Let's Get Crazy?

More on the case from Lessig's book:

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/03/dancing-tot-prevails-over-umg-in-youtube-fair-use-case.ars

Chat roulette

This is an interesting video about chat roulette, a new from of online communication that pairs random people together in a video chat forum

http://vimeo.com/9669721

Even in Internet Era, Artists Benefit From Record Label Support, Study Contends

NYT Media Decoder

By JOSEPH PLAMBECK

All you pop-star wannabes, take note: making it big isn’t cheap.

In order to break a new act in a major market, music companies must invest about $1 million and provide a host of services that haven’t yet been matched by new technologies, according to an industry report released Tuesday.

“One of the biggest myths about the digital age is that artists no longer need record labels,” says the report, released by the London-based International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, which is funded by music companies. “The truth is that artists are generally much better served by a record deal. They want the funding and the specialist support that indie and major record labels provide.”

A typical new act in a major market receives a $200,000 advance from a music company, according to the report. The company spends an additional $400,000 for recording and video costs, $300,000 for promotion and $100,000 for tour support. Established artists cost even more, $4.6 million, largely because of bigger advance and marketing costs.

Over all, the report says music companies spend more than $5 billion each year on developing and marketing artists, about 30 percent of their sales revenue.

“In an age where there are more than 2.5 million hip hop artists and 1.8 million rock acts registered on MySpace, discovery, development, collaboration, marketing and promotion from music companies are more crucial than they ever were,” the report says.

Internet Addicition

It may be interesting to some people to take this test prior to my presentation tomorrow.

http://www.netaddiction.com/index.php?option=com_bfquiz&view=onepage&catid=46&Itemid=106

Pilfered Magazine Removes Infringements, “Re-Imagining Perspective”

The editors at Pilfered, the online magazine which invited readers to share “images pilfered from the web,” has announced they are “re-imagining our perspective” and will now accept only images submitted with the permission of the copyright holders.

More...

Cell phones show human movement predictable 93% of the time

We'd like to think of ourselves as dynamic, unpredictable individuals, but according to new research, that's not the case at all. In a study published in last week's Science, researchers looked at customer location data culled from cellular service providers. By looking at how customers moved around, the authors of the study found that it may be possible to predict human movement patterns and location up to 93 percent of the time. These findings may be useful in multiple fields, including city planning, mobile communication resource management, and anticipating the spread of viruses.

More...

China’s Cyberposse

Human-flesh search engines — renrou sousuo yinqing — have become a Chinese phenomenon: they are a form of online vigilante justice in which Internet users hunt down and punish people who have attracted their wrath. The goal is to get the targets of a search fired from their jobs, shamed in front of their neighbors, run out of town. It’s crowd-sourced detective work, pursued online — with offline results.

More...

Viacom Will Take ‘Daily Show,’ ‘Colbert’ Off Hulu

Here.

Mashing Up the Navi

As the Carpetbagger notes, we are deep into the silly season, with Oscar campaigning now veering into a debate over the military efficacy of “Hurt Locker.” The scurrilous tactics rarely change the outcome, so we prefer to walk on the sunny side of the awards season. To wit, when we first saw “Avatar,” it put us in the mind of “Dances with Wolves,” but the Internet has spoken and the designated analogue is actually “Pocahontas,” with a series of the inevitable mash-ups quickly following. But none, as Awards Daily points out, match this one for sheer brilliance of juxtaposition:

Here.

links...case in point

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJ536kdCuno

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dgcb3psHHfk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdzdUw2dW4A

Digital Youth Response

I find the designations for these forms of new media interactions interesting. Hanging out, messing around and geeking out all have very casual implications and connote an overall feel of apathy among the youth, which is not a new thing - "kids these days" . . . The adult culture never ceases to believe that the youth of our times are doomed; primarily, I think, because they do not entirely understand these new methods of communication. But I think it's a legitimate concern in present times. Youth are spending so much time immersed in these digital technologies - the concept of "always on" presents an entirely new realm for social interactions. Kids and teens are constantly afloat in a social stream; twitter, facebook, online games, texting, surfing, blogging. In their complete immersion, are they losing out on other experiences? Are they becoming blind to the real concerns of our times (whatever they are) and will they be better or ill prepared for life and careers as adults?

Grown-Up Digital: youth culture on the internet

The question I struggle with is whether or not this apathy in our youth culture is legitimate; they seem uninterested in more traditional modes of communication and learning (after school activities, sports, school, etc.) and you can't help but wonder if this constant connection to technology has a negative effect. Are they becoming more detached from the "real world" or are these alternative forms providing the same interactions and learning experiences? I like to be optimistic and lean towards the latter. I see the same trends of a search for self through these modes of "hanging out" "messing around" and "geeking out". Youth culture are using online surfing, remixing, downloading music and playing games to dabble in a variety of different hobbies or interests. Adolescence and young-adulthood are primarily times to seek out one's own unique identity. By engaging in these new media forms, I believe the same result is achieved; they are able to find their own individuality and voice by messing around and trying a bit of this and a bit of that. You could even argue that they are able to participate in deeper niche cultures because they are able to connect to so many, and they are not limited by their proximity to one another. Individuals are able to reach out to communities and other individuals that share their own interests and thus create meaningful relationships and social learning experiences. Able to participate in "peer-based reciprocity" within these cultures, our youth are learning more from peers than adults, which is causing concern. But if teens/kids find more validation and validity in learning from their peers, is there really a need for concern?

Youth culture: anxiety and hope in the digital age

**i wanted to get this up as soon as possible, the external links are coming soon**

The white paper article examined a variety of qualitative studies to pinpoint the usage of new media in the lives of children, teens, and young adults. The underlying principle of this article was to examine youth in of themselves, and not as products of the future like most academia and society seems to. The vast majority of this summary defining parameters for studying youth by creating a taxonomy of classifications. This provides two overarching areas of peer-focused activities, and interest-focused activities. The first of which include activities that are driven by IRL social interactions, and the latter includes activities that focus on a niche hobby or interest.

When defining how to categorize the youth in the media interactions researches formed 3 classifications: hanging out, messing around, and geeking-out. Hanging out is falls in the realm of peer-focused activities, because the new media engagement at this level serves the purpose of maintaining and creating relationships that they want/have in real life. Messing around is taking the new media and starting to engage and interact with it. The main characteristics of this level of engagement are exploring and discovering. geeking-out is a very high level engagement with new media and takes high skill level or expertise to excel within any given domain.

Both messing around and geeking out are interest-focused activities, but geeking-out is the only one that has any significant contribution to its experience by adults.

When speaking to the anxieties and hopes, the anxieties lie within parents, educators, and a vast majority of society. “They” feel as though investing too much time or effort in the online world is diminishing the skills for real life. Contrary to this belief, this article suggests that not only would parents be hindering a child’s learning ability, but they also determined youth are not engaging in any activities that they would not be engaging in online.

The questions i have are as follows:

1. The authors suggest that the parents do not understand why their children “hang-out” online, yet the children are doing nothing they wouldn’t be doing in real life. With that being said, do you think that if parents or educators involved themselves in the same new-medias, in the same space, it would impact the youth’s experience in a positive or negative way?
2. The researchers say online social experiences emulate real life for youth. Do you feel this is true for adults, if not, what is the difference?
3. There was an underlying theme that building and maintaining relationships has become a norm via social networking sites for youth. In terms of the youth, how do you feel this will impact offline families, communities, and society?

Ach du lieber! -- The Free-Appropriation Writer

...Maybe that’s one reason for the flurry of attention recently about a teenage German novelist, Helene Hegemann, whose book about Berlin’s club scene was named a finalist for a prestigious literary prize to be awarded next month in Leipzig. After a blogger and fellow novelist announced that Ms. Hegemann had blended sizeable chunks of his own writing into hers, Ms. Hegemann, instead of following the plagiarism-gotcha script of contrition and retraction so familiar in recent years, announced that appropriating the passages from that book and other sources was her plan all along.

More...

Digital Dictatorship article

Sorry for a new post, but I still can't post comments for reasons I have not determined.

The WSJ's Digital Dictatorship article has moved URLs. Find it here.

Epically bad teen Christian rock band becomes internet phenom

Sneering at off-key amateur god-pop is easy enough, but what's interesting about the story is this: the young man who plays guitar in this video jumped right into the comment thread, and owned up to how epically awful it was. "I am not in the band. I helped them out on this song, unfortunately," he says. "The guitar solo I played— hate it. It deserves to get ripped."

More...

IPad Apps Could Put Apple in Charge of the News

Publishers should think twice before worshipping the iPad as the future platform for magazines and newspapers. That is, if they value their independence from an often-capricious corporate gatekeeper.

Read More

Interesting Copyright Case - artist decides to release film under free license

http://questioncopyright.org/nina_paley_sita_interview

I thought this was an interesting case. Animator/artist Nina Paley ran into copyright issues (charges of over $50,000) because her critically acclaimed animated film "Sita Sings the Blues" uses a song by 1920's singer Annette Hanshaw. . . As the article states, "although the recordings are out of copyright, the compositions themselves are still restricted." She ended up paying them off and releasing the film under a free license. The opening credits of her animation shown below: (and she now has a website where you can donate to her cause)

:

Remix Thursday

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Lawrence Lessig
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Skate Expectations

Lessig on Colbert inspired tons of remixes of the episode.

Here he is giving a TED talk.

Some questions for discussion:

How is the idea of the hybrid economy (combination of commercial and sharing economies) tied in to Lessig's argument about remix culture.

How can the hybrid economy help decriminalize youth? (249)

Look closely at each of the ways Lessig suggests the law should be reformed:
Deregulating amateur creativity
Clear Title
Simplify
Decriminalize the copy
Decriminalize filesharing

How does Lessig suggest the war in Iraq is analogous to the war we are waging against our kids?

The Internet Turns Out To Be Television’s Friend

The Internet, which many feared would draw viewers away from television, appears to be having exactly the opposite effect – at least when it comes to coverage of major events.

More...

Surprise to me! I guess that's part of the transmedia world.

K

My Broadcast Conjecture

Today, I made a rather brash statement: I thought that a modestly viewed YouTube video reached more people than a local news broadcast in a medium-sized city. I found myself wondering if that was true. Here's the breakdown:

The median TV market (Tallahassee-Thomasville FL) has 282,390 TV households. (info)

The average local evening news broadcast has a rating of around 3 for all four affiliate stations (ABC, CBS, NBC and FOX), meaning that 3% of the TV households are watching an evening local news broadcast. For Tallahassee-Thomasville, that means 8471 households are watching. (info)

Are these numbers right? It is unclear from the chart information (which states "Numbers represent ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC affiliates") if this is the average rating per affiliate, or the average rating among all affiliates combined. If it is the latter, that would put the number of households watching any one local news show at 2118.

2118 views isn't that tough to reach in YouTube World, and even 8471 isn't a very high bar. A horrible video of me hemming and hawing my way through a speech got 6000+ views, and I wouldn't even show this thing to my Mom. (I was dead tired from working all night to get the presentation working well enough to demo. I'm not normally this out if it... really!)

When I was originally thinking of this number, I was thinking of a place like Grand Junction (where my parents live), but with only 73,000 TV households, the numbers were too tiny to even put up a fight.

[ddg]

Google to build broadband network

Read this article the other day about how googles is planning to build a broadband network. Google claims this network could be 100 times faster then the cable or telephone companies.

http://articles.sfgate.com/2010-02-11/news/17872495_1_google-free-wireless-access-wireless-spectrum

Speaking of copyright ...

Tonight I watched last night's episode of the Colbert Report, in which Stephen Colbert takes on the Olympic Committee's copyright lawyer. It's good fun.

Why Is Copyright (Suddenly) a Hot Topic for Artists?

The last few years have raised important copyright issues and concerns for artists. There are three main factors which have impacted–and will continue to impact–how visual artists relate to each other, to art institutions, and to other intellectual property right holders when it concerns issues of copyright.

Here...

A Rambling Response

I approached the Remix reading from my familiar perspective of classical music, a world in which I have felt this tug and pull very keenly. Reading copyright and remixing arguments brought up issues I have struggled with for years, which I now share with you.

As a classical musician, I was taught in a very RO world. The music is to be played as it is written, as exactly as possible. Hours are spent honing every inflection, attempting to bring the music to life just as the composer envisioned. Access to music is regulated by the publisher. Jazz, as has been mentioned, is the opposite. Jazz breathes the life and imagination of the performer directly into the work of a composer or fellow musician, whereas in classical music, the performer is neatly tucked away behind the identity of the composer. Jazz was too scary for me, so I followed all the rules to be an ideal classical player.

In this RO world, performers and composers are the experts speaking to the masses. The audience is expected to absorb, observe, appreciate, but not participate (except in the case of John Cage, but he's another story).

We talked in class last week about how schools are being told to cut music programs in order to meet the "No Child Left Behind" requirements. Music programs have been the first to go for years, and it bothers me to no end. There is so much that is taught through music, not to mention it aids in cognitive development of students, but that's not the soapbox I'm on right now. Losing this early education does a number of things. First, anyone who has tried a musical instrument even for a little bit, understands the effort required to make truly beautiful music. By not teaching even a basic history of music, which can be accomplished through a performance class, we are losing the foundations of where we are now culturally.

My concern is that our current RW culture is losing valuable material to learn from and remix, which is why pop music is as uninspired and repetitive as it is. I'm passionate about watching cultural expressions as an understanding for the socio-political events of each generation; I just happen to be more passionate about those happening 100 or more years ago. But seriously, how much richer would we all be if we understood how what John Cage was doing in the 1950s paved the way for our current participatory culture? Or think back even to bands like Queen or the Beatles, who actually knew how to play their instruments and write meaningful (or simply entertaining) lyrics.

Sousa criticizing the loss of amateur was a powerful thought. As a professional, you could expect that he would want to protect his status as such and not care as much about the people sitting in a living room, doing a hack job of a Mozart string quartet. However, he is bemoaning the loss of ability for people to create culture. This is the argument I have against current pop music: that people have not been educated enough to either create something new or to intelligently remix something old, thereby creating something new.

And don't get me started on John Williams. Williams is everybody's favorite composer and conductor, having written scores for everything from Jaws to Harry Potter. Don't get me wrong, John Williams is good at what he does. But what he does isn't what most people think he does. John Williams is a remixer. His notable them from Jaws comes straight from the 4th movement of Dvorak's 9th Symphony. Harry Potter from Saint-Saens and Star Wars from Mendelssohn. The problem I have is that Williams is hailed as a visionary and original composer. I think it would be so much more powerful if people understood the references and how brilliant he is at weaving them into new compositions. Because he really is.

But then there is copyright. I would like to be an upstanding, law-abiding citizen, really I would. And yet, I'm not. For you see, I make copies of my orchestral parts. This is a habit I have had for years, having learned it from wise teachers and fellow players. Against any reading of copyright law, I am in violation. The reason we copy our music is to have it always on hand in order to be ready for auditions or the odd concert/rehearsal we're called to play at the last minute. I also use my copies to prepare my students for the same. None of us have used the copied music for anything but good purposes and it makes sense why we do it, but I still feel that pull in my stomach whenever I think of how much music I have that is illegally copied.

I found it interesting that Sousa was the one pushing for greater copyright legislation. Sousa, whose arguably most famous and recognizable piece, Stars and Stripes Forever, was used in a Velveeta commercial. Probably not what he had in mind when he was testifying to Congress. Who do you think took the money for the rights to use it?

Tied to the copyright issue is one of accessibility. I am very involved with a community orchestra, and there have been numerous times when we were not able to play great works because of the prohibitive cost of rental, or the fact that copyright law has a piece completely out of commission. It is frustrating, because our mission as a not-for-profit organization is to do good in the community by creating a place where people have access to play and listen to incredible pieces of our living history.

I understand artists, composers, musicians, etc. needing to earn a living, which is why a sternly RO culture makes sense. And at the same time, I'm pulled to the other side of arguing the need for access to the culture, so that it is not lost and so that new works can be created. In all, I'm not sure which side of the argument I'm on. Maybe there is some happy middle ground somewhere that hasn't quite been discovered (or crafted) just yet.

So that's my soapbox. Related or not, it was what I was thinking about as I read the chapters, since it is one of the things I am most excited about.

P.S. Darwin mentioned Cliff Evans. For those who haven't seen his exhibit, here is the link to Cliff Evans' latest work, Citizen. You can also see videos of his work on Vimeo.

P.P.S. Peter Schickele, aka PDQ Bach, is a great example of classical remix. Here and here are excellent examples.

Digital Dictatorship: The Myth of Techno-Utopia

On Saturday The Wall Street Journal ran this article on how the Internet can be an effective tool in squashing freedom. It's relevant to several of your paper topics.

Discussion Group Lead Posting: Remix Intro, 1-5

And Kevin thinks he blathers on...

Lawrence Lessig opens Remix with a crazy tale of a dancing 18-month-old, an old Prince tune and a rights-crazed organization intent on stopping unauthorized use of their songs. He follows this up with an artist’s trials with a John Lennon song and finishes with Gregg Gillis’ work as Girl Talk – a music performance entity that builds its work off of massive sampling. In each case, the rights holders of the sampled work stepped in with oversized (and probably unnecessary) boots to stop or limit the use of the material.

The catch phrase of the Introduction was “Permission was vital, legally”, which provides a villain for this tale. As an alternative to onerous licensing, he sites Silvia0’s music production, released with a Creative Commons license, as a way to maintain ownership of a creative work while still allowing for remixes and other reuse. This positive story ends with a remixer providing Silvia0 a new insight into her own work, thereby showing some of the opportunity available with more freedom of media use.

All of this provides a melodramatic overview of the blurry lines and “collateral damage” that is our current copyright system.

The Creative Commons site: http://creativecommons.org/
Stepanie Lenz’s case: http://www.eff.org/cases/lenz-v-universal
Girl Talk talks: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyVlt5trTgo
… and makes fun: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyVlt5trTgo

1. Cultures of our Past

In this chapter, Lessig begins with the tale of John Philip Sousa trying to defend his rights as a composer in the face of a new reproduction medium: the phonograph. At the time, there was no licensing requirement for records, leaving Sousa upset about his lost income. But Sousa went further, pointing to this Read-Only system being a blight on society, limiting the desire for amateurs to pursue music creation.
Sousa was correct on one level: professionalism became the norm for music creation, and people began to “use” music rather than making it. The financial rewards were immense for the corporate music culture, and professionalism became the way people thought about music.

But within the copyright discussion, Lessig points out that nobody – not even Sousa – thought that the regulations prevented someone from singing along a song on their front porch. And it is this limiting concept that Lessig hopes to revive.

2. Cultures of our Future

This short chapter prepares the reader for the coming chapters.

3. RO, Extended

When analog was the reigning technology, RO (Read Only) media was sold as a consumption, rather than a manipulation, mechanism. The business model that was developed focused on selling copies of the media, and the law supported this model. But with digital media, the entire “nature” of the system changed. Since even media players had to create a copy in order to play the media, the process of copying digital content became easy, and the industry responded by trying to clamp down on “pirates” with lawsuits and DRM. It took the success of the iTunes Store to show the industry how to make money from digital downloads – pointing to one way that RO technology can be improved by embracing the network.

Television viewing is another RO technology that Lessig sees undergoing a rapid change. His discussion of his desire to see the Acadamy Awards ceremony shows not only the availability of viewing on the network, but also the modern viewers demand to see something NOW.

As he states: “Access is the mantra of the YouTube generation. Not necessarily free access. Access.”

It is clear that immediate access to TV material is on its way - whether this is mediated by Hulu, YouTube, Netflix or some entity that doesn’t yet exist. The concept of having an iPod (or other device) as our portable “everything box” may even be out-of-date. It may just be that ubiquitous Internet access makes having a device pointless.

Pointing to Amazon’s tracking of preferences is another way that RO media access can improve. The Amazon system is amazing – it is able to ferret out books, movies and CD’s that compel me to make a purchase. If a system like that can be created for the complete digitized world, it would help me find and consume content (either free or paid) at a greater pace and intelligence level.

However, in order to make this sort of widespread consumption accessible, the right to digitize and contextually search media would be required – an issue that is far from certain. The current backlash that Google is seeing with their book project is one example of the difficulties of current rights regulation (see Kevin’s recent blog posting).

A visual example of Amazon’s “web”: http://imagine-it.org/amazong/arbore.php?XMLFileName=0385504209.xml
The closest thing we have: http://delicious.com/help/learn
How Hulu.com sells itself as an access point: http://www.hulu.com/about/product_tour

Chapter 4: RW, Revived

This chapter contains many charged subjects, and will (along with the next chapter) be a large part of the opinion pieces and discussion questions I will pose. Lessig points to the written word as having an “open” sampling policy: provide attribution and you can quote the words. Other media does not, instead requiring specific permission to be used. He raises Judge Kevin Thomas Duffy’s decision as a terrible example of legal support for the current norm. But Lessig lays down the gauntlet the if you can “sample” for a new Yorker article, why can’t you sample for a film?

In order words, why is the freedom to quote ever limited?

Lessig believes that “Remix is an essential act of RW creativity”, one that “no free society should restrict”. He then attempts to lay out a logic for this belief, first through the democratization of the Web through the creation and widespread use of blogs (which remix culture statements with original material), to the feedback network created by blog reader’s comments, then to the process of “writing” with media. This last work is compared to collage, where images were mixed to the point of absurdity, and work both poignant and silly were created from whole cloth out of other images. The Internet provides an overload of image, sound and video data, and it is Lessig’s contention that this data has cultural value that should be easily (and legally) reusable.

The choices of material that Lessig points to are remixes that have a message – specifically a political message. But the point of his argument is that reusing digital media is important because that media may have a cultural resonance that helps enforce a critical statement. Negativeland was notorious for that very thing, making pointed statements about popular culture using its own media (or, in some cases, its offal).

The section on AMV’s was difficult to follow, and the link provided was unusable without signing up for the site. Nevertheless, you can see a YouTube example of an AMV at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXuwA7Go

This is an example of an innocuous media venue that, if anything, serves to bolster the value of the remixed product to its owner. A video of this quality is also apt to bolster the cultural identity of the producer, too.

The discussion about the educational value of media remix is compelling (if short). An important aspect of this is the discussion of “good” and “bad” remixing, and that learning to do better comes with producing some bad work. Hard to argue with that, right?

5. Cultures Compared

Lessig starts this chapter by defining a core difference between RO and RW culture: RO is strictly professional, while RW can also incorporate amateurs. He points to some areas where RO is appropriate and even required (like medical instructions or the payment stream for commercial films). The most potent pro-RO statement is “Where we can see that creativity would be hindered by the absence of this special privilege, the privilege makes sense.”

Lessig believes that RW culture strikes us differently, and that as such has a powerful cultural position – that it promotes active learning and important social values. In his (and Andrew Odlyzko’s) view, content is no longer the important property, it is an ingredient for future work. This is talking about economic value, but I find the argument somewhat difficult to follow.

In his defense against Charles Sims’ call for “original creativity”, Lessig hones in on his main argument for RW culture. He appreciates remix for its ability to give people a voice, and to give them an avenue to explore creativity. He also hopes that it can heighten the creative culture beyond the Britney Spears level of media.

Lessig then gives us an overview of copyright law as it relates to current media – which, in essence, makes all media RO unless specifically made RW. In essence, it criminalizes all RW work. The law supports any limit the copyright holder may put on a work. Lessig claims that, in the digital age, the law provides much greater control than was possible in the analog world, since digital media use involves processes that can limit our ability to consume freely (unlike, say, a book). Since almost every use of digital media requires a copying process, these uses all trigger copyright law.
Sampling-based music is compared to jazz, where each builds off the work of previous musicians. Jazz is seen to be free from legal hassles, while sampling musicians are hit with onerous legal burdens. Given that this feed a lot of lawyers means that it is an economic hot button, and the legal industry isn’t in a rush to change anything.

Lessig feels that all of the above places RW culture in a disfavored position, and that this needs to change. In an attempt to begin this change, he points out some of the laws that need to be changed and some of the avenues that are being explored.

Opinion and Questions (Questions in bold italics...)

I think that Lessig arguments are utopian – but also heavily slanted, with examples that provide the best vision of remix culture and the worst vision of current copyright laws. I want to discuss a number of areas where I feel like an alternative view could prove useful (or at least open a lively discussion). Perhaps some of these views will explore edge conditions, but these are the conditions where laws and regulations need to help us.

Sampling of the Written Word: Sampling of the written word is not without limitations. I could not, for example, place this essay at the front of Remix and sell it as my own work. In fact, even if half of my version of Remix was my own writing, it would be widely considered either a plagiarized or fraudulent work. Since there are limits to the reuse of the written word, it makes sense that there should be some limit to the reuse of media work. That the limit has not yet been agreed upon doesn’t make the limit useless. I am concerned about “without limit” in this case – something that will be a common theme in this writing.

What are the accepted limits in sampling the written word, and how might these inform us on limits for sampling video, audio and still images?

Remixes as a Form of Collage: A sticky subject, and one that is not completely clear from a legal standpoint. I’m sure that we will hear more about “Fair Use” in upcoming chapters, but art and Fair Use have a rocky history. If Fair Use is able to support true remix/collage efforts, then the point is moot. If it is not, then there is some room for discussion. At this point, it seems that the law is not yet clear on the subject.

Pretty Woman Fair Use on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campbell_v._Acuff-Rose_Music,_Inc.

Nevertheless, even Fair Use arguments are disconcerting if we look at edge use cases. Take, for example, the Cliff Evans’ art piece that was displayed on-campus. At the end of one section, a naked family is holding hands in a field as a spaceship takes off. Evans clearly states that all of the images he uses are appropriated from Goggle Images, and that he does not seek permission to use any of them.

Let’s set aside the fact that someone took a photograph of their family in the nude (assuming, as it appears, that is was completely innocent). At some point, the photographer placed a copy of this photo on a networked computer – possibly for backup purposes only. Google spidered this computer, found the image, cached (copied) it on their machine and made it available through its search engine. Evans found the image, copied it onto his machine, manipulated it and put it into his artwork, then copied that artwork onto a machine here at DU.

What if the original photographer never meant for this photograph to be “published”? Who is the party that has broken the law – Google (for making the initial copy)? Evans (for copying it and placing it on his machine)? DU (for copying it onto its machine and displaying it publicly)?

And let’s say that an over-anxious DA decided that a photograph containing two nude children represented a sex crime. Which of these parties was the distributor of the picture? Which of them moved the photograph over state lines (making it a federal offense)?

To my mind, the issue of unlimited collage remix of network-based material is two-fold: 1) it doesn’t require the remixer to approve the use of an item that may have been placed on the network inadvertently, and 2) it doesn’t maintain a provenance of activity ("who touched this thing?") that can be sorted out when other issues crop up.

Remixes as Cultural Value: Lessig points to remix in the political netscape as being important, and remix in the commercial (anime) world as being interesting. To a political remix, I say “Bravo!” Public figures are not immune from parody, and these remixes can serve a useful point. The commercial entities behind anime probably cheer on the AMV crowd, since they help bolster the visibility of a character or product in a crowded marketplace. But not all remix videos are positive...

Let’s say that my neighbor’s son Jasper decided that he hates my son Wyatt and wants to make fun of him. Let’s say that Jasper finds an online video of my son (that I put up to share with my family) and replaces all of his words with the audio “I am a great big dingleberry.” Now Jasper posts it on YouTube and tells all of his friends at school. They see it, send a link to all their friends, and it becomes an Internet sensation.

This is not really criminal, and it is not life-threatening, but I would like the ability to call YouTube and say “No, I did not offer the rights to my video for this production” and have it taken down.

In my opinion, the issue with the above is that Jasper has broadcast the video internationally. Prior to the advent of the net, Jasper would have had to take his own video, done the audio overdub, then show it to his friends personally. They may have made copies and given it to other friends, but the difficulty in distribution would have limited this embarrassing situation to a small group.

The network makes every posted media item into a potential broadcast. And I should have the option of saying “No” to anything I create from being broadcast. Let’s take another, probably more disturbing example. I produce music, and some of my music is available online. Let’s say that someone uses my music in an amateur porn production, and I get wind of this use. I would like the option of saying “No” to this use because I don’t want my music used within that genre of video.

This is a case where allowing free use with attribution would even be more horrifying. It’s one thing if my music is being used without my permission, it’s a bigger problem if they attribute the music to me, and I find out that a search on my name places a porn video at the top spot of a Google search. This would have a significant effect on my life, and the fact that I was properly referenced would be little solice.

Right now, copyright is automatically granted at the time of a work's creation. What happens if this is no longer the case? What rights - other than economic - are lost if the presumption of copyright is lost?

Freedom for Non-commercial Use: This “No” problem is at the heart of my concern with claiming unlimited non-commercial use. There are plenty of non-commercial situations that I would prefer to avoid. I wouldn’t want my music played in the background of an Anti-Obama remix, nor would I want it as the soundtrack to an amateur Girls Gone Wild knock-off. Lessig states that RW culture only enhances the value of media. I don’t think that is true – especially if the media becomes an iconic representation of an undesirable entity.

Let’s say that I do a soaring piece of music and sell it as a soundtrack for an independent film. On viewing the film, the American Nazi Party decides that it liked the music so much that it was going to use it for their party anthem. The hold a press conference, covered by CNN, to goosestep around a stage to my musical piece. The American Nazis are non-commercial (as far as I know), so in this scenario they would have unlimited rights to my music. Shouldn’t I have the right to say no?

In any case, there is another issue: what does non-commercial mean. Does it mean the remixer doesn’t make any money? When I viewed the AMV video on YouTube, there was an overlay ad for something, several sidebar ads for some other stuff, and a great big YouTube icon for me to stare at during the entire viewing. YouTube is certainly making money on this production – does that make it commercial?

There are very few non-commercial sites that provide post-textual media support. Providing the bandwidth to stream audio and video is expensive, so most of these sites are either ad-supported or subscription-supported. Only P2P distribution provides truly non-commercial distribution, but these networks provide little visibility of the media for search engines and delicious-style affinity voting. In this environment, what really constitutes non-commercial?

Who are the Mass Media, and how do they think?

Considering the frequency with which the mass media is mentioned in class and in the texts, I thought I would write some notes about what makes members of the mass news media tick and where they perceive their successes and failures. This isn't a research work. It's only what my thoughts have been related to readings this quarter.

A problem of context

Each semester in my CU classes, when we have our sessions on digital imaging ethics, I ask around the room for the students to raise hands if they imagine images are altered frequently in the press. For the last ten years about three quarters of the hands go up. I can't say I blame them.

But then I ask them to think about how often in a given year they hear about a new case of laziness leading to an ethical gaffe in journalism. The answers come in at once or twice a year.

That's too much, don't get me wrong. And I tell them so. But then I ask them to think of how many photos are published in the typical paper, magazine or news site in a given day.

"Thirty… Forty… Fifty…" come in the answers.

"And how many newspapers and magazines are there in the U.S. alone?" I follow.

You get the point. Relative to the volume of journalism published, ethical lapses in the photography are a rather miniscule fraction of the total stuff published. My point to them is that it only takes one gaffe to dent public trust in what we do. The facts of the numbers are irrelevant. It's the result that matters.

The profession of journalism is certainly suffering of late, and those of us inside it will either argue that according to statistics we've never done better in serving the public, or that we should be put out of our misery.

The positivists (like me) argue we are more self-policing than ever before, we have the highest ethical standards journalism has ever seen, we have a broader reach, and we have a deeper connection to the stories we cover. But that's not relevant. If the public doesn't see it that way, it's wasted effort.

The negativists in the profession (probably the majority) understandably have an easier time focusing on the errors, the conflicts, the seeming irrelevance of it all.

Why so many negativists?

"Journalists are unemployable in any other field," a former boss once told me, "because they're too cynical, inquisitive and prone to seeing corruption to get a job anywhere else."

I think he was right, and from what I heard of this quarter's lecture by Mona Eltahawy, the visiting Middle East correspondent, it sounds like little has changed. I know that person well. They've long had desks right next to mine. And I think they ought to be kept in perspective by the comment from my former boss. We are an inquisitive, cranky lot who are as prone to complain relentlessly about the comfort of our desk chairs as we are to complain about the profession, politics and the state of the earth.

Why are we that way?

In regards to the news media at least, we all started out hoping to save the world. To be a journalist is to suffer a public esteem akin to an attorney, but without the income. We all admire the Watergate reports of the Washington Post that brought down a corrupt presidency, the wrangling with government secrecy regarding Viet Nam and two Gulf wars. The relentless pressure on the Bush administration to acknowledge and react to climate change, among others. We all started with those ideals and generally hold them to the end. This is true in print, broadcast and on the Web, and in the mainstream or alternative press.

Many journalists (myself included) wander through all those media. I've worked in the alternative press, radio and the Web as well as working for "The Old Gray Lady." To me they all have their advantages and disadvantages.

Somewhere along the way, though, most journalists slam into a wall of inability to see change as a result of their work. It takes a long-term view of political and social evolution to see what we do have a great effect. Watergate, the Pentagon Papers, Iran-Contra, and other sea-changers are very rare. And often the loudest attempts to upend wrongs just seem at first to go unnoticed by a jaded or disinterested public.

So many of us have our (perhaps narcissistic) egos left wanting for glory, and it is the failings of the institutions or profession that often get blamed. "How could it be my fault? I fought the battle, and nobody paid attention." Or "Geezus. Another school 'bored' meeting."

For these same reasons it is naive to assume that reporters are easily influenced by publishers, administrators, editors or even sources. I think there is much assumption that advertising and economic pressures have a direct effect on what gets covered and how.

To assume that, though, is to not know the reporters. I have yet to meet one who would play along with those sorts of pressure. At the most pliable even the weakest reporters I know would just smile, nod and go about their business.

I even ask Fox reporters about this when stuck waiting outside some courtroom or event for the subject to appear.

"How's life under Bill O'Reilly?" I've asked. "They have you spin your reporting?"

The answer is usually, "Geez. I'm as liberal as anyone, and on the job we're no more directed than the rest of you."

Of course that doesn't mean influence hasn't been peddled. It's like the photo alterations above — only a tiny fraction.

That's why it was premature to think that Rupert Murdoch would wield a strong influence over the Wall Street Journal. The reporters and editors there are too good at what they do to generally let the owner's politics get in the way. It's a more conservative paper than many, to be sure. But that's a result of the industry they cover and the interests of the people who seek to work there. And even then, they are usually the first mainstream whistle blower in the financial sector.

I have worked at one paper where the publisher and editor attempted to lean coverage one direction. "Take a positive point of view," he'd say. This tends more to happen at smaller publications because those interested parties are more involved in the process directly. But as above, not a one of the reporters or photographers willingly took part. We scuttled every attempt from the inside, and it never worked the way the hyper-conservative editor hoped.

And now looking back those 20 years, that man and the paper's owner were not forming a cynical plot. It was simply two men who had grown up in the little town pitted against a staff of transplants who didn't give a damn about the place one way or the other. The bosses were far from sinister. They were simply invested in the success of their economically devastated home.

Media as a plural

I come from the print world. As we say, I have printer's ink in my veins. I first sat at a newsroom desk pecking on a Smith-Corona at age five. And we print people are pretty judgmental of the broadcast media, and, yes, the Web.

All those seemingly air-headed, Dippity-Doed TV reporters also started out from the same place. They too, are smart and want(ed) to change the world. And radio reporters are generally just print people with nice voices. A journalist is a type, no matter the medium. None of them particularly like being edited, and that's why so many now love blogging.

But we print people often bristle at being lumped in with those TV types, or with others we might feel don't hold up the standards we try to keep. Indeed the readings have stung in places when "The Media" is used to describe behaviors in the broadcast or entertainment worlds. "Wait a minute!" I think to myself. "That's not us!"

But the media is the media to the average person, and like the case I started with, the semantics don't matter. It's the result that counts.

Much of the differences in operation depend on the link to entertainment. TV news suffers often from being a department within an entertainment company. The news shows must drive ratings the same way a sitcom does.

Over time that has eroded the quality of TV news to a very dire point, and we printies often blame the sad state of attention to our hard work as the fault of infotainment masked as news.

It has over the last 20 years leaked into the print newsroom too. As readership has slipped (for much longer than the existence of the Web), many publications held focus groups and made redesigns that shortened standard stories and introduced more celebrity and entertainment coverage to try to win readers back. The reporting staff of any paper would tell you that reducing the quality of the product certainly wasn't going to help that problem, and it hasn't.

TV and radio have both succumbed to similar pressures. TV news is shorter, more celeb- and scandal-driven and delivered with a hallmark breathlessness. Radio news has simply ceased to exist other than in the non-profit sector.

But so far the Web has been no salvation for this. To get attention above the overriding noise of meaningless info there requires work from the reader. Whether right or wrong, for a journalist that is certainly a failure as we see our work as not a luxury but a necessity in democracy.

Online worlds

Publishers have seemed slow on the uptake regarding digital media. For years, newspaper, TV news and other "old" media Web sites were a pretty poor use of Web space. And upstarts have certainly beaten up on them in that realm.

Why so slow? Probably because the economic model there hasn't worked on the scale needed for a large production company like a Denver Post or a 9News. To staff those entities requires millions of dollars, and still, their related Web entities are not turning a profit to cover more than the few Web designers on the project. The profits there cover far less than the cost of the reporters, editors and producers.

This holds for the New York Times as well as Fox News. Their income still comes from the old delivery, and for the NYT it's still falling. Fox's profits are rising thanks to an even more blurred line between opinion and news that makes us old print hacks shudder. The insanity of the opinion apparently has a disturbing attraction.

But contrary to many opinions, I don't think that reporters or their editors are made particularly nervous by bloggers and other new media journalism. The reporters I work with were two steps ahead of their editors and most of my other friends with embracing the value of social media and the new access of information provided in the digital world. Digital media has revolutionized reporting.

Most of the real news workers see it all as an extension and complement to what they do, as well as another vehicle for their own hopefully world-changing work. I know a number of journalists who are nervous about the ethical considerations. They have good cause in some areas and not in others.

It's easier to see Fox News' editorializing for what it is because a big, known institution is behind it. The viewers and critics are all in on the conceit. But though the ease of publishing has allowed many off-the-radar subjects to be aired, knowing the source of the info and their interests is more difficult. I think this subject should be discussed, but with the understanding that readers and viewers are not idiots.

Many journalists are also worried about other professional standards that have been hard-won and may be now easily lost. An institution like the New York Times is extremely thoughtful and careful about what sources it uses, how they are interviewed and with what background information and how their points are verified. Some online news sites are careful with this and others are not. They worry this standard may erode.

On sources and academic assumptions

Amusingly to journalists, then, is the fact that a criticism often leveled at the mainstream press is use of unidentified sources, off-the-record background and other techniques that make the work seem less reputable. The criticism rarely seems to hit the online world or academia where those questions also exist.

From my own experience, those decisions are deeply considered before they are used in the mainstream media. But who's debating that with the solitary blogger or citizen journalist?

One of the advantages to a sizable news organization, or system of them, is a tacit enforcement of standards. Journalism has done well for 200 years policing itself and evolving its standards to an ever higher level. It's similar to a peer review of a scholarly article (some of which fail too). And many of us who value those standards are openly talking about ways to apply them by other means in the event of the failure of many news institutions.

Oversimplification is a problem throughout the history of journalism. Driven by the necessity to be concise and to fit the news in limited space, we often fail to communicate enough context. For example Rio de Janeiro is one of my favorite cities in the world, and a pleasure in which to reside. But most Americans imagine it a war zone because coverage of its problems outweigh coverage of its pleasures.

Criticism of journalism — including its problem of oversimplification — is often oversimplified itself. And a variety of spots in the reading have made me cringe for lack of context, the aftertaste of a vendetta, or a criticism based only on hearsay or assumption.

Chris Atton's chapter in Digital Media and Democracy outlined one of many such issues for me. I found it a thoughtful segment that looked at not only the successes and failings of various media types, but also successes and failures of media criticism itself. There was a big assumption made by the Glasgow Media Group's survey of the BBC and bias:

The GUMG's work challenges the BBC's claim that it is objective and impartial by showing how facts and values are routinely combined to favor one group in society over another. GUMG argued that this represented a hierarchy of media access where professional journalists uncritically presented the ideologies of elite groups to the public. Journalists present the worlds of politics, society, economics, and culture through the narrow, ideological lens of what Stuart Hall termed primary definers. (Boler 2008, pp. 215)

Criticism of this sort, as Atton notes in the section, fails to take into consideration the working patterns and needs of journalism. I feel it also breaks a sacred journalism rule valuable in academia as well. It makes an assumption. The GUMG researchers should have asked the journalists themselves about this pattern.

I am sure, to a one, they would have said that the need of a reporter is to tell a story concisely and effectively by talking to people educated on a subject who can explain clearly their point of view on facts. The "ordinary people" a later paragraph applauds often have a very hard time elucidating their thoughts. So the reporter seeks out the experts, and by nature they are "elites" at universities, who by perhaps a failing of academia, not journalism, are predominantly white and middle or upper class.

This isn't a justification on my part. An effective reporter will always try to seek the opinion of those affected by an issue rather that simply some expert voice. But that is far harder to achieve than it sounds, and the bit from the GUMG report is guilty of the same problem they criticize, and just calls the kettle black. Reporters are as human as anyone and can be lazy. That would not be different in alternative or amateur media, nor academia.

Axel Bruns, in his chapter, made me choke on my tea as I read a parenthetical quip in a section about the power of blogs that accused journalism of an ethical lapse I have never seen as a common problem:

Compared to traditional vox-pop (often a relatively cynical task conferred to junior reporters: "get me one in favour and two against")…(Boler 2008, pp. 248)

No quibbles in Bruns' look at blogs here, but throughout academic media analysis like Bruns' there is criticism of lack of proper attribution of information as a woe of old media. I'm not arguing with that either. But he really needs to attribute what is in quotes too, or take it out of quotes and identify it as hearsay. His use of it this way implies it is a common practice.

I've done vox-pop (or man on the street) reaction interviews for 20 years, for more than 20 different publications of all sizes, mainstream and alternative, and never once has an editor asked for a specific result. Hearsay like this comes about because it happens, yes. But like my opening example it is an extremely rare case, and Bruns fails to double check something he presents as a common fact.

Even Jenkins, whose book I read with admiration, got a giggle from me as he described the debate about the political divisiveness of blogging:

Of course, as bloggers are quick to note, mainstream journalism itself is increasingly unreliable, being driven by ideological agendas rather than professional standards, burying stories that run counter to their economic interests, reducing a complex world to one big story at a time, and trivializing politics in their focus on power struggles and horse races. (Jenkins 2006, pp. 216)

What got me there was not the ideas — I'm sure many bloggers would say that though they suffer the same issues — but that a comment as inflammatory as this wouldn't pass journalistic standards without being attributed to someone, either as a quote or paraphrase. On a quick read it appears to be the opinion of the author (and maybe it is). As a journalist I'd like examples rather than hearsay.

As Detouches said, "Criticism is easy. Art (in this case, journalism) is difficult."

On objectivity

Objectivity has also been a long-term issue in journalism, that journalists have bellyached over for centuries.

The 1950s were probably the height of the idea that journalism should be objective and report with the greatest effort to avoid bias possible. The decade proved that objectivity is impossible, and it even had some dire effects.

Often cited in studies of journalism history is the style with which Sen. Joseph McCarthy was reported. I paraphrase:

Senator Joseph McCarthy, chairman of the House Unamerican Activities Committee, today accused Elia Kazan of being a member of the Communist Party. Kazan replied he has never been associated with such a movement.

This, of course, would lend more power to McCarthy's statement because few would feel McCarthy had any reason to make that up. Therefore Kazan must have been lying.

It didn't work until some key journalists let go of the notion and reported with effort to disprove McCarthy's statements. See Good Night, and Good Luck (Clooney, 2005)

Today professional journalists readily acknowledge that the idea of objectivity is merely an impractical ideal, but few would argue, the way many alternative media like Democracy Now or Rush Limbaugh would, that we should embrace subjectivity.

We've already been there in American journalism and it was pretty ugly. The partisan press era of the 19th century has long been seen as one of the low points in delivery of information to the voters, and I agree. The tendency of the moment is that direction, with both sides arguing that they must be partisan to counter the efforts of the other side. This is leading, in my opinion, to an escalation of partisanship and spin, in some mainstream media outlets like Fox News as well as the liberal alternative press.

Partisanship in media has always been around, and it serves a function. I applaud the existence of Democracy Now and The National Review, but this best serves the public on the edges. In the mainstream what we see as important is not objectivity itself, nor subjectivity, but a striving to report completely. That means an examination of the other side. "Fair and Balanced" to quote Fox's ironic mantra.

Filters

A frequent criticism of mainstream journalism is that it is "filtered." The use of the word in some of the readings has read as if a journalist's story goes through some Orwellian process to make sure it fits the political interests of the publishers or the advertisers.

I have certainly been in newsrooms where the aftermath of an angry advertiser sent one of the "business side" people of the paper storming into the room to complain. But the only sort of response I've ever heard from the news side people has been, "Then we lose that advertiser."

Again, not to say this doesn't happen. But the problem of context implies it is common when it is not. And where it is most likely to happen is in the small news outlets that cannot weather loss of income, as in McChesney's case. (Boler 2008, pp. 55)

In contrast, the editing process is less a filter and more a peer review designed to remove as many errors and problems as is possible in the time allowed. No journalist loves being edited, but most see its value.

One thing all journalists and academics could use

I've long felt that all journalists should be, at one point in their lives at least, the subject of a news story. Our work has great impact on the lives and perceptions of others, and for this we need to be as careful as possible.

From the point of view of the subject, the story is never accurate and always lacking. If the story doesn't reflect what is in the head of the subject, it is, from their perspective, wrong. Failings in a story can also come from the source not explaining the situation well enough for the reporter to understand, and then from the subject's point of view, it's wrong also.

These same issues exist in academia, as the perspective of the studied often does not match the research. So here has been my internal perspective.

---

So that rambled on far too long. As a source who agreed to be interviewed only on condition of anonymity once said, "A good rant is never finished. It is only abandoned."

Have Keyboard, Will Travel

YOU can tell when a print journalist has lost his full-time job because of the digital markings that suddenly appear, like the tail of a fading comet. First, he joins Facebook. A Gmail address is promptly obtained. The Twitter account comes next, followed by the inevitable blog. Throw in a LinkedIn profile for good measure. This online coming-out is the first step in a daunting, and economically discouraging, transformation: from a member of a large institution to a would-be Internet “brand.” More...

Google Books Fosters Intellectual, Legal Crossroads

Google will encounter stiff resistance in a Manhattan federal court Thursday during a marathon hearing that could grant Google the keys to free the written word from a business and intellectual model as old as paper and ink.

Read More http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/02/google-books-fosters-intellectual-legal-crossroads/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wired27b+%28Blog+-+27B+Stroke+6+%28Threat+Level%29%29#ixzz0gBl5IiYb

Penn State partner in statewide broadband project awarded $99 million

Here's the link to the story I mentioned in class, about Penn State being awarded money as a partner to bring statewide broadband access to Pennsylvania.

http://live.psu.edu/story/44666

Jenkins: the last few chapters

This post is just to help organize class discussion and some additional stuff I wanted to show you.



Here is more fan-driven cultural production.

You can watch the whole movie on Hulu.

What are affinity space and can they be replicated or facilitated in a traditional educational environment? Why or Why not?




Mike Wesch is trying to do just that.

What is the nature of the challenges emergent participatory culture Jenkins describes pose to dominant cultural and legal structures?

Can Fan fiction/participatory production be used as a powerful tool to re-create media representations? (for example the Buffy/ remix we watched)

How does fair use fit in?

Codes of Best Practices

"Pierre Levy describes a world where grassroots communication is not a momentary disruption of the corporate signal, but the routine way the system operates." (226)

What evidence do we have that this is or is not occurring?

Can Fan fiction/participatory production be used as a powerful tool to re-create media representations? (For example the Buffy/Twilight remix we watched.)

‘Idol’ Beats the Olympics, But by a Smaller Margin Than Usual

The power of “American Idol” as a television attraction was reaffirmed Tuesday night when the singing competition on the Fox network convincingly beat the snow-and-ice competition on NBC.

Wireside Chat with Lessig 2/25: Come if you can!!

Denver Open Media and DU's Digital Media Studies program are hosting a Wireside Chat with Lawrence Lessig, and a live panel discussion on fair use, February 25 starting at 4.

What: Live Webcast or "Wireside Chat" from Harvard's Berkman Center with Lawrence Lessig - and live local broadcast panel on digital media and fair use with Chris Coleman, Laleh Mehran, Derigan Sliver and Jonny 5 of the Flobots.

When: February 25. Lessig's talk starts at 4pm. Then panel starts at 5:30.

Where: Denver Open Media, 700 Kalamath

All are invited. See details below. Hope to see you there.


The Talk

The lecture by Lawrence Lessig will last 45 minutes, and will be
followed by a 30 minute interactive Q & A session. The event will be
moderated by Elizabeth Stark of the Open Video Alliance. Questions can
be submitted using the hashtag #wireside.

This is a talk about copyright in a digital age, and the role (and
importance) of a doctrine like “fair use.” Fair use allows limited use
of copyrighted material without requiring permission from the rights
holders, and is essential for commentary, criticism, news reporting,
remix, research, teaching and scholarship with video.

The Panel

Chris Coleman is a digital artist and educator at DU who uses numerous
technological tools to share ideas. He has been teaching Processing
for three years to Undergraduate and Graduate students and presented
his research on the topic of "Interfacing GOOD Information" at the
FlashBelt conference in Minneapolis. The research dealt with inviting
people to experience information about the good being done in the
world (like work on sustainable energy solutions) both visually and
spatially. His work has been showcased in museums, galleries and
festivals in nearly 20 countries, and one of his software tools
(maxuino) has been downloaded 4000 times by people in 58 countries.

Laleh Mehran’s creative research and pedagogy explore digital video as
a tool to inspire critical discourse. Mehran has been teaching digital
video production for over a decade and has recently introduced High
Definition video into the classroom. Her video work has been exhibited
nationally and internationally at venues such as the European Media
Arts Festival in Osnabruck, Germany; Ponte Futura in Cortona Itlay;
the Orlo Video Festival in Portland, Oregon; the Carnegie Museum of
Art, and The Andy Warhol Museum. Mehran is an Associate Professor and
Graduate Director of the Electronic Media Arts Design program at the
University of Denver.

Jonny 5 is a writer, educator, and former high-school counselor,
better known as the lead-MC and founding member of the Flobots.
Currently signed to a multi-record deal with Universal Republic, the
Flobots' third album, Survival Story, will be released in March, 2010.
While the songs and videos released by Universal have tight copyright
restrictions, Jamie has also participated in a number of alternative
projects, including his current "Rhyme of the Day" effort to share a
new rap/verse every single day of 2010 on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/user/flobot5

Derigan Silver is an assistant professor in the Department of Media,
Film and Journalism Studies at the University of Denver. He teaches
courses on First Amendment law, media law, and Internet law and
regulation. He is the author of several book chapters and journal
articles, and his new book, National Security in the Courts: The
Requirements of Transparency vs. the Need for Secrecy, will be coming
out later this year.

Response: Convergence Culture

Kevin Moloney

Buying into American Idol

This was an excellent look at the way the advertising market has changed over the last ten years and how media powerhouses like Fox have reinvented the way they build programming to engage and "commodify" viewers and their interactions. As Jenkins has noted through these three chapters, that is no easy task, even with television. Many predicted that a form of interactivity with the venerable boob tube would be impossible.

The crisis in the traditional media is often misread to be only about content and content delivery. This is certainly a big piece of that complex problem. But central to the troubles of TV affiliates, magazines and newspapers is the newfound ability to really see who your advertising is reaching.

How valuable is that full-page ad in Marie Claire, when you know that online versions of the same are not being clicked through?

I also found amusing references and hints about American democracy in Jenkins' look at American Idol:

"American Idol offers up a fantasy of empowerment — 'America' gets to 'decide' upon the next idol. This promise of participation helps build fan investments, but it may also lead to misunderstandings and disappointments as viewers feel that their votes have not been counted."

Indeed Jenkins' analysis of this phenom-show could simply swap "Idol" for "Presidency" and become a political science piece.

Our old friend Bob McChesney hosted a couple weeks ago on his WILL radio show "Media Matters" Sut Jhally of the Media Education Foundation.

http://will.illinois.edu/mediamatters Feb. 7 show

If I am remembering this show correctly, Jhally talked among other things about how Obama was very successful in becoming a brand during the election, using many of the affective economics that Jenkins discusses. Jhally noted that this is now, though, a core problem for the administration as so many people have different emotional responses and expectations for what he will do as president that he is failing to meet many of those affective expectations — much like the fans of Idol.

And the suspicions of vote fraud or election rigging on Idol also parallel the American electorate as well.

Searching for the Origami Unicorn

I think my life was changed by this chapter.

Should we be personal in these responses? I hope so. I was fascinated with this one.

I happily watched the Matrix series on the big screen and never felt baffled by its holes. I'm a long-time "art film" lover, and to watch a movie that unfolded as if you knew it all already was to me a simple break in the patronization of Hollywood. I never would have thought to hunt for the answers in other media.

I guess I'm one of the wrinkled geezers in Bagge's cartoon, but with an art-cinema smile on my face.

Having watched the "print" media flail around with figuring out the Internet's possibility and light only on simplistic and old ideas of multimedia in their story telling — an all-inclusive main story with Web extras like slide shows, a video, a sidebar of information that don't need to be seen to find the whole big picture — I had long figured there was a better approach. Though the Matrix's "synergistic storytelling" isn't new on my radar either, I had never put the two together until reading here. For example, gaming and journalism are not comfortable bedfellows, and that always seemed to be too big of a component in the transmedia entertainment I had seen.

Jenkins' framing puts it in many more contexts though. The whole being more than the sum of the parts has been my argument with editors for a couple decades. As a photojournalist a great frustration has always been editorial demands that the images merely illustrate or repeat the main story line. I have long felt that was just redundant. The pairing should add up to more, otherwise it is a waste of space.

The slow response from the news media is not a surprise, of course. Journalists are more obsessed with delivering the story as concisely and completely as they can, and not letting creativity get in the way. That forms a natural limit in thinking, and is slow to evolve.

So where does the creativity come from? Ideas often come from the bottom up — the "open source" of the collective imagination or expertise. But as the Matrix proved, those ideas are truly instituted by the big money. Hollywood has the resources to make new ideas work.

Yet has anyone else picked up this now old (2003 in the case of the Matrix, or the Middle Ages in terms of the Catholic Church) idea and run with it so well? From the Wikipedia entry on the Avatar game:

"Avatar: The Game has received mixed reception. Many critics criticized the game's linear gameplay and said its controls are unintuitive and camera sloppy. The Wii version received mediocre scores mostly, citing poor camera angling, frame rate and story telling, but visuals and controls were spoken well of."

And, as Jenkins asks, can this only apply to the media consumption habits of a particular age group or class of individual? I'd argue that no, that isn't the case. Perhaps The Matrix series appealed already to a certain group, and give the right material a totally different group could become so involved in a "search for meaning." For me, The Matrix was still successful without the transmedia hunt. And perhaps the wrinkled old codgers in Bagge's cartoon would never be satisfied with the Matrix's dystopia anyway.

* Yes, I seem to make everything about the print media, don't I?

Quentin Tarantino's Star Wars?

Perhaps Avatar's and other's less success in transmedia comes from attempt at too much control of content and story.

The media-monoply culture has been an extremely short slice of human experience, and the groundswell of "collaborationism" is a readjustment back to the historical pattern.

Relative to the previous chapter, this idea continues the point that the ideas rarely come from the commercial sector. In the arts as well as in technology and science the ideas more often come from the bottom and are appropriated by commerce. Here Jenkins also notes that the appropriations made by the commercial sector from the "folk" are inevitably reappropriated by the bottom and remixed, redefined and reinvented, feeding the top again.

It sounds like a National Geographic special on an ecosystem.

Interestingly, it is the capitalist impulse that leads both to the prohibitionist stance as mass media companies lobby for the deepest copyright control they can grab, and to the collaborationist revolution/regression. Here is a case where grassroots trends will inevitably lead to profits for a media entity that embraces them effectively. From there, if someone is grossly successful, the prohibitionists will follow.

As Jenkins stated, "Ultimately the prohibitionist position is not going to be effective on anything other that the most local level unless the media companies can win back popular consent..."

Both are possible. There are markets where a prohibitionist stance could probably easily survive, but only where the passions and fantasies of the consumers are limited. That's not a natural condition in any segment of the entertainment industry which exists primarily to incite the passion and imagination of the consumer.

Where could prohibitionism survive? That's a harder question to answer as things that inherently don't incite passion and imagination are less likely to come to mind. Maybe by class time I'll have an example.

Reading Response

Buying into American Idol

This chapter serves as a case study to examine the role that media convergence has played in the American Broadcasting System and how this has affected corporate marketing strategies. In discussing the success of American idol Jenkins notes the importance of understanding how the role between marketers and consumers has changed. The theory of affective economies tries to understand the emotional process of the consumer as a driving force behind viewing and purchasing decisions. In doing so, the marketer and program creator hope to shape these desires to influence purchasing decisions. The chapter continues with a discussion about the positive and negative affects of affective economies and the importance of interactive media in this marketing theory.

The emergence of new technology, such as the Internet, and DVR has, the changed the way people consume media, resulting in new marketing strategies to emerge. Companies are no longer using raw numbers of viewers to assess the effectiveness of their ads, but are now trying to understand the quality of their relationship with their viewers. The idea of “expression” is a strategy that seeks to measure viewer loyalty and overall impression of a program and its sponsors. This is allowing marketers to better understand their audience and the culture surrounding a particular program.

In order to create cultures surrounding a brand, companies are now adopting cross-platform marketing. By extending across multiple media outlets companies are appealing to more interests of their consumers and are creating new ways to be seen. Coca-cola has done this by creating a Cokemusic.com, which allows users to download music and create playlists that can be rated by other users. This strategy has helped create loyalty and dedication to a brand. Audience participation has also been used to create loyalists. This is demonstrated by American idol when the fans become the contestants and decide the winners.

The idea of loyalists, zappers, and clickers are used to discuss how audiences view television programs. Creating loyalists is a primary goal for programs and their sponsors because these fans watch the show consistently and are much more likely to tune into advertisements. American idol has tried to turn zappers and clickers into loyalists by recapping episodes and creating cliff-hangers. The use of serialization is also used to make the viewer want to watch each show to understand the storyline and drama.

The idea of brand communities is also discussed to examine what makes consumers loyalists and advocates of a particular company. When brand communities move online they become more interactive, making the consumer feel more like a producer. This audience participation is very helpful for creating loyalty because the consumer feels like they can shape the dynamics of a brand they are affiliated with. The chapter concludes with a discussion about product placement as a strategy to transfer program loyalty to sponsor loyalty. Effective product placement can heighten consumer awareness but must be done in an effective way that does not annoy the viewer.

http://www.mycoke.com/


Questions
1.) Two brands that seem to have extreme loyalists are apple and pc. How have their marketing strategies differed and whom do you think has done a better job in creating brand loyalty?

2.) Do you think transmedia storytelling can play a role in forming brand communities?



Searching for the origami Unicorn.

This chapter uses The Matrix franchise as a case study to explore how media convergence has been used to create transmedia storytelling. Transmedia story telling uses media convergence to create a narrative across a wide range of media platforms that each contributes to the overall meaning of the story. While this type of storytelling opens up many possibilities and creates deeper meaning, it also has been criticized for requiring too much from the audience and creating incoherent individual plotlines.

One important aspect of Transmedia stories is the use of co-creation and collaborative authorship. When creating the matrix series, the Wachoski brothers used a wide range of producers who each brought interesting ideas and perspectives to the matrix franchise. This co-authorship helped shape the storyline of the matrix series and opened the franchise to a more global market by converging popular culture from different parts of the world. Although the Wachowski brothers contributed ideas and created content for the various platforms involved in the series, they allowed each artist/producer to explore the matrix from a unique perspective.

Although this synergistic approach creates unique perspectives surrounding the narrative of the matrix, it can also create dysfunctionality. In order to ensure consistency across platforms, the Wachowski brothers created the matrix world as a guideline for exploration of ideas. Creating a world with rules and guidelines allows for greater flexibility and expansion then simply creating a franchise based on a story line or character. The creation of worlds is changing traditional ideas of story structure where there is a definite beginning middle and end. In transmedia storys, this structure is abandoned allowing for more complex structures where multiple story lines are interwoven.

The idea of transmedia stories shows parallels to early types of storytelling. This is shown by the story of Jesus or Odysseus being passed along multiple levels of culture. Representations of these characters and stories were passed along with the idea that background knowledge was already known about each figure. Without prior knowledge of these characters, stories could be confusing and less meaningful. This has been shown in modern films such as X-men where storylines are created with the assumption that the audience has background knowledge of the characters. However, Jenkins notes that he does not believe modern transmedia stories have the same layers of depth as stories such as The Odyssey.

The origami unicorn is used to discuss how small pieces of information can change entire perspectives on a film. With the matrix series each media platform contributed meaning to the already existing story line. The storylines created around transmedia stories are often so big that one person cannot aggregate all the pieces together by himself. Collective knowledge is usually necessary to fully comprehend all aspects surrounding a transmedia story. While some people fully embrace this idea, others are left frustrated because they don’t want to contribute vast amounts of time to understand a movie.

http://whatisthematrix.warnerbros.com/rl_cmp/paulcMiller1a.html

Questions.

1.) Do you think audience participation and fan production can play a role in creating and shaping storylines surrounding a transmedia franchise?

2.) Transmedia storytelling usually requires a great amount of involvement and dedication from fans moving across multiple platforms. How was the matrix franchise created this high level of dedication from its fans?

Quentin Tarantino’s Star Wars?

This chapter begins with a discussion about amateur media production and what roles consumers play in shaping mass media markets and cultures. The emergence of new technology has allowed consumers fans and amateur producers to remake and remix stories surrounding popular films. This idea has allowed consumers to become active participants in shaping the culture of mass media.

The distinction between participation and interactivity is made in order to show various degrees of involvement allowed by media companies. Interaction allows media to respond to the user but is constrained to the structure of the designer. In contrast, participation allows for greater freedom of the media consumer, allowing him to shape and create ideas. Although traditionally, media companies have been able to control the participation of consumers, new technologies such as the internet have allowed amateur producers to go public making it increasingly difficult to control distribution.

Media companies have responded to amateur productions and fan participation with two different approaches. The prohibitionist approach tries to restrain audience participation with legal action while the collaborationist approach encourages consumer participation. Collaborationist companies hope that allowing fans to contribute to their media content will help create loyalist consumers. While some companies have taken an extremist position towards prohibition such as the music industry, most media companies vary their stance towards fan participation. This has created confusion among fans about what they can and cannot do.

One franchise that has embraced and also prohibited fan participation is the Star Wars franchise. In 2000 Lucas film launched www.starwarsfans.com in order to encourage fans to create new content surrounding the star wars franchise. However, everything posted on this website would become the property of Lucas films. Although this website was a step in the right direction, there were still several restrictions on fan participation. While this is merely one approach Lucas films have taken towards fan participation it shows how mass media companies are having issues with what approach to take towards their fans. On one hand companies’ want encourage fans participation to create fan loyalty but at the same time they want to limit the amount of power fans have over content creation.

The section concludes by discussing why the prohibitionist stance is a poor strategy for media companies. Not only does this create enemies out of their fans its is also almost impossible to control. This has been demonstrated by the music industry who has filed lawsuits against consumers, which has done very little to stop file sharing and only created more opposition.

The last section discusses how game companies have fully embraced fan participation by creating MMORPGS. Online worlds are designed to allow the player to become the creator of their world. Fans have also been encouraged to contribute their game ideas to an online forum.

http://www.atom.com/spotlights/starwars/challenge/

Questions.
1.) What is unique about the game industry that has allowed fans to have a more active role in participation and production of ideas? Is there anything other mass media companies can learn from the game industry’s approach towards their consumers?

2.) What are some of the problems that mass media companies may face by relinquishing content creation over to consumers?