Copyright Controversy's

Copyright owners these days, are not essentially impecunious writers, artists, or philosophers chewing at their tattered overcoats (Rimmer, 2005).
Corporations own many copyrights, and trade groups are aggressive in asserting the "exclusive right" to control and profit by copyrighted works.

In the 1970s, for example, The American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) tried to stop grocery stores from playing radios unless they paid fees for the songs that were aired. Twenty years later, ASCAP demanded fees from summer camps for songs the children sang around their campfires. The Walt Disney Company threatened daycare centers that had likenesses of Mickey Mouse painted on their walls. From attempts to stop the technology of "piano rolls" in 1908 to the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act, restricting access to copyrighted works today, media companies have pushed for stronger controls.

It is a mistake, however, to think that the monopoly control bestowed by copyright is absolute. From the beginning, copyright law was intended to balance the rights of owners against those of the public – to give just enough incentive to enhance creativity. Understandably, copyright owners are concerned when cultural sharing is multiplied from a few friends to millions around the globe (many to many). But the industry tends to lump together all copying under the nefarious heading of "PIRACY," when in fact there are substantial differences between large-scale, for-profit enterprises that sell unauthorized copies of music, software, or movies, and, for example, students' or scholars' sharing of favorite songs or news articles through a university network. Although copying on this level is generally assumed to be unlawful, it is not clear that the remedy is to make criminals of millions of people.

Modern technology has made copying vastly simpler, and achievable on a worldwide scale that was never possible before. It has also enabled media companies to exercise unprecedented control over the use of their products through systems of digital rights management, or "DRM". As a result of DRM, some CDs now come with locks to prevent them from being played or copied on computers. Some Web sites include lengthy agreements that flatly require viewers to relinquish their fair-use rights as a condition of accessing the site. The tension continues to grow between strong copyright control and the values of free expression and access to information. For those of you, who may want to know more about the copyright rules and legisation, i have attached a video that helped me, get my head around copyright and ownership laws, and was an easier way then reading millions of articles.

References:

Rimmer, M. 2005. The Grey Album: Copyright Law and Digital Sampling, In Media Internation Australia. p.40-52.

So much talk about the internet.

There is so much talk about the internet these days. Actually it feels like that is all we talk about these days; who downloaded what, what music you were listening to whilst checking the latest on your facebook, what latest video you downloaded of Youtube, we are all talking about, or at least the vast majority of people are talking about the internet.

The internet, emerged from a completely different situation and was never designed and intended for a mass medium. In the 1950’s a communication system emerged with no centre, rather a decentralized, self maintaining series of links between computers networks. In the early stages the only computers connected to the Net were US military bases or research centers, and were only available to defense elite and computer experts (Barr 2000).

Unlike today, the internet is the most significant new communication medium of our times. If I think back, I remember around about the year 1996 was the year that majority of people and households became responsive to the internet and its purpose – a communication hybrid: mostly an information system where people can search for information and seek through many search engines, but it was also a medium where people could create their own content to distribute.

Daily access to the world wide web has had a profound effect on social practises and how we spend out time and how we communicate. It is not unusual to have a dozen e-mails containing jokes, photographs and other irrelevant material, arriving at regular intervals during a work day.

These are good examples of produsage, where a member of the community engages in the sharing of information and knowledge ((A)Burns, 2008).
Sometimes the receiver is requested to add input and forward to others thus including them as creative collaborators.

While often annoying, it is difficult to resist the invitation to take part in social interaction from a distance; furthermore there exists a tolerance and acceptance of the use of social networking sites such as Face book, You Tube and Myspace in the work-force.
Note that 'TIME' nominated person of the year 'you': all of us who are active in collaborative online spaces ((B)Burns, 2007).

Interestingly it is not just generation X or Y who have embraced these virtual cultures. It is baby boomers (Grey Nomads) like my parents and their friends who travel with laptops, web cams, head sets and have not sooner parked the van, than they have the technology booted up and the first digital pictures and MSN communications flowing and the new photo album has appeared on Facebook.

The internet is always improving and with new technologies enhancing and more and more people relying on the internet for everyday use, the generations of users will continue to update their knowledge with a simply search and a click on the mouse.

Reference:
(A) Bruns. A. 2008. Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life and Beyond, In From Production to Produsage. http://produsage.org/files/Produsage%20-%20Introduction.pdf (accessed April 8, 2008).

(B) Burns. A. 2008. The Future Is User-Led, In The Path towards Widespread Produsage. ttp://produsage.org/files/The%20Future%20Is%20User-Led%20(PerthDAC%202007).pdf (accessed April 7, 2008)