I’m sure I did not quote the film correctly, so here is a clip:

That’s not fair!

I'm assuming that I can use this small bit of footage from our video as I’m making a critical comment though I realize that fair-use is not a right; it is a legal defensible position. Can I make the above point, if I remove the copyrighted material? Sure, but I would have to paraphrase what was said and wouldn't actually make the point as well as our speaker. (See above paragraph).

Is this reasonable practice in the field? You make the call, I’m not sure that I could unravel all the legal jargon. It was about as clear to me as the Debt Ceiling talks.

The Code of Best Practices for Online Video sounds like our APA guide book in that you can skim it for similar situations and then employ “fair use” given the description.

CC Rider

I’m very happy that this university has introduced us to Creative Commons (CC) and insists upon our use of royalty free imagery or permission from the artist. If a move were made for kids to use CC as early as high school, we might find the bank of images available for reproduction growing. It seems like a no-brainer but I do see how difficult and tiring it can be to find just the right image in CC. Wish I could easily access all those used in the video “A Shared Culture” Creative Commons. What I do know is that I could put a query out there to the community and they would help me find what I’m looking for. It’s a brave new world.

“In the end you have to move away from thinking about content to thinking about community.” From the video A Shared Culture Creative Commons

Sources:

Blip.tv video: Good Copy, Bad Copy Directed by ANDREAS JOHNSEN, RALF CHRISTENSEN, HENRIK MOLTKE (http://www.goodcopybadcopy.net/), http://www.blip.tv/file/359180/ retrieved on 6/8/2009

· Youtube video: How to Copyright : Learn What Cannot Be Protected Under Copyright Law by Nathan Boehme/Expert Village, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAfKVg4SACY retrieved on 6/8/2009

· Youtube video: Fair Use and Free Speech in Documentary Film produced by Center for Social Media School of Communication American University, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GY-2YshuJ8o retrieved on 7/18/2009

· Blip.tv video: ReMix Culture: Fair Use is Your Friend: produced by Center for Social Media School of Communication American University,

Blip.TV video: A Shared Culture produced by CreativeCommons.org, retrieved from http://blip.tv/file/1192356/ on 01/13/2011http://www.centerforsocialmedia.org/resources/publications/fair_use_in_online_video/ retrieved on 7/18/2009