YUM!

To Mr. Joel Kuennen, I appreciate your vegan pastry.

Notes on Presentations 12/8/2009

ELI - "ANSWERS TO COPYRIGHT"

Annae Reginae -authorship, (old)

"Open Source is good for me. You should embrace it." - Bart Simpson w/chalkboard

Automobile - no money on patents, just car

REDHAT - 1994

30 million people on this (smaller project) community + 7 years = free

1989 - Linux = the right to copy software and share it, the right to change that software, the right to access the source code

Sewing, biomechanics, electrical engineering, etc. (freeduino.com, craftster...)

LARRY LESSIG

...people worried about Creative Commons, etc. that they are either too vague or not radical enough...

COURTNEY - "IDENTIFY THE EMOTE"

emoticons: "Good Morning", "Congratulations", "Good Evening", "Dunce Cap (Feels Stupid)", "Moustache"

Put in emotions in digital conversation/what we lack when not having face to face conversation

American differs from Japanese

600AD Wales - pigeon language - modern day English

Chat Speak could ^ English language or v it

HANNAH - "EVOLUTION OF CHAT AND ITS EFFECT ON THE INCREASE OF SOCIAL INTERACTIONS"

Internet - 60s, 70s but wasn't really used by consumer til 80s, 90s

1989 - Internet Relay Chat formed in Finland + made world wide

1994 - AOL becomes big > "You've Got Mail" (Meg Ryan, Tom Hanks)

90s to Millennium:

AOL > AIM (emoticons)

1995 - 2008 increase of users online, using chats...

Last Ten Years > voice chat, video chat, Skype - 2002

MATHIAS - "INTERNET: THE MUSICAL RENAISSANCE"

Evolution of technology and the distribution and sharing of music

What do people consider to be music?

Sharing is caring:

Peter Jenner - Pink Floyd's first manager

Technological development, ex. Napster

Customers or criminals?

Podcasts vs. radio stations

1983 - music sharing starts around...downloading formats - strange, not user-friendly

1999 - college dropout starts Napster, brought down because they believed it was piracy

12-year-old girl downloaded songs, sued + brought to court for $2000

Freedom - listeners pick top artists (S Club 7)

Artists independent from record labels (Prince)

Online "radios" allow users to pick what they want to listen to

KELLYE - "MYSPACE AND THE EFFECTS OF SOCIAL NETWORKING ON THE MUSIC INDUSTRY"

2003 - Chris (brains) and Tom (failed musician) = Southern California

ex. Taylor Swift (country music)

followed around Don Prince of Tha Basix, went through 17 pages of chains of "listen to my music" on somebody else's page:

The Basix, Spy Nation, Toxicima (christmas carols/house music), etc.

Ends with the Master J-L Richard

Has its own record label: Myspace Records

JOHN - "LAFREEKSHOE PRESENTS"

Youtube videos as online gamer

ALEX - "VIDEO GAME VIOLENCE"

self explanatory, with visual aid (drawing)

A Democratizing Force

For many, the Internet is a powerful and democratizing force in that it brings people together for a common goal. Whether or not those common goals are good for the rest of us is rather subjective and yet to be determined as a whole. Nevertheless, the Internet does provide a space for minds to connect and converse with one another. For the most recent election, just last year, Obama's popularity was praised for its getting Americans to go out and vote. The statistics were both astounding and disappointing; it is true that more Americans went out to vote that year but sadly it was a mere 56% of the population, the highest it had been in four years. Obama's campaign was one boasting of change and he was the first one to truly rely on these new formats of communication, (i.e. Facebook, Myspace, mobile messaging, etc.). All this begs the question of had he not used these formulas for word of mouth, would he have won? Would apathy continue to grow, meanwhile lowering poll percentages? The Internet truly is a force to be reckoned with.

Estonians believe in the power of the Internet, taking it a step further with online voting. In 2005, online voting for government officials was established and although only a fraction of the population participated in voting this way, by 2007 it had grown substantially and by 2009, this voice became a large enough one to take notice of and therefore one politicians needed to appeal to. Because the Internet is one that brings people together, there are often ideas about how the government, amongst other things, should run. Change begins with the individual and so The Better Project was created. The Better Project, a website devoted to making anything and everything better, lets users create and then publish suggestions for potential solutions to current problems. Users can vote for and/or comment on others' ideas and eventually, the goal is to come together and establish a campaign to fix or improve something, (ex. possibly even a national campaign to rewrite some legislation?).

For SAM's project go to: http://rhodeisland.thebetterproject.org/ideas/1

VIDEOPHONE AND OTHER EYES

In Beyonce's latest single, "Videophone", featuring Lady Gaga, a femme fatale readily prances around in little clothing for an eager cohort's cellphone. For today's cool kids, this type of exchange is like a modern day mating ritual. Girls are like felines and boys are like hyenas and as our technologies are becoming more high-tech, one can see things normally reserved for behind closed doors in a text message. In Jamais Cascio's The Rise of the Participatory Panopticon, the future will be televised and seen from every angle of a crowd of camera phones. Basing his theory on Bentham's 18h century model for a prison in which all inmates would be watched at all times, (ex. Big Brother, Neighborhood Watch), citizens would willingly participate in constant sousveillance. Every supposed scandal would have a million little eyes glued upon it.

He goes on to say that even the mundane details of daily life will be documented in this way and so theoretically one could view an entire life on screen. He gives examples of a predictable rise such as the Sharp J-SH04 and 05, the Japanese created models of the first camera phone in the late 2000s. By 2003, camera phones outsold the regular models, meaning the consumer had a taste for logging and capturing. So voracious was their appetite, that moblogs have been created; these are sites devoted to mobile phone pictures. In The People Formerly Known as the Audience, Jay Rosen speaks on behalf of "those who were on the receiving end of a media system that ran one way". The interaction between producer and consumer is changing and spurting into micro-communities of interest, (i.e. old world Little Italy, etc.) and therefore the format for what people want and how they get it is changing as well.

For example, one does not need to own a television or a radio or buy a newspaper to hear what is going on in the news, they can rely on news websites like CNN and Reuters. Because of the rise of these alternative news sources, the old model is quickly going the way of the dinosaurs: extinct. The newspaper, unfortunately, is a slowly dying breed. To boost ratings, national TV broadcasts often focus on things besides the issues and get chastised by the critics but viewed nevertheless, which is the point anyway. Some believe that these formats may eventually be gone altogether and more and more things may become united under a digital eye, possibly even our currency will change, (i.e. non-material, non-tangible money).

LIFE: The Never-Ending Story

Tech prodigy and rogue eccentric, Ray Kurzweil, transfers language into binary code, takes 150 pills a day and upsets the norm with ease. A believer in singularity, or the rapid change of technology meeting up with man, has a vision of the future. In this vision, spanning from 2020 to 2045, Kurzweil sees man making machine better than it was before and eventually, even better than man himself. In 2020, computing power will exceed humans' brain capacity. A mere nine years later, we will participate in reverse engineering, where we will basically cut things open and look at their insides in order to reproduce and then enhance the previous model. By 2045, complete singularity will regulate the world and as Kurzweil puts it, "...knowledge will become obsolete."

In the here and now, this is not a concept all that hard to believe when technology and culture are in such sync which one another. There are robots that can clean your floors for you and music 'generators' that can supposedly tell you what music you will like. It is very likely that the computer could become as smart its creator like a digital Frankenstein that goes off on a scientist that went too far. To say it is alive and kicking would be an understatement. That being said, for some of the most thoughtful thinkers of our generation there has been a fundamental shift in what it is to be human. In some of Kurzweil's more controversial ideas on the side of singularity are themes of immortality and a digital body. The belief is that it will be possible one day to make the human body digitized, reliant on electronics and therefore be able to live forever; the brain will be downloaded. Sounding like something out of a bad sci-fi movie but theoretically if it were possible, would we even still qualify as human?

Under further investigation the concept of what it is to be human relies not so heavily on life as it oddly enough, does on death. What do we demand as humans? We seek knowledge of all, easy access to all, meaningful human to human relationships, and the primal, instinctual will to simply, live. If these basic elements of the human experience are taken away or replaced, how should we function, as cumbersome animatronics? Our consciousness would still remain but our bodies may not and that poses yet another question in this separation. If we did not have a physical body, (i.e. the embodiment to our consciousness), vanity need not apply but, would we become totally disenfranchised to the world around us, (ex. environment, other mammals)?

The human needs to die in order for him to live because every story needs an ending. If we were to all live forever, electronically or otherwise we would suffer many pains. An obvious one would be conglomerating under a mass boredom, achieving things with no deadline and having all the time in the world. It is also true that "...a disembodied mind will quickly get depressed." Baudellaire brings up the concept of constant comfortability where people, without some kind of drama, etc. will have no drive to do anything in life. Why should they when everything is perfect as it is? This relates back into the theory of a man without mortality for if he does not have death looming over him, he will lack motivation. The moral of the story is that life is full of hardships but without them we would not be ourselves but instead something mutated and not of this world.

HUMANITY: A REMIX

The 'high-speed' generation is a relatively young one which thrives on a internationally collected stream of consciousness. Because of this networking of thought, there has been a revival of a RW, or read-write, culture verses the recently passé RO, or read-only standard. The read-write culture is essentially what it sounds like; there is an established format and then there is one that aims to comment on and/or reinforce it. In a read-only culture this conversation between two formats does not exist, appropriately due to the fact that there is only one platform, (ex. the event, facts, etc. without the allowance for feedback). In today's digital age, however, fists shake at mediocrity and have chosen to add to the flow of ideas with some of their own.

When referring to a remixed humanity, one should acknowledge that every single bit of culture has a 'copy', or a bit in reference to another. Most notably seen in memes and DJ remixes to popular songs, these 'copies' are either critical or idealistic of their original source material. Some are manipulated several degrees and transform into politically, socially infused or entertaining content. In Larry Lessig's lecture, "Open for Business", for the critically acclaimed TED conference, there is a praise for the return of the RW culture but it also identifies a difference between the user-created 'copies' and the piracy-ridden. Those who seek to find a higher plateau of knowledge without the vain 'necessity' of marking one's territory, (i.e. Trump), are categorized as a user-created society. These users use other users' ideas as a launching pad for more ideas which they hope will in turn contribute to more conversations and ultimately to a solution for all. On the other side, those filed as pirates mean to steal ideas and use them to their own advantage, often for profit and do not care to contribute anything to anyone else. They are the corrupt businessmen of the Internet.

Because of piracy and the need for human need for validation in all works, Lessig notes that there is extremism on both sides of the copyright/trademark/government regulated fence. The older, more conservative voice is a proponent for copyrighting laws; they feel that these laws are imperative when weeding out the 'trespassers', (i.e. both users and pirates could use some form of their idea, albeit divergent reasons). The younger are 'lawless' and refuse the governance of copyrighting for the world is their oyster and the Internet, their pearl. In response to the tension, Lessig pleas for a happy medium. The issue is too complex for one school of thought because one should not limit the intellectual, artistic, social, etc. benefits of living in a read-write society nor should others fell so entitled to steal and get away with it. As the world changes, with increasing pace each decade, the format of society and what matters to it will follow suit and it should not be a concept of which to fear but rather one to embrace. A quote that best illustrates this change is one from Canadian blogger/journalist/author, Corey Doctorow:

"What may be the business model in 1909 may be the business model in 2009 but what may be the business model in 1939 may not be the business model in 2007."

In Rip! A Remix Manifesto, the filmmaker goes into great detail about copyright issues, etc. To find out more information: http://films.nfb.ca/rip-a-remix-manifesto/

Breaking Free: Independence in Cyberspace

One's casual venturing of the Internet is not necessarily a political stance against the status quo since the decision of where one ends up and what they choose to do there is entirely reliant upon the user. However, as the Internet becomes its own domain where different, often more lenient rules, or "laws" for a better comparison, are being formulated continually, it would suffice the user to be able to become a citizen of this nation of the computer without any outside influences, (i.e. the government). For many, the restrictions that the government has enforced upon viewership of and participation in certain locations on the Web should not be validated. Users feel that this is an intrusion upon a society that does not belong to the American government and therefore yearn for the opportunity of non-surveillance.

Take for example in A Magna Carta for the Knowledge Age, cyberspace is an "ecosystem" where everything is connected through wires and cables, reaching far beyond just the Internet. Technology itself, (electromagnetic waves, fiber-optics, etc.), is the space and its hold is international. Information is then distributed and redistributed in these formats, (via the telephone, television, computer, etc.) and because the system is so vast, proponents of government-free Internet believe that even attempting to control the Web is a plan set out to fail. The opposition claim that the vastness of technology is precisely the reason why it should be government controlled due to the rise of a hacking/terrorism correlation, it would be for the user society's own protection. Nevertheless, the two sides can agree to disagree.

The primary question for the debate is really what could be considered ultimate freedom online and who would determine it. Following that logic, who or what could determine a set standard for decency? Is one's ability to trespass the modern conventions of what is morally right or wrong determined as an ultimately freeing experience and if so, would that be intruding upon another user's rights to not see, hear, or think about certain things? Is the translation of freedom the same as in a non-user, (i.e. 'real world'), American society? In the original concept of democracy, one has the freedom to be who and/or what one is, whereas in a digital society one has the freedom to become whoever and/or whatever one wants.

In Barlow's Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace, the author agrees that the Internet is vast and therefore a space of the mind. Upon this realization, he believes that it can not be policed for the Internet is "an act of nature that grows itself through our collective actions". Like our founding fathers, Barlow believes that it is the right of this new society to take care of itself and to set its own regulations. "Cyberspace," he says, "consists of transactions, relationships, and thought itself, arrayed like a standing wave in the web of our communications. Ours is a world that is both everywhere and nowhere, but it is not where bodies live." Despite all this arguing, however, about what society should hold merit in another, all parties are essentially talking about the same thing: the want to do what one wants and the prevention of letting others do what they want, a largely American statement all by itself.