å September 2015

Angeline Henriquez

Digital Media and Society

September 27, 2015

Cultural Ownership

In chapter 5 “The Double Anchor” Taylor talks about traditional concepts of cultural ownership and how these notions are being challenged by digital media. Traditional ideas of cultural ownership emphasizes exclusive possession, meaning cultural works could only be used in their original form and context. However, Taylor states that this idea of cultural ownership is “fanciful” in this digital media era. “Online creative works are decontextualize, remixed, and mashed up. We surf, and skim, passing along songs instead of albums, quotes instead of essays, clips instead of films.” (p.145). Once an artist’s work enters the cyberspace, he/she has little control over it, thus the term “ownership” becomes very illusive.

However, upon discussing these definitions of cultural ownership as traditional versus non-traditional, my classmate Joyce and I talked about how the line between the two can get blurry. By Taylor’s definition, non-traditional ownership means that an artists’ work can be taken out of context, and that he has no control over how it circulates, but it so can happen without the aid of digital media. For example, if you read a work of literature and then lend the same physical copy to a friend, that friend might understand it in completely different ways than you did because that friend filters it through the lens of their own experiences and prior knowledge. And so if that friend then lends that same copy to a third person, their introduction and summary of the same book to this third person can differ greatly from what you understood the text was about, therefore affecting how the third person will understand it; again, the artists has no control over how their work circulates. Maybe they never really had control over it and digital media is just magnifying this occurrence.

Because digital media has prompted us to think more about ownership, laws surrounding this matter have become more rigid than ever. “Cultural commons are being cordoned off by private interest” (p.145) Taylor states, highlighting the contrast between the original intent of copyright laws, which was to serve as an incentive for the production of literary goods by recompensing writers and publishers, and the rigid structure that it has become today.

Group Members

Joyce Julio

Angeline Henriquez

Limited monopoly privilege is best described as the first version of copyright. Modeled after Great Britain’s Statute of Anne to manage book trading, limited monopoly privilege was developed reluctantly by Thomas Jefferson and the farmers of the Constitution who recognized that the concept of cultural property, though difficult to define, required some form of regulation. To put protective law on intellectual property is difficult because ideas are intangible. Where thoughts lack a physical being like that of a printed book or a chair, they do have tremendous potential and could spark even greater ideas that could, potentially, greatly benefit society. If a creator feared exploitation of his or her idea by others, they were likely to simply not publish or share their work. It was then decided that to provide creators with temporary exclusive rights and legal protection to their creations would encourage further creation of new cultural entities. Limited monopoly privilege was stressed to be an interim period, establishing monetary support to cultural creators for a window of time before their work, and ideally additional work, became free to all and part of our collective heritage. Until 1978 copyright in the styling of limited monopoly privilege was in practice mostly for books, charts and maps until a new definition of copyright’s scope was expanded to “apply to any ‘expression’ that has been ‘fixed’ to any medium” and even further deviated from the intended limitations, allowing copyright to extend to 70 years.

Due by midnight Tuesday, September 29th. You must complete both posts to receive credit

Post 1. Choose and define one of the terms below. [Tag this post as “Taylor definitions Ch4” or “Taylor definitions Ch5”]. Please make an effort to choose a term that has not yet been defined. (250-300 words)

Chapter 4: “hyper democracy” (105), “second level digital divide” (109), “the structureless group” (118), “preferential attachment” or “‘Matthew’ effect” (121), “the myth of independent creators” (123), Pariser’s “filter bubble” (131), Lomax’s “multi-channeled electronic communication” (135), Zuckerman’s “imaginary cosmopolitanism” (136).

Chapter 5: “free” (143), “cultural ownership” (traditional / nontraditional) (145), “limited monopoly privilege” (148), “copyright event” (150), “access to content” and “distribution networks” (154), “pirate politics” (160), “copyleft” (168).

Post 2. Taylor (205) argues, “[w]hile many hoped the Internet would help create a more varied cultural landscape, advertising dollars continue to distort the market by creating perverse incentives, encouraging the production of irresistibly clickable content.” Taylor describes this cultural landscape as an “attention economy.” Defining at least two of the following terms in your response, describe what is circulating in this economy: “e-waste” (183), “reputation silos” (190), “native advertising” (194), “tastemakers” (203). [Tag this post as “Hybrid Assignment 04”]. (300-350 words)

Digital Media is very complicated when it comes to our relationship to copyright. So much information and knowledge is passed through digital media that ownership becomes very blurry. In reading the first few pages of chapter 5 of Taylor’s book, the author herself had issues with copyright when her documentary was pirated and posted online. She explained the costs in making the documentary and how her film being pirated may actually take money out of her pocket. It is a valid concern. The people who pirated the documentary also made a valid point. So who’s right in this situation? This example is a little more complicated because if you are actually making a documentary to spread knowledge to people you must know sooner or later this is going to be a work that is used as an educational reference.

Another example of the complexity of our relationship to copyright is the billions of people who have access to the internet and to digital media. How can you police that many people if they’ve stolen someone’s copyright. Of course there are laws in place but to catch every single offender would be too large a task. As a 2011 report to the UK government noted in the chapter, “The copyright regime cannot be considered fit for the digital age when millions of citizens are in daily breach of copyright, simply for shifting a piece of music or a vide from one device to another.”

Copyright protection is trying to get better with things like content ID systems and Digital Rights Management software but it’s still a heavy burden for the copyright owner. There are those who create content who may not be able to afford this protection. A lot of times artists take chances with their work being pirated leaving them with no guarantee of a financial gain. And some, if not most, only hope that their art can provide for themselves and their families.

This topic particularly is intriguing to me because I aspire to be an entertainment attorney who specializes in Intellectual Property Law.  I believe that digital media is complicating our relation to copyright and bad things are happening to intellectual property because the laws have not yet caught up to the ever growing world of technology and digital media that exist today.  There are so many copyright infringements that are happening today with digital media, and laws are not protecting the authors of the property because there is so much “networked amateurism” that prevents the laws from protecting the property of those who are unaware.

In Chapter 5: “The Double Anchor”,  Taylor explains how; “we are moving from a creative economy of scarcity to one of abundance”, which simply means that creativity is null and void and that everything that is posted online is copied, sold, exchanged, traded, and duplicated for capital gain and profit.  Taylor also explains that “creative work is available without limit, freely accessible; it tends also to become free of charge”.  Therefore, it is unfortunate for the creator of works such as photos, literature, art and song, if the work is used freely and liberally without protection.  Digital media is complicating copyright laws because of the gross infringement of works that are not protected because laws have not been set in place to protect the author.  It’s unfair and unjust because works are being bought and sold while the creator gets nothing in return.

In an article posted for “Wired.com” by Vitalli Soldatenko entitled: “Copyright and Intellectual Property: Change is Coming” Soldatenko explains that “Our current intellectual property system benefits corporations by complicating the process of protecting the rights of content creators. In an era where opportunities and innovations abound our system is almost a tragic comedy.”  He also thinks that we are moving in the direction where authors’ works will be protected, and we can move forward as business and consumer without the complications of creator content being compromised.  However, today while the internet has made our lives easier, it certainly has made it a lot more complicated because big corporation benefits and we are lost in this paradox of having things made easy without looking at how and why.

In my hybrid assignment #3: Chapter 2, I defined “Networked Amateurism”.  My understanding of “Networked Amateurism” is that as a generation, we are all connected, as we network through social media and through computer platforms.  However, we are so unaware of the bigger picture, and amateurs at this game called Capital Strategy; that we fall short in knowing how the game is being played.  Therefore, we are deprived of the benefits that we think are actually gained by using the internet.  We are actually not the ones benefiting from what is being done online.  Capitalist are the skillful manipulators of how content is being seen and heard, while we (the amateurs) are the unskillful members of a world that is using us to network in ways that we are unaware of and being used for the purpose of profit and gain.

In Chapter 3 Taylor brings up the term “Bored at Work Network” which to me defines certain times in one’s work schedule where there me a lag or, as stated in the book, “our diminishing attention spans” get the best of us. I have caught myself working on something diligently only to be distracted by a news alert on my phone or an email that may have come in on my personal account. For me I believe its the immediacy of wanting to know information as fast as possible and, in most cases, before anyone else.

It’s very interesting how Taylor mentions that the content that digital media is providing allows for “stolen moments on the job.” I know that this holds true for me. I usually don’t want to read “serious topics” that are “too weighty” as Taylor wrote because at times being at work is stressful enough and sometimes you’d like to see something positive or re-energizing that may make your day a little less stressful. Sometimes you want to just see the story of a dog that was a rescue and abused that transformed with the help of volunteers.

The “Bored at Work Network” to me always existed. Before there was digital media people would stand around a water cooler and talk about what was going in their lives, the world, etc. Maybe now, people are less inclined to do that and just stick with the digital media on their phone or computer. The social angle of the “Bored at Work Network” may have changed do to technology but this network has been around for a long time.

Digital media complicates our relationship to copyright through the ease in downloading, uploading, copying, and sharing of files such as movies, books, and music. An example of this is Taylor’s documentary Examined Life. A fully copy of the film and clips of it as well were posted online where it can be watched for free. Although Taylor felt grateful for the uploaders’ support of the film, she wrote to the uploaders with the hope that they would remove the film online because she would like viewers to pay for it when they watch it as a way for her to recover the amount of money she spent on the film production.
Copyright would grant Taylor control as the owner of her product as to who can access, use, or duplicate her work. However, there is also the concept of cultural ownership. According to Taylor, “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 Websites, quoted in social media streams. In one sense, therefore, any ownership claim is fanciful, since, in practice, people’s creations circulate in ways they cannot control” (p. 145).
Because everything spreads easily online, including movies, e-books, and music, it becomes accessible for everyone. And when it gets easily accessible, it usually becomes free of charge to use. There’s a group of people who believe that creative work, art, and culture should be available for everyone to use for free, and there’s also another group of people who believe that they should be paid for. It would just be fair for the creators of the work to be compensated for their hard work and the financial expenses involved in the production of their work. They create their product for everyone to enjoy, but they also need to make a living.

The online content farms are  just a reiteration of what we discussed in class the other day.  The idea that we can search for something like “how to bake a pumpkin pie” and their position is to somehow determine how to get the most money for this information.  It is mainly a reliance on the interest of consumers.  Our dependence on search engines such as Google are ultimately where these sites and media companies acquire their data.  Depending on how many people inquire about how to make these pumpkin pies will give companies the idea of how much to charge big name companies like Target and Walmart for advertising to make sure that those items necessary are seen by those who show interest.  This is what produces the eerie advertisement on you Facebook feed about butter and baking pans because you searched for it.

This explains why the other day, while in incognito mode on Google Chrome, I saw items that could be associated with items I ordered from Walmart show up in my advertisements.  Despite me trying to hide my content and using another email address to place my order, I failed to realize that my Gmail account had been signed into on another tab.  So because of this, regardless of my obviously failed attempt at secrecy, the information was made available to companies, including those I ordered from to promote and advertise products that may benefit me based on my recent purchases.  It all makes sense, albeit creepy.