Taylor – Hybrid Assignment #3 – Part 2
In chapter 5, we look at the concept of ownership of intellectual material in the digital world. Copywriting, as it is traditional understood & used, is designed to protect the creators original creative product (an type of art developed & created) from being appropriated, used & distributed without the creator’s express knowledge, consent & compensation for the use of said artistic creation. However, with the advent of the internet & the expansive nature of the digital world, this concept of copwriting has been under a fundamental attack.
“Traditional notions of cultural ownership are also being challenged. Online, creative works are decontextualized, remixed, and mashed up. We surf and skim, passing along songs instead of albums, quotes instead essays, clips instead of films. Artists who share their work with the world (or find it leaked) see it repurposed in ways they didn’t anticipate. The minute a film is released or an essay is published, it begins to race around the Internet, passed through peer-to-peer networks, posted on personal Web sites, quoted in social media streams. In one sense, therefore, any ownership claim is essentially fanciful, since, in practice, people’s creation circulate in ways they cannot control.” (145)
In additional, there are many people in the world that believe and idea cannot be fundamentally owned by just one person, but rather, gains power when it is shared (freely and widely) with all people.
“If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called and idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it…ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature.” (146)
It is precisely this type of rationalization and belief amongst the denizens populating the digital world that is spearheading and the impetus behind the push to decentralize ownership of artistic ideas and enterprise by freely distributing and sharing material online (copywritten or not).
