Cultural Ownership- Definitions Ch. 5
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
