Kidnapped Toys and Copyright Law (Blog Post 5)

If you’re sensitive to weirdness, I suggest you leave this page now. If not, brace yourself.

Around this time last year, several beloved toys began disappearing from their owners… all of whom, suspiciously, were among my group of friends. As if each loss weren’t painful enough, the toy-owner would then receive a ransom note and pictures detailing the fate of their stuffed friend. I, reputable Facebook journalist that I am, sought to record each of these disappearances.

And thus goes the strange little story of how my friends and I created a book together. One day, I made a stupid joke about pretending to kidnap a toy and demanding chocolate for ransom, the next, I’d started a trend as toys were abducted by aliens, stolen by fairies and even stuck in a vending machine.  What began as a truly silly idea evolved into a fun, collaborative project, and finally into a photo book.

Now what, besides entertainment value, is the point this story? Well our self-published book contained material that we should, technically have gotten permission to use; that is, copyrighted pictures from various TV shows and a ‘Toy Story’ logo.

From the Boldrin & Levine reading, I think Walt Disney would have enjoyed our parody of the Toy Story poster. Like Steamboat Willie’s parody of Buster Keaton’s film; we borrowed and copied part of a well-known creation; both to poke fun and to pay homage to the original, and also to tell our own story. Unfortunately, the Disney company of today understands very little of that creative spirit; and in fact, is one of the most militant in hunting down those who breach copyright.

 If our book became an underground success… through, I don’t know, sneaky plugs in someone’s DIGC202 blog; and Disney were to hear about it, I think we’d probably find ourselves head-hunted on the grounds that connecting their logo with kidnapping is detrimental to their reputation.

However, if this were to stop the hypothetical publishing and selling of our book, then Disney would have, like Watt, simply stifled further creativity in the name of money.  I’m willing to bet that most of you have never come across a book quite like ours, and it is fairly clear that it was an original idea. But, as is anything worth reading, watching or listening to, it was supplemented by and built upon past creations.

Although this is a hypothetical situation, the abuse of so-called ‘intellectual property rights’ is certainly real, and loved by large corporations such as Disney. I think that it’s about time that these corporations were challenged, and laws were changed. Fair use should be expanded and more sharply defined, and the ridiculous extensions upon extensions of copyright after the creator’s death should be stopped. As Lessig says, free cultures ‘leave a great deal open for others to build upon’. If these companies want to be respected for their own creativity, which builds on the past, they must also respect ours.

Happy Little Prisoners (Blog Post 4)

Welcome readers,

I would just like to take this time to let you know that you’re among friends. There’s no judgement here. Don’t feel afraid to admit when you need help. Now, who among you are addicted to the internet? Facebook? Your friendly email inbox? Are you sitting in front of a computer screen right now? Just close your eyes and raise your hand if this is true. Now open them. Is anyone looking at you strangely? Do you feel like an idiot? That’s because if you followed my instructions, you probably are.

Jokes and therapy sessions aside, this week’s readings painted a fairly negative picture of the cyber world, in which we are prisoners who have chosen our cage in the belief that we’re being set free. Thinking about my own internet behaviour I had to admit I felt an affinity to the people in the ‘Function Creep’ article as having a laptop with the internet does mean that the line between my work and play has practically disappeared.  No hour of the day or night is sacred from the possibility of doing my readings or blog posts, my days off are generally ‘catch up’ days, and I usually have about five internet tabs open at once.

Although I can see how this could be a problem and a drain, the thought of changing my habits makes hyperventilate just a little. For as much as the internet monopolises my time, it still gives me this feeling of freedom; as through Skype and Facebook I can keep in constant contact with friends overseas, on ITunes I can buy the album I feel like listening to any time I wish and when I have procrastinated on yet another assignment, I can still access useful journal articles at 2am the night before it’s due.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, rather than either condemning or idealising the internet and our use of it, we should simply try to be more aware of both its pros and cons. This can give us the power to use it rather than simply feel caught by it. It seems to me that in general our networks have grown exponentially as has our dependence on them, but that these networks are much more fragile.  I know of people who, tired of having a large Facebook network, have deleted 100+ ‘friends’ in one night, with very little consequence. If we put too much value in such a network we’ll find less security, but more anxiety as we simultaneously feel like the network ‘depends’ on our input while knowing we are dependent on its inevitable fluctuations. However if we’re able to see the bigger picture, we may be able to use the technology to our advantage without sacrificing too much; that is, we might be able to keep the keys to our cells and go for a walk outside every now and then.

Just an Ordinary, Cynical, Rule-following Crazy trying to get through her day... (Blog Post 3)

Dear DIGC202 classmates,

Since you have graciously continued on this long journey with me, I have decided that it is about time we rest our feet and jump in the car for a while. Comfortable? Now just curious, do any of you occasionally have the crazy urge to drive on the right side of the road (just for a second)?

I’ll tell you the truth- I have. And although I’ve never felt quite crazy enough to actually do this, I will admit to having driven over the occasional unbroken line

Quite simply my point is- rules exist for a reason- but they are not the be all and end all. If a rule didn’t exist about driving on the left, either an informal one would emerge as most people chose to travel on one particular side, or driving would become an extreme sport reserved for adrenaline junkies. On the hand, if I exceeded the speed limit slightly to take my bleeding friend to the hospital, I doubt many people would condemn me as most would agree that my friend’s life took precedence over the law.

This is where my problem with Barlow’s reading emerged.  Although I like the idea of the internet as a forum that challenges traditional authority, I found the absolute scorn of authority and idealised view of the internet seriously annoying. If the internet were ‘without privilege or prejudice’, there would never be a racist joke, celebrities would not top twitter, and it would be impossible to wade through all the information available as we would not rely on gatekeepers such as Google to tell us what is most relevant to us.

I do agree that if everyone followed the Golden Rule (Do unto others as you would have them do to you), the world could be an incredible, peaceful place… but I’m too realistic to believe they will. You see, the reason I distrust authority is that it is made up of humans- who can be self-serving and corrupt. Removing authority does not remove the problem- people.

However what really annoyed me about this reading was not the idealistic but limited view of the internet- I think it’s important to dream big. It was the air of superiority I couldn’t stand, the idea that the internet somehow magically solved our problems as they were all the fault of traditional authorities. I think we should challenge authority by having a discussion or debate with it, rather than simply dismissing our need of it.

Space Invaders

Welcome to those few brave souls who’ve ventured back to my little blog. I wish to tell you that those who fearlessly continue to trek through this jungle of my thoughts will be greatly rewarded at the end of their journey, but since I like to keep chocolate for myself, that would be a lie. I simply hope that a few of you will feel it’s worthwhile to stick around long enough to see a little of how I understand the subject and the implications for the world around us.

Lessig’s reading was particularly interesting to me because he seemed to suggest the internet was conducting an overhaul of the traditional ways people deal with the world around them. I noticed however, that in the online game conflict example, while the notion of space changed, human interaction itself seemed to change very little. While the physical and the cyber world had different kinds of laws and gatekeepers (code vs. nature & the govt.); humans in each still had to deal with similar types of conflict. They could still invade each other’s space even in somewhere as seemingly endless as cyberspace and while their solution was different to a ‘real life’ solution, it still required some level of compromise. For this reason I felt Sterling hit the nail on the head in his discussion on USENET as a set of social conventions, as I feel the internet has in many ways become a really powerful tool used to extend our social world.

Click to see large version.

What I find interesting about the world of invention is that the invention never seems to be allowed to remain in the sole ownership of the inventor, as almost immediately the consumers take it for themselves, use it in unexpected ways and add to it. I’m sure this has always been the case, but it seems more common in the online world which changes rapidly, often daily, in order to reach the consumers’ needs.