Opting for a freer culture

by Marjohara Tucay

The  discussion on copyright, I believe, not only stems from the encroachment of our ability to create and use past works for such. The issue on copyright is a systemic dilemma, a chronic crisis brought about by the reigning capitalist order.

As capitalist continue to devise means to earn more profit by making products out of everything and promoting a consumerist culture that lavishes on the concept of "private property," the concept of the "communal" has continually been effaced. Our consumerist selves revel on ownership and has forgotten how in the beginning there is no "private" to speak of, as everyone owns everything.

Along with the encroachment of capitalism and the hegemony of consumerist culture, the concept of "intellectual property" -- the ownership of ideas has also taken hold. And yes, copyright laws stem from that idea.

We must remember, that copyright laws, as being essentially a product of global capitalism, will inevitably suffer the crisis of this system -- the downward spiral of profit-earning -- monopoly. In the very near future, not only would capital be in the hands of those in the highest echelons of society, but so will ideas, so will creative output. In time, the global market will devise wilier ways to prohibit us to even create, as they would claim ownership on everything.

Thus we should struggle for a free culture -- a climate of sharing under the ideology that no one owns anything as everyone owns everything. There should be no restrictions in the use of past works. Build upon them! Be inspired by them! This, I believe, would usher in a new Renaissance Age, one where everyone will be empowered to create and to share.

If we opt for a free culture, we are hurtling ourselves onto a great wall that is global capitalism. But through our collective efforts, we can make this happen.

(The music bed is a combination of the songs "On the Floor" by Jennifer Lopez; "Stereo Love" by Edward Maya; "Love Generation" by Bob Sinclair; and "What I Am" by Will.I.Am. Inspired by the book "Free Culture" by Lawrence Lessig and "Postmodernism: The Cultural Critique of Late Capitalism by Fredric Jameson.)

All videos used in this work were taken from YouTube and is viewable in the following links:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWxqSEMXWuw&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5ShMZ0Xy2Q

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4H_Zoh7G5A

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0NSeysrDYw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyVzjoj96vs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58dYsywoQzE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOP2V_np2c0

Downlod. Edit. Upload.

Download, tanggalin ang konteksto.

Edit, ibahin ang konsepto.

Upload, iba na ang konteksto.

That’s what I did (or tried to do) with my video mash-up.

Actually this video was my project in an editing class last semester (yeah, please disregard the inconsistencies in quality and lighting, my professor already said his piece about that). This is a musical interpretation of Toplader’s Dancing in the Moonlight. I used nine different videos to create this mash-up. My aim was to show fight scenes not as brutal act but orchestrated performance in the form of dancing. As what Marybeth Peters said in Remix, what I did is “taking something that was and turning it to something it wasn’t.” Download, edit, upload. Many people are doing this online, not only me or Girltalk.

Download, tanggalin ang konteksto.

“Culture emerges from constant interaction and negotiation between people.” This interaction happens online through sharing of ideas and creative content. Interaction in the internet starts with clicking on the links and discourse happens not only in the chat room but in modifying other people’s works as well. Most of the time, our mindset is that the author is dead; we make our personal interpretations of texts or creative products we see online.

Downloading gives us a sense of ownership or right to a property. Then we will have control over it. We can reconstruct what we have downloaded by influencing it with our personal experiences. We adapt it to our daily lives. For example, we download photos of beautiful beaches in the Philippines from a Flicker account of a tourist. We then make one of the photos our desktop wallpaper. Thus, in a way we remove the original context of the material and make it a part of our daily lives. The context is no longer the happy memories of a vacation but an inspiration or a dream summer destination. The context is no longer that of the uploader’s but it has become our own.

Edit, ibahin ang konsepto.

Robbins (1995) supposed “virtual world may be seen as constituting a protective container within all wishes are gratified.” In the virtual or online world, we can be the producer/director/writer/editor of our ‘own’ productions. This is particularly true with who Henry Jenkins calls “textual poachers”—the fans. According to Jenkins, “Fans actively assert their mastery over the mass-produced texts which provide the raw materials for their own cultural productions and the basis for their social interactions”(1992). They ‘edit’ the materials available online (most of the times files they share) and create their own world out of it. Subsequently it becomes the “cultural product” of the fandom. That is why they have fanvids, fancams, fanzines, fanart, fanfics, etc.

Atton is right when he said “we are seeing an erasing of the boundaries between amateur and professional creative practices.” A lot of editing softwares are accessible online. Most of it is user-friendly. Anyone now can do magic with images without the guidance of an expert. Going back to the example I gave, anyone can create a collage of the photos and make it their wallpaper. Anyone can produce a video presentation of his/her dream vacation from the downloaded photos.

Upload, iba na ang konteksto.

Atton (2004) argues that “the creative work is developed socially—through collaborative creation, circulation, commentary and consumption. The Internet has facilitated collaborative creation to a great degree.” This is the idea behind ProdUser. Content online became a collaboration: “social authorship is concerned with the creative collisions between the author as a contemporary creator, as a historical component within cultural production and previous authors; all combine in the field of cultural production.”

Again, my example about the photo-collage, we can upload and make it our profile picture in social networking sites. That way, we have changed the context of the photos. Of course there would be a lot more examples better than what I have given but my point here is that in the process of downloading, editing, and uploading we make creative contents our own.

Download, edit, upload. We do it everyday. 

Downloading happens when we create a mental image of other people's works and store it in our memories. For example, when we look at a painting in a museum and remember how it looks like, how we felt, and what we experienced while staring at it. By subjecting other people's creation on the context of our own experience, we are downloading and editing their work. Uploading happens when we write a reaction paper or a blog post about the trip to the museum including out encounter with the painting. 

Download, edit, upload  is a routine we do in our daily lives. The question now is, is it bad?

Based on the copyright laws, yes. But as far as Lawrence Lessig is concerned, it is not bad. Culture is crafted when ideas are created and recreated. It works like a cycle. 

We should (re)live in a free culture where it is filled with property but the property is not be feudal. We make the past the foundation of the future but we must not allow the past to control the future.

References:

Atton, C. (2004). An Alternative Internet: Radical Media, Politics and Creativity. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press

Jenkins, H. (1992). Textual Poachers: Television Fans & Participatory Culture. London: Routledge, p.23-24.

Lessig, L. (2004). Free Culture. New York: The Penguin Press.

Robbins, K. (1995) “Cyberspace and the World We Live.” In Cyberspace, Cyberbodies Cyberpunk: Cultures of the Technological Embodiment, edited by Featherstone, M. and Burrows, R. London: Sage, p. 143.

RiP: A Remix Manifesto.

Chryl

NO COPYRIGHT: We're born this way

  

             One of the most interesting topics I learned in my Internet-related classes Broadcast Communication 148 (Interactive Broadcasting) and Communication 150 (Internet and New Media Culture) is about Copyright or the Intellectual Property Rights of an author or producer of a creative product.

            Copyright or the economic right of the author to reproduce copies of his/ her work is a prohibition to one’s creativity to reproduce or to create a derivative to the author’s work or ideas. It is a big issue nowadays especially that the Darknet (Biddle and colleagues, 2002) or file-sharing websites and other applications are now available on the Internet which gives an easy way for the audiences to just download the files online instead of buying the album in music stores.

            I believe that no matter how strict the policies on copyright, the Internet still continues to serve as an avenue to express and to liberalize one’s self. Thanks to the Creative Commons for reserving not the entire right of the author and that only some can be protected by the law.

            This video challenges any copyright that the videos used herein have and also on the song Born This Way by Lady Gaga. 

YOUR AVATAR: SHOW ME THE REAL YOU

Video by Jalyssa May Caccam

Title: YOUR AVATAR: SHOW ME THE REALY YOU

I acknowledge that this video wouldn’t be possible without the videos and pictures I used

 (Please see list of sources) 

Thank you for the people who allowed me to use their Facebook profile pictures (Comm150 Classmates and Friends) J

This video talks about the effects of the Internet and how it changed the way we interact, build relationship and the way of living. This also summarizes the things I learned from the course.

Song: Born this way by Lady Gaga

Sources:

http://th06.deviantart.net/fs29/300W/f/2008/176/e/6/hello__i__m_vain__by_baxxx.jpg

http://complicatedbella.files.wordpress.com/2007/10/vain-me.jpg

http://static.technorati.com/11/02/21/27479/facebook.jpg

http://jeremy.zawodny.com/i/facebook-profile.jpg

http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/images/2007/10/29/bg_facebook.png

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Alba-Jessica/304045381665

http://www.facebook.com/ProfileMakerApp

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Katty-Perry/53611502951

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Anne-Curtis/38270334750?ref=ts

http://www.facebook.com/BabyVAH

http://www.facebook.com/aldrin.soriano

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1551975942

http://www.facebook.com/faithrecile

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1013416032

http://www.facebook.com/jaralucero

http://www.facebook.com/jeybiii

http://www.facebook.com/kath.gabaon

http://www.facebook.com/marijoejoe

http://www.facebook.com/marjoharamon

http://www.facebook.com/marji.manlunas

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=731938850

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1194751442

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000310955409

http://www.facebook.com/alvingalvez?ref=ts

http://www.facebook.com/joan.caccam?ref=ts

http://www.facebook.com/jcaccam?ref=ts

http://www.facebook.com/madalynlej23?ref=ts

http://www.facebook.com/madalynlej23?ref=ts

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1402515133&ref=ts

http://www.facebook.com/japholcaccam?ref=ts

http://www.facebook.com/TikiResort

www.facebook.com/cityofwonder

www.apps.facebook.com/supertycoons

http://www.ebay.ph/

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFHIUVeyklPcdLfm0wN519xLbwik5fVYCeWDdhcmSYSMoOi1OlG9UOXD8BEty50I0dPScHQsNdhFG2SnPenNjEJuH3N1BjEY59N_bN9QcpVdfX0bFYfShHcfOQX5M_yjBGO_jtOgAUh36a/s1600/Who+You+Are+Is+What+You+Do_BeatnikPublishing.jpg

http://media.cnbc.com/i/CNBC/Sections/CNBC_TV/CNBC_US/Shows/Suze_Orman/Slide_Show/Top_10_Money_Tips/Top_10_Money_Tips_Slide06.jpg

FB Friendship

Took off from one of my favorite discussions in class, friendships in Facebook!
We discussed how friendship is being redefined by this online social network.
I went through a little bit of observation, and saw a parallelism however, on how friends interact in real life and how friends interact in Facebook. What do you guys think? :)



F.Recile

LL & CC: Lawrence Lessig and Creative Commons

A Mash-up by Margie Manlunas (non-profit, school requirement)

CREATIVE COMMONS

Spread the word.

Thank you to the owners of the videos used:

Prof. Lawrence Lessig Explains Creative Commons Licensing

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWxyx5iYdvI

Lawrence Lessig: "Don't Mess This Up, California." Pass ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZy13Hw3RvU

Lessig Remix

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFdcPc-4Ris

A Shared Culture

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DKm96Ftfko

LADY GAGA - Born This Way (Cover)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xG0wi1m-89o

2010 Again (Mashup of 36 Billboard hits from 2010) - DJ McFLY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uhs-Yd7VZk

What is Creative Commons? Wanna Work Together RG Remix

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BESbnMJg9M

All Creative Work Is Derivative

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcvd5JZkUXY

Larry Lessig: How creativity is being strangled by the law (TED)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Q25-S7jzgs

Music: Phoenix - Lisztomania (Inspired from Lessig's video in TED)

Thank you very much LL!

Who Are You Online?

A mash up of on online identities inspired by Aleks Krostoski's "Cult of Me".

I believe that we all create new identities online while still managing to stay real.

Enjoy! No copyright infringement intended. The videos are from various television series.

An Erratic Mind

So...

The first plan I had for this was to make a video blog (featuring none other than my awesomeness *sarcasm*) about the pros and cons of the Internet, which IMO is one of the central themes of the class we had. It was gonna be substantial, yes, but still, it lacked the uniqueness that I wanted my last entry to be.

Then an idea struck me.

Since this course concentrated on the internet as a media platform, what if I use that, and then take the inverse of the subject, inject my own opinion, put in random comments yada yada....

IN SHORT (because when I start blabbering on I won't be able to stop without anybody stopping me at all and OH COME ON.) while others are writing and doing mash-ups about their InternEducation (wow, cool term!) through this class, I'll be talking about my experiences prior to the internet--specifically, something like "How to not use the Internet".

You might be thinking, "hah, this guy's crazy. In this age? Not using the internet? Yeah. Hands down, borderline crazy." but hey, to each his own, alright? Besides, look where this guy's crazy idea of connecting computers to share files got us. Now, what do you have? Basically an anything-at-your-fingertips-and-everything-at-your-disposal culture.

It's really not hard to imagine life without the Internet (hey, I lived a few years of my *early* life without it, and my parents more, and I surely don't see anything wrong with that) but if I were to decide, I'd be able to

enumerate three different ways on how not to use the internet. Haha. Read on.

Is it hard to live without this? Hardly.

1. You keep on posting status updates and commenting on others' statuses and you HARDLY know everyone in your "friends" list and yet you act like you do. Go out and spend time with them! Actual, 'physical' time!

I know, I shouldn't generalize. Some more "friendly" people know everyone in their friends list. Heck, perhaps they've met everyone there personally at least once in their lives, and for some that's enough to say that they're friends with that person. Still, it's definitely better to be able to interact on a more personal level with your friends--that is, unless you hold a grudge against your friends or they you.

I'll present one case in my life as an example. When the IRC clients came out (I think the IRC stood for Internet Relay Chat)(and after a quick search was verified--see the 'ease' I'm talking about?!) it was a matter of going into a virtual 'room' and, when you feel comfortable and/or arrogant, you choose someone in the room, double-click their name to bring up the PM (private message) window, and then ask their "asl" (age, sex, location)--after which you'd have struck a conversation--and a friend. I remember back then Friendster was almost new, and that most of the IRC people had them so we were also able to 'see' each other.

I also met one of my chatmates through EB's (eyeballs), although that was because one of she was actually going to our High School as a freshman. Withholding elaboration, we managed to have a decent friendship, but still, nothing beats being friends with someone through physical interactions.

On the other hand, there are some who start forming relationships (friendship and more) solely through the web. Well, yeah, sometimes it works, sometimes people actually get married after meeting through the internet (although I have yet to verify all those stories in that page, I do know that there have been a few news items about the subject here and there) but there are also cases where people manage to pretend about a lot of things about them, because it is easy to do that with Social Networking Sites and nobody to verify each and every person's profile--what they claim to be and not to be.
One such issue that comes to mind is the movie (documentary, actually) called Catfish. Since the movie tagline is "Don't let anyone tell you what it is", I won't be telling you what it is until you have watched it. Javascript doesn't work in individual blogposts, and I was planning on making a toggle-able box that you guys can choose to not toggle on so as to not have the movie spoiled for you, so instead I will make the text real small. Good luck not getting spoiled. Lol.

Catfish is a reality/documentary-type movie about Nev Schulman a NY-based photographer, and a little girl named Abby from Michigan, who contacted Nev through Facebook to ask for permission to paint his pictures. All goes well, Nev gets to talk to Angela, who is Abby's mom, Megan, who is apparently Abby's half-sister, Nev receives paintings of Angela's portraits, song covers that somehow sound exactly like some covers found on the internet, and as suspicions arise more and more, Nev gets informed of an art exhibit where Abby's paintings will be featured in a place that has been untouched for the best part of a decade. Suspicious, and also because of Megan's somehow unmatching stories, Nev decides to go with his brother Ariel and his friend Henry (the filmmakers behind the docu) to Michigan, much to the surprise of a very different-looking Angela, an indifferent Abby, and a non-existing Megan.

Later on, Angela finally spills, telling Nev she orchestrated everything including Abby's "paintings" (which are actually hers), Megan, Abby, and Angela's Facebook pages (which are actually just accounts she set up, complete with fake photos except for Abby's), the songs and covers available online that Angela sends to Nev as "Megan's" recordings and the phones she uses for Angela and "Megan".

So, this case is another testament that contributes to the Internet's vagueness--people do fake these things, with none the wiser.

So, like I said, it's still a lot more authentic to interact with people in person. Sure, there are identity frauds and such, but at least you know (read: see) who you are talking to, most of the time.

2. WoW man, DotA great game! You play a lot and you think you're so good but hey physical finesse, have you forgotten about it? Oh my how bulging your belly is!

Let me ask you, how much games do you play on your computers? Consoles? Handheld game thingamajigs? How many more games do you know of that you haven't played yet? How many of these games are online-enabled games?

Thing is, almost every game nowadays has this online component where players from different parts of the globe (or friends in Barangay Silangan) can play with each other, go on 'journeys' together and KS (killsteal) monsters from other players. Hell, in World of Warcraft, they can even have intercourse! (I won't embed the video, for the sake of censorship)

I mean, seriously, how long has it been since you guys last played patintero or two-base or luksong baka? Is it much more fulfilling to frag a foreign player than to tag a friend out of patintero?

Is it more fun to raid an enemy'scamp with your 'online buddies' than to surprise someone playing hide and seek with you? Well, fine, if there are some of you that say yes to these, then whatever, everyone is entitled to their own opinion anyway. In whatever case, I'd still stick to my argument that physical games are the way to go, at least for people younger than me.

Meet the CyBerKada.

That's the thing--just because technology has gone up to a point where toddlers already have handheld games, does it necessarily mean that kids have to grow fat and not go out anymore? Heck, I even remember when we were young, we used to go out at about 4pm (we were about 12 kids in our village street) and play these weird but fun games until about 6pm, and then go home and then play videogames for about an hour or so. Way back, it was the video game that gets the back seat. Now? Not so sure.

Another thing, these online (or video, more generally) games have also brought forth a new era of filmmaking. You guys familiar with machinima? Apparently, people started doing 'films' using 3D games. Here's an example:

I know, traditional cinema still has a lot of life in it, but seriously, do you guys think it will still be as tough as it is, what with all the emerging online video-making and movie-making industry? They are mostly amateurs, granted, but really, is it that far off? Already there are a plethora of YouTube movies that, well, are still substandard probably, but already show potential in terms of concepts.
3. Don't be lazy. Go search for things you need in your library, in your books, notes, whatever! Articles in there are much longer and substantial than sources on the internet!
I realize that the internet is home to a lot of writings on just about anything. I won't pretend to not know that you guys know that already. This is pretty much what I meant when I said that we now have so much on our fingertips.
Then there's the issue of books
being replaced by the internet itself. While this might not seem such a far-off thought, it can't be ignored that still, books are an essential medium with which we can get information from. Nevermind how people rip off novels and produce (replicate, actually) ebooks through their copies--there are still more to books than just the occasional sparkling vampire or the dynamic demigod, and we all know it. Even with the advent of the Kindle, I'm inclined to believe that it will take more than technology to undermine fine print.

So, there. Even if there's definitely a big advancement to technology, there's still a way to go back to basics--basic is best, after all.

Even with how things have been with I.T. advancements in general, the most fail-safe way to 'know' is, of course, to go old-school. After all, advanced technology is the first to go when things like this happen.

Jb Aquino

Sources

http://seanseo.com/business/internet-marketing-education/

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,986354,00.html

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,986354,00.html

http://chutinan17.blogspot.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Relay_Chat

http://www.cyberlove101.com/gotmarried.htm

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1584016/fullcredits#cast

http://www.geek.com/articles/games/world-of-warcraft-might-go-free-to-play-sometime-in-the-future-according-to-lead-designer-2010072/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Osf3wbjzUeM

http://internetwithoutphoneline.com/

http://www.4axioms.net/

http://www.amazon.com/Kindle-Wireless-Reader-3G-Wifi-Graphite/dp/B002FQJT3Q

http://www.ehow.com/how_2100154_survive-post-nuclear-apocalyptic-future.html

You wanna know what I think?

In reaction to Lawrence Lessig's book Free Culture and of some videos of him delivering a lecture, I made this mash-up basically to point out how I value creativity and the right of the people, especially the youth, to express their understanding of what culture is and what it has to offer.

A mash-up created for the course Comm 150 under Prof. Data Canlas

Submitted by: Gelly Queyquep

All videos (except the author's reactions) were from youtube.com

OBB and CBB created by Jacqueline Antonio

(Pardon me for the low video quality. I had to convert it to mp4 so that the site could accommodate the size of my video.)

No copyright infringement intended

Privacy: At Risk
Comm 150: Mash-up
Videos collected and compiled by Jara Lucero
(*Videos cited at the end)
Songs used:
1901 by Phoenix
Love Like A Sunset by Phoenix

Where are we heading?

Ang video na ito ay isang paglalagom ng aking mga natutunan sa kursong Komunikasyon150 o and Introduksyon sa Internet at sa Kultura ng Bagong Media. Ito na rin ang huling akademikong pangangailangan upang opisyal kong matapos ang Comm150.

Karamihan ng mga nilalaman ng mash-up na ito ay ang mga pangunahing bagay na aking natutunan sa pag-aaral ng Internet o ng New Media sa kabuuan. Ang ilan rin ay binigyang inspirasyon sa akin ni Prop. Flaudette May Datuin ng Departamento ng Aralin sa Sining nang siya ay nagbigay reaksyon sa aming papel noong nakaraang Kritika: Isang Colloquium ng mga Mag-aaral ng Brodkasting.

Tunay nga na binabago na ng Internet ang pag-aaral ng media at aking mapangahas na sasabihing kinakailangan na rin ng mga bagong teorya ng akademya sa pag-aaral nito. Sabi nga ni Prop. Datuin, sina Althusser at ang iba mang mga theorists 'are so 20th century'. Sa mabilis nga na pag-advance ng teknolohiya ay kinakailangan nating sabayan ang pagbabagong dulot nito.

Hindi ko naman sinasabing obsolete na ang paggamit kina Marx, Barthes, Bentham, o sino pa man. Ang punto lang na nais kong iparating ay dapat na tayong gumamit ng mga bagong literatura, mga bagong akda ng mga makabagong theorists tulad nina Jenkins, Lessig, o ni Krotoski sa mga aralin na pang-media.

At dahil nga napakabilis na ng pagbabago ng ating lipunan dulot ng Internet, masarap isipin kung saan nga ba tayo patungo. We are in the age of shifting paradigms, a moving landscape, and a changing humanity.

Lubos ang aking pasasalamat kay Prop. Data Canlas sa pagbubukas ng isang bagong perspektiba sa akin at sa mga mag-aaral ng kursong ito. Natutuwa rin ako maging bahagi ng kauna-unahang batch ng Comm150. Nawa'y magpatuloy pa ang ating pag-aaral, pananaliksik, at pagkritika sa Internet and New Media Culture.

P.S.

1. Walang mabigat na dahilan kung bakit isinulat ko ang blog na ito sa Filipino, siguro'y trip trip lang talaga.

2. Pagpasensyahan na ang napaka-amateur na editing ng video.

Sources:

The internet and Abigael De Jesus for the songs.

The internet and Google Images for the photos.

Prof. Data Canlas' lectures and reading list. :)

Just The Way You Are and "A Crazy Little Called Love" Mash-up

This is a Mash-Up of Bruno Mars' Just The Way You Are Music Video and  film "A Crazy Little Thing Called Love".

A Crazy Little Thing Called Love is a romantic-comedy Thai film directed by Putthiphong Promsakha na Sakon Nakhon and Wasin that became very popular among Asian countries. The story is all about an ordinary highschool girl that has a big crush on a hearthrob senior at school. This girl tries her best to improve herself. She improves her physical looks to make the guy see her existence. However the guy seems not to pay any attention to her.

Since I'm really a fan of this movie, I created this mash-up to reverse the story. :)

Sources:
http://www.facebook.com/ACRAZYLITTLETHINGCALLEDLOVE
http://www.facebook.com/crazythingcalledlove#!/crazythingcalledlove?sk=info
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjhCEhWiKXk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lonRfy7Iiu8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a14stuQD6hc&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmukUK4XrOk&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tfhw7_Quj_g&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZbODYaDnf4&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4Bi0AivbZA&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_JbPhdCszk&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0WIKvGW_aI&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaLw1geB7rc&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91jRApNton0&feature=related

Produced by: Kath Gabaon

If the Cap Fits

            I wonder what Berners-Lee has to say about this. Ladies and guys, AT&T has just announced that they will implement a 150GB monthly bandwidth cap on its regular DSL users (250GB for premium U-verse accounts). A bandwidth cap is simply a limit on your Internet usage. The more common type of bandwidth cap is a download quota. Once you go past it, you get charged extra (as in AT&T’s case: $10 for every additional 50GB) or your friendly ISP throttles or blocks your access to the Net (Thanks, COMCAST!). Advocates of network neutrality are against such practices, upholding the principles of a free and unregulated Web. In the other corner, ISP’s argue that the caps must be implemented because of network congestion and the ever increasing amount of data flowing through cyberspace. Biases aside, both are very valid reasons. This issue (or non-issue) deserves attention, not because of its immediate effects, but of its implications.

Inarguably fashionable though!

          
                     To be completely fair to the ISP’s, 150 GB is really big. A moderate Internet user like me wouldn’t even be able to go beyond 20 GB in a month. It’s quite obvious then that the cap wasn’t meant for us modest Internet users. The ISP’s impose caps to regulate their “abusive customers” who downstream and upstream massive amounts of data. AT&T estimates that these users comprise a whopping 2% of their total subscribers. 2%. Two-percent. TWO PERCENT.

            Capacity limits and congestion are the two main reasons for bandwidth caps. With these caps in place, AT&T can “take” bandwidth “freed” up from their “abusive customers” and give it to another person. It’s the concept of fair-use, forcibly applied. It does make some sense but again, these abusive customers make up TWO FREAKING PERCENT of their total subscribers. Why not just spend some of the 8 billion dollars they earned last year to accommodate these high-usage customers? If only the top two percent of users will feel the cap, why not just charge them extra instead of capping everyone else? Why cap the regular customers when it really wouldn’t make much difference to them in the first place?

           

The public might cry “corporate greed!” but would the cap really rake in much more profit in the short run? Again 98% won’t feel it and I think the bandwidth hoarding 2% would start monitoring their usage. This leads me to speculate only on the true intentions behind bandwidth caps.

We should first consider the people immediately affected by the cap. Internet based businesses that require lots of downstreaming should watch out. Services like Netflix will be most hard hit. An HD movie is worth 3.5 GB of data. Also, with the increasing quality and size of movie formats, Netflix and similar companies would feel the cap’s grip the most. Their customers would then budget their Internet use as though it were currency. It wouldn’t seem very fair to put successful and ingenious businesses like Netflix at a disadvantage. Both the business and the consumers lose because of the regulation of the medium that, inherently, is supposed to be “free”.  Ryan Singel, of Wired, wrote “When ISPs force their customers to watch the meter, experimentation, innovation and business will suffer,” Turner said.

Now, let’s look at the potential reasons behind the cap. The most logical and most probably cause is profit. Again, in the short run, it wouldn’t really be profitable because 150 GB is way too big for regular customers to max out but think about the future where a gigabyte will just receive the passive treatment of a megabyte today. A scarier thought is what if they’re just testing the waters with a 150 GB cap? What if they lower it down to 100 GB and argue that no one feels it anyway? And then lower it some more? By putting on too large a cap, it might be a strategy of desensitizing the public from its effects. It may seem a bit too pessimistic but with these caps almost pointlessly put in place, what else would we think?  

When you go over the limit, you have to pay extra, $10 for every 50 GB above the limit to be exact. COMCAST has its cap at 250 GB but instead of charging you extra, they throttle your connection- a bit annoying but much less dickish and more attune to the excuse of fair use than charging you extra.

*tagadish*

The NTC recently scrapped bandwidth caps on broadband in an MO draft. They said they’d rather focus on policies that will let ISP’s provide better service to their customers which a network neutralist would call the right thing to do. Globe has an 800 MB per day cap on their ironically named Unlisurf service. ISP’s blame network congestion (no surprise there) and cite Fair Use for their implementation of caps. 

In the Philippines, BayanTel DSL already has a 100 GB bandwidth cap for its residential subscribers. According to pro-bandwidth caps people on BayanTel’s forums, the cap makes sure that residential users don’t abuse their Internet connections. Abusive users affect those in their area with their bandwidth hoarding by using these residential connections for Internet cafes or illegal downloading. It’s difficult to argue with these points of contention because, really, the Philippines is hardly a disciplined country when it comes to these things (though no empirical data is available to prove this point). But is the lack of discipline a valid enough reason to impose limits on everyone’s Internet use? ISP’s and intellectual property protectors say yes but in the online arena, traditional arguments are deemed invalid by Internet freedom fighters who stand by the creed of Network Neutrality. Here’s an article that gives a nice and short insight on local bandwidth caps.

Honestly, bandwidth caps aren’t that bad, at least not any time soon but they will always be contended because of the threat they pose on Internet freedom. The problematic aspect of this argument though is that the Internet can never be entirely separated from the offline world. Your access to the Web is limited to what your locality can provide. These limitations and realities, may it be cultural, technical or physical, hampers the concept of absolute freedom on the Web. For any mutually beneficial conclusion when it comes to conflicts of Internet freedom, advocates of network neutrality should get down from their high horses and the corporations should learn to talk with their hands outside their pockets. Otherwise, we’d just be wasting a lot of time.

                                                                                                                         -Wacky

Sources:

(Blogger), Cocoy. "Why NTC’s draft memorandum order on Broadband Cap is wrong." The Philippine Online Chronicles. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Mar. 2011. <http://www.thepoc.net/commentaries/10713-why-ntcs-draft-memorandum-order-on-broadband-cap-is-wrong.html>.

"Bandwidth caps explained, NTC endorsed | YugaTech | Philippines, Technology News & Reviews." YugaTech Philippines. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Mar. 2011. <http://www.yugatech.com/blog/the-internet/bandwidth-caps-explained-ntc-endorsed/>.

Fenlon, Wesley. "What AT&T's New Bandwidth Cap Means for You." Tested. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Mar. 2011. <www.tested.com/forums/pc-and-mac/5/what-atts-new-broadband-bandwidth-caps-mean-for-you/6694/>.

"MINIMUM SPEED OF BROADBAND CONNECTIONS." MEMORANDUM CIRCULAR. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Mar. 2011. <portal.ntc.gov.ph:9081/wps/_mc/MC2011/MO_minimum_speed_12jan11draft.html>.

Roettgers, Janko. "AT&T’s New Bandwidth Cap Is Bad News for Netflix: Online Video News." GigaOM“ Technology News, Analysis and Trends               . N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Mar. 2011. <http://gigaom.com/video/att-bandwidth-cap-netflix/>.

Singel, Ryan. "AT&T Puts Broadband Users on Monthly Allowance | Epicenter | Wired.com." Wired.com . N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Mar. 2011. <http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/03/att-dsl-cap/>.

Taylor, Keaton. "AT&T to Impose Caps on Home Internet." BestTechie. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Mar. 2011. <http://www.besttechie.net/2011/03/15/att-impose-caps-home-internet/>.

"Telecoms regulation: Put a cap on it." The Economist. The Economist, n.d. Web. 27 Mar. 2011. <www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2011/03/telecoms_regulation>.

Tofel, Kevin C.. "AT&T Shuts Down the Mobile Broadband Buffet by Ending Flat-rate Mobile Plans: Mobile Technology News." GigaOM“ Technology News, Analysis and Trends               . N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Mar. 2011. <http://gigaom.com/mobile/att-shuts-down-the-mobile-broadband-buffet/>.

"is Policy on internet bandwidth usage now applicable." bayanFORUM. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Mar. 2011. <www.bayan.com.ph/forum/yaf_postst5492_is-Policy-on-internet-bandwidth-usage--now-applicable.aspx>.