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. 

Issues of the Web and the Homo Interneticus' Web experience

Photo available here. 

No copyright infringement nor plagiarism intended.

Used here non-commercially, for academic purposes only.

            The Web has offered us a lot of things. We get to meet and socialize with our friends and to our relatives even beyond local or national boundaries; we get to shop even if we are inside our home or in offices; we get to be informed and updated about current events even if we don’t get it from traditional media; and we get to earn degrees even if we do not go to schools or universities to attend hours of lectures. These innovations are not new in the world of the digital natives[1]. These have now been embedded in our culture.  

            These phenomena have been part of us already because we grew up with the Web; however there are still a lot of issues and limitations that are associated with it, as presented in the third and fourth episodes of the Virtual Revolution.

            The first issue is the way we share information. True enough that the Web has opened an avenue to democratize information to everyone who needs it. Personally, the Web has been vital especially to my academics because of it, I can easily access all the information that I needed in a very little span of time and in just a simple click I get all the data I need for a class. But this has its own disadvantage to me because I do not get all the pertinent information that is essential for my course.  The result of my Web behaviour examination maybe true about my being a Web Ostrich which is a fast searcher but does not get accurate results[2]. Another reason maybe because of the internet’s wide range of choices for a searcher, it leaves him at lost with all the available data on the Web.

            The second issue that the Web has as shown in the documentary is that it does not leave a borderline between our public and personal self anymore.

There are a lot of things that people do on the web which are very, very intimate. In a way, you know what somebody’s browsing on the Web, you’ll find out whether somebody is gay and wondering about coming-out, looking other people’s stories… These are all kinds of very, very sensitive things that people do on the web.[3]

            I agree with Sir Tim Berners Lee with his point that we do a lot of things on the web that are very sensitive and very intimate. I believe that it is truly an intrusion to one’s privacy if other people will know your actions within the internet especially if it is unsolicited and worse, the person who uses the web does not have any idea that he is being monitored by somebody. I interviewed some of my friends about their reactions and insights if they were being monitored or surveillance is running while they are surfing the Web, and the result of the interview was against the surveillance. My friend Dane, whose face really turned into awe as I told her about it, said that she cannot believe it. She only thought that Dilnet, the internet provider inside the University of the Philippines Diliman campus, was the only one who can monitor the sites that the students can visit. And that she cannot believe that even at her own personal house, she is still monitored by someone. “Akala ko Dilnet lang ang may kakayahang i-check and mga websites that we visit. I really can’t believe this.Are you really sure, baka naman mali lang source mo,” Dane added during the interview.  

            “In return for a Free Web, our privacy has become a commodity. We are economic units in what has become the new commercial frontier,” said Dr. Aleks Krotoski. I could believe that this is the real happening or the real business on the Web. The documentary said that it is a way for some companies on the Web to determine the needs and to have a clear psychographics of their market and audience. Dr. Krotoski demonstrated in the show how Google scans every message of an individual and how it gives recommendations to you for you to click. And by clicking it, Google earns. According to Dr. Krotoski, that since we are not spending for the services of Google, they need to earn back and through advertising, they earn a relatively very high amount of cash and that it is the cost of free services we get from it.  

             Knowing this from the documentary, I could not believe how I was betrayed by the Web, or by the people behind this phenomenon! All this time I thought my actions on the web are surveillance-free and that I can search about anything and watch almost anything online! What about the things I posted on my blogs?! What about my personal details?! What about my personal photos that should only be kept offline?! I think the most dangerous piece of information that could be traded about me is that my dad owns a lot of guns and weapons of various calibres. These photos were uploaded in one of my accounts in SNSs. Now we are in danger especially if this information is traded to our enemies or to people who are against my dad.

            If I am Google and be able to have this tactic, and for me as a form of revenge for getting this data about me, I will trade the information or even the sites being visited by the Unites States of America President Barack Obama. And that I will trade that information to the country who wanted to have a insight on how to take over the current stature of USA as the most powerful country in the world.

            Another issue presented to us by the documentary The Virtual Revolution is the Web’s power to reshape humanity. The very rampant way on how the Web reshapes humanity is the devaluation of friendship. As Dr. Aleks Krotoski said in the show that Facebook gives friendship a lesser value and importance than what it used to have when it was not yet created.  I think this is true. On this date, I have 2,116 friends in Facebook, and the quarter of it I personally do not know. I do not send as much messages on the Facebook walls of my really close friends, but of classmates and acquaintances yes. Maybe this also agrees with what the author of Here Comes Everybody said that no one has really friends that can reach up to thousands.

            Another fact that was stated in the documentary is that the Web makes us immortal. On one side this is an advantage for us especially to those whose research relies on archives. It is also an avenue to know our roots by this feature, we are free to look at photos that our relatives in the past.

Once it’s on the Web, it is almost impossible to erase. All our interactions on the Web from our Facebook and Twitter status updates, to news that we share with family and friends, to gossip that’s spread about us, will be on line for ever. The web effectively makes us immortal. The upside is that we can live on. There are thousands of dead people who are still receiving updates and even being poked on Facebook. But the downside is that young people, who are growing up in public by living so much of their lives on the web, will have to face living with all their youthful indiscretions that can be accessed by anyone.[4]

            I agree with Dr. Krotoski’s point that it makes us immortal however that it also has disadvantages especially if your credibility and personality is at stake. Blogging, uploading photos and videos, and posting almost anything on your Facebook wall, and tweeting almost every other second maybe a normal activity to do especially in our age today. But do we realize what the implications might lead to when our children and grandchildren saw and read these posts? I do not think so. Maybe we are not informed about this, and we cannot do anything with these posts anymore because according to Professor Nigel Shadbolt of University of Southampton, these remains as our digital fingerprint which is as much as valuable as our genetic fingerprint.[5]

            With these issues, I believe there is a strong need for us to guide and educate our children properly on their internet usage especially those who just use the Web for granted. However, I believe that we should not limit the Web because the real essence or the real purpose of the internet which is to provide unlimited information and data will be diminished. My suggestion will be to just properly educate the users and the ones who guide these users for them to know the advantages and disadvantages of using the Web and that if we have a high level of internet literacy, we then can have no problem with whatever panics it might cause.

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[1] John Palfrey and Urs Gasser. Born Digital: Understanding the First Generation of Digital Natives. (Basic Books; 2008)

[2] Web Behaviour Test by BBC. Read my results at http://upcybernomads.blogspot.com/2011/01/when-my-offline-self-meets-my-online.html.

[3] Tim Berners Lee in episode 3 of The Virtual Revolution

[4] Dr. Aleks Krotoski in the 3^rd Episode of The Virtual Revolution

[5] Interviewed on the 3^rd Episode of The Virtual Revolution

Marijoe Is A Web Leopard! ROAR?

The BBC web experiment described me as FAST-MOVING, SOLITARY and SPECIALISED. It means that I find information online as fast a real leopard but I tend to do it alone and I am not a very efficient multi-tasker.

I think the results of the experiment is contrary to my online self. Yes, I do find things online fast because of my searching skills (despite our ultra slow internet connection at home) but I also do rely on social networking sites for information most especially if I am too lazy to google the answer myself. The experiment is correct in saying that I have stalker skills in fishing out information on the web but I am not very sure if they nailed it with the "solitary" part.

I always thought I was a multi-tasker but I guess not. Maybe all this time I am just pretending to do many things at a time but in reality I am just very good in time management? I don't know! But what's important is that I meet my deadlines and I submit quality work. Kanya-kanya lang yan ng diskarte sa buhay! We all have our ways of coping to stress and workload we just need to find what suits us best.

CHRISTMAS in the New Media Generation

Merry Christmas everyone!
:)

Trick or Treat? It was definitely a TREAT..

Ever wondered how television shows and films managed not to have special effects way back? By special effects I mean good transitions, interesting opening bill boards and closing credits. Big machines were used for these kind of stuff and would cost as much as $ 100,000 - $ 500,000. That is why it is kind of easy to distinguish which networks were able to afford such machines. But, with the birth of Video Toaster by the NewTek Inc., almost every video effect became possible with just a relatively small disk that contains the soft ware and the Video Toaster card that was made compatible to the computer lines of the Amiga Inc. Oh, and have I mentioned that this remarkable device was introduced the same month and year I was born? Cool? Totally.

Video Toaster Card

                The Video Toaster is a video switching device mainly used for transition on television shows and films. The machine could manage up to four inputs which mean if you are taping a live show, you could plug up to four cameras. It was designed by Tim Jenison, the founder of the Newtek Inc. with the help of Engineer Brad Carvey who “built the first wire wrap prototype” and the software was written by Steve Kell. However, it is not only used for transition but also for special video effects like “chroma keying, character generation, animation, and image manipulation.” Here is an interview that presented the special features of the Video Toaster: 

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyGCYoZ5Nlk)

                During that time, networks and even private households found the Video Toaster very remarkable and more importantly cheaper than the bigger video switching machines that ever existed. It costs $ 1,595 including the software and you could make your own videos complete with all special effects and is already of broadcast quality. More features include “LightWave, a 3D modeling, rendering, and animation program.” I mean, who would not want that?

                With its success, the Amiga Inc. tried to capitalize on the product and made promotions like offering the Video Toaster card and software with an Amiga computer and sync generator for $ 5,000.

As such, during the early 1990s the Toaster was used quite widely by many desktop video enthusiasts and local television studios and was even used during "The Tonight Show" regularly to produce special effects for comedy skits. (Fact|date=February 2007) It was frequently easy to detect a studio that used the Toaster by the unique and recognizable special switching effects. Also all of the external submarine shots in the TV series "seaQuest DSV" were created using Lightwave 3D, as were the outer space scenes in the TV series "Babylon 5.”

                Personally, I learned making videos through Windows Movie Maker until I finally used editing softwares such as Sony Vegas and Adobe Premiere. The Video Toaster signalled the emergence of these kinds of video editing softwares and it is really interesting to learn how NewTek was able to invent it. Many other improved versions of the Video Toaster were introduced and to date, Video Toaster 5 or VT5 is the latest model of the NewTek Inc.

                October 1990 marked the birth of this promising device and after that, post-production was never again the same. 

Sources:

http://www.computerhistory.org/timeline/?year=1990

http://www.newtek.com/vt/

http://www.answers.com/topic/video-toaster

http://en.academic.ru/dic.nsf/enwiki/104361

http://www.google.com.ph/imglanding?q=Video+Toaster&hl=tl&gbv=2&tbs=isch:1&tbnid=7ou4rtvSqxUn4M:&imgrefurl=http://kcomputerzone.ca/pages/computer-history/gallery/commodore.php&imgurl=http://kcomputerzone.ca/media/gallery/Commodore/Amiga%2525202500/Video%252520Toaster%252520Card.JPG&zoom=1&w=800&h=594&iact=hc&ei=9TvnTMafE4iuvgPS5ezCCA&oei=9TvnTMafE4iuvgPS5ezCCA&esq=1&page=1&tbnh=124&tbnw=149&start=0&ndsp=18&ved=1t:429,r:15,s:0&biw=1138&bih=544

AUGUST 1991: The WEBvolution begins

Photo available here. Used here non-commercially, for academic purposes only.

                I found it interesting that eight days before I came out from my mother’s womb on the 14^th day of August in 1991, Sir Tim Berners-Lee publicly introduced the World Wide Web or the WWW[1]. The World Wide Web is made out of billions of data such as documents, photos, music, videos, that were interconnected by to computers all around the world, enabling the users to share files whenever and wherever they may be[2].  It is quite intimidating to know that the web’s years of existence is the same as my existence in the world.

                I say intimidating because during the first class meeting on the 9^th of November in our Communication 150 class, I realized that we encountered the web and the internet late for our age, and in our generation. For my case, I first encountered the web when I was a 6^th grader when we were tasked to search for something for our subject back then. Yes, it was 2004 and the web was 13 years old already and again, yes, I was also 13 then.  

                Looking at how the web started, you may not even believe that the proposal was at first doubted by the boss of Sir Tim burners-Lee, yet the success is truly significant in the lives of the people in the current century. This is an excerpt from an interview to Sir Berners-Lee by Dr. Aleks Krotoski wherein the web inventor showed how happy he was upon the first flight of the web on the 6^th of August, 1991 as shown in the TV series produced by the BBC entitled The Virtual Revolution[3];

“I get it all wired up then that was the big switch… through the switch the lights went on… and that was the web taking off across the world. People started to log on and typing hypertext and I could feel the power of all these links spreading across the planet and we just have to hold on tight… and a call came from BBC… to cover the incredible uptake.”

               

                Although looking at how big the impact of the web in our life today, it is still seen as not encompassing some of the traditional media such as the television and the radio[4]. But I think it is because as compared to the traditional media, the new media is younger when it comes to the domination aspect. Because looking at it, as young as it may be, the influence and the impact it has made to the people is much bigger than that of other media.  

                As a “Digital Native” or as a person who is born and raised in a world of digitalization, as what John Palfrey and Urs Gasser called it in their book Born Digital[5], I am happy how our life has become more comfortable especially in doing academic works wherein a single click may lead to thousands of ideas ready to be acquired online.  It has also broadened our horizons because what was difficult to achieve before is now a single search away, even in our capabilities on doing some things such as buying expensive books and music. My mother would always tell me that I am blessed having such gadgets and internet because I can chat with and see our relatives who are miles away from us, virtually.

                If the web has its good sides, it is undeniable that it has also bad sides. The most important is the privacy of the individual who publishes almost everything on the internet. According to my professor in my English 30 or my English for the Profession class, Prof. Dr. Helen L.  Lopez when I asked her if I can publish my written output made in class online, she was against the thought of publishing it online. She said that my privacy can be intruded and that the paper I wrote might get criticisms and if other finds it unworthy to be published, then my reputation and also the University’s reputation might be ruined. I was unable to express my point to her. I believe that the web gives an opportunity for us to express ourselves and to let others know what we think or what our opinions are on certain issues.

                According to Stan Yee, our culture now is a “share everything” culture wherein the private data about us is easily disclosed to public which in turn might be subjected to exploitation and abuse[6].  I believe that it also relies on the information that you are sharing online and the settings you establish on the media or channel that you are publishing it on.

                Even there are negative sides on using the web as a medium on expressing yourself, I am still happy that the internet and the web help everything from doing a simple to the most complex actions, easy. And even though I was born with the month and the year when the web was also born, I can say that as I grow old with it, I get to study how it evolves and how it can deeply penetrate the lives of the people particularly its users- the very fact that we are of the same age helps. In short, I am part of making and even witnessing how it evolves!

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[1] “Internet History” available at Computer Hope website at http://www.computerhope.com/history/internet.htm; Internet, accessed 9 November 2010.

[2] “WWW” available at the Computer Hope website at http://www.computerhope.com/jargon/w/www.htm; Internet , accessed 9 November 2010.

[3] The Virtual revolution is documentary series which has four episodes. It was presented by Dr. Aleks Krotoski. For more information, check the website of the series at http://www.bbc.co.uk/virtualrevolution/.

[4] “ Is the Web the ultimate propaganda machine?” available at Dr. Aleks Krotoski’s website at http://alekskrotoski.com/post/event-digifest-is-the-web-the-ultimate-propaganda-machine; Internet, accessed 11 November 2010.

[5] “About the Book” available at the Born Digital website at http://borndigitalbook.com/about.php; Internet, accessed 15 November 2010.

[6] “Are You Checking In- or Out?” in Reader’s Digest Asia’s Guide Tech section, November 2010, 145.