Sampling Intellectual Property

A Little Common Sense Goes a Long Way

2006-05-06T01:51:00.000-07:00

Before I get to the real meat of this post, I'd like to quote something from the book that really has nothing to do with the rest of the post. It does, however have quite a bit of relevancy to my “part two” paper about intellectual property rights of computer software.

"IBM is increasingly shifting its focus to the GNU/Linux operating system, the most famous bit of "free software"-and IBM is emphatically a commercial entity. Thus, to support "open source and free software" is not to oppose commercial entities. It is, instead, to support a mode of software development that is different from Microsoft's"

I really like this quote because it does a very good job of describing the difference between an open source style of development and a "Microsoft" style of development. The truth is that Microsoft isn't the only thing out there. And they really aren't the best. Firefox has done a good job of proving this. Firefox was created by a bunch of guys that thought that they could make a web browser that is better than Internet Explorer. Now, Firefox is largely run by software programmers that come home from their day job and make their contribution to Firefox in their spare time. This is the true spirit of sharing open source code to make a better product than you would have otherwise. Microsoft has done such a good job of monopolizing the software industry that any other approach to software development is generally thought of as strange and outlandish. These things really are not strange, however, they are just different and innovative. Innovation. That is the one thing that human progress can never get enough of.

Anyways, on to the real blog.

There seem to be some fundamental, underlying concepts that ring clear in the conclusion and the rest of the book. The one of primary interest is common sense. Common sense, logic, and practicality. So much of the way things are done in the copyright and patent world are done because of tradition. The traditional way of doing things is not always the best way of doing things, however.

I'd like to cite an example from my own experience. It stems from my experience of going to a Lutheran Christian high school. I was not raised as a Lutheran, but if I could be described as anything, it would probably be Baptist, which is the type of grade school I went to. Thus there were naturally certain doctrines in the Lutheran denomination that I did not agree with. While I will not get into the specifics of these disagreements, as this blog is hardly the place for a theological debate, I will hit at the underlying principles.

If my religion teacher told the class something about how the Lutheran Church does something a certain way or has a certain belief, I would look at the specific scripture that the doctrine was based off of and challenge the teacher. This is because the scripture as I read it did not mean what the Lutherans were taking it to mean. The root to this difference in belief stems largely from the fact that the Lutherans are known to be very traditional in doctrine. This is because of the fact that they formed as a product of the reformation of the Roman Catholic Church. Everyone knows how traditional Catholics usually are. Well, Lutherans are quite similar. The teacher would defend the Lutheran doctrines based mainly on traditional beliefs. They have done things a certain way for so long that they cannot even imagine doing it a different way. Why would they deviate from something that has worked so well for them in the past? Even if something might possibly be better or make more logical sense, the Lutherans would often shy away from it because it is different from what they are used to.

This seems to be largely the way the copyright system works. They have done things a certain way for so long that they see no reason to change their methods. Even though there is a great need to reform and modify copyright law, the government stubbornly holds to their traditions.
There is a great need for logic, practicality, and common sense in government. So many aspects of copyright law just stand as barricades, retarding the progress of mankind. These things are not there for any specific purpose, only because tradition keeps them there. If there is ever something that impedes progress, it is critical to step back and examine the situation. We need to think about it. "Is that rule there for a good reason, or is it just getting in the way of people sharing ideas?" If both cases are true: "Is there any way we can change the rule to accommodate both features of the rule?" These are the questions that must be asked, responded to, and acted upon. You can never go wrong with common sense.

Pack Rats

2006-05-05T23:48:00.000-07:00

This will be somewhat of an extension post of Brittany's lunch post about Chap. 14.

Could the MPAA be more of a selfish bitch? It is as if someone has taken every bit of revenue that might be generated from creative property, split it up into various increments, ranging from pennies to 1000 dollar bills, loaded it into a cannon and shot it into the air. When the money lands, the MPAA scrambles to collect the 1000 dollar bills, which is understandable. They pick up the 100 and 10 and 5 dollar bills from the streets and sidewalks. This is all fine. But they do not stop there. They dive into the sewers to collect every last penny that rolled through the storm grates. They hoard the dimes, nickels and pennies like pack rats. Not because of the value of these coins, but because they can. It’s their money, and they are going to hog it.

Lessig presents a very reasonable solution to this problem. His argument is extremely logical, which is what makes it so extremely unattractive to the MPAA and congress. Lessig proposes that if a copyright holder really wants to hold on to their copyright because it is worth something to them (default $1 as a reasonable minimum value), that they pay a $1 fee to keep the copyright. The reason for this is the many people get copyrights just to get copyrights. Or they get a copyright and forget that they even have it. These frivolous copyrights are serving no practical purpose. They are just impeding the content from going into the public domain so that it may be used for something useful. When someone wants to use content that is protected by some arcane copyright, they must necessarily track down the holder that may have changed addresses 18 times in the past month because they are wanted in 9 countries for murder. Someone like this would be particularly tricky to contact if you wanted to ask them if you could use their material.

Lessig’s proposal, called the Eldred Act, would eliminate this problem. Chances are that the serial killer who has been eschewed from society to some remote location in the Rocky Mountains is not going to pay that $1 fee. This is because that copyright is useless to him. It has been long forgotten. That copyright was just a product of some poetry fling he was on in 1969. After the serial killer does not pay the $1 fee, his work will then be released into the public domain to be used by anyone who wants to.

The bottom line is that the Eldred act is practical. The government and the MPAA are impractical. There is something that the human race thrives on called progress. Progress is the evolution of society, protocol, etiquette, language, government, technology, etc. to make our lives as human beings more pleasant. Progress is fueled by ideas. Something that is just as important as the ideas themselves is the ability to share them. There are certain formalities that are absolutely necessary to protect the rights of those who create things that are truly useful. Otherwise, anarchy would ensue. If an idea is beyond its prime age of profitability, however, it is critical that it be released to the public so that people can learn from the thing or idea. When people take the creations of other people and make improvements on them, this is when true progress results. Otherwise, inventors, creators and makers are forced to start from scratch, thereby necessarily reinventing the wheel every time they put pencil to paper.

To quote from Santos (forgive me if this is not 100% accurate): There are three kinds of people in the world. There is the stupid man, the smart man, and the wise man. The stupid man makes a mistake only to make the same mistake over and over again. The smart man makes a mistake, learns from the mistake, and never makes the same mistake again. The wise man sits back and watches the stupid man and the smart man make mistakes, learns from their mistakes, and thus never makes a mistake himself. Innovators of America are trying to be wise men. Current copyright law is putting blinders on the wise men. The wise men are thus unable to see and learn from the mistakes of their colleagues.
Copyright law is inhibiting progress.

Last Launch Post

2006-04-28T22:25:00.000-07:00

It seems as though we covered this chapter quite a long time ago, but I was supposed to cover chapter 14-finish, so here it goes.
In chapter 14, Lessig's focus was talking further about the "Eldred Act". The main focus of this act is to prevent blockage of the spread of ideas. There are copyrights out there that are doing nothing but blocking access to knowledge. If one wants a longer term register to their work, then the person will pay $1. If it is not worth one dollar to this person, their work will become free domain to the public. Personally, I could not agree more with this act. Before reading this book, I never thought twice about the idea. However, with the threat of more and more of our freedom being taken away because of copyright laws, I've given the idea more thought. However, as we look further into the chapter, there are definitely people who disagree with this act. The MPAA disagreed because of a variety of reasons. They argued that the Congress rejected the idea of copyrights being renewed, they figured that the $1 fee may harm poor copyright holders, and they also argued that extending copyright terms would probably encourage restoration work. Some other worries included risks of copyrights to a story of a film being passed into the public, and that the existing law enables copyright owners to extent registration even if they wanted to. Throughout the chapter, Lessig goes on to talk about ways to deal with each of these worries, and in my opinion, is rather convincing.

Throughout the conclusion to this book {and throughout the entire book, nonetheless} Lessig portrays the fact that our copyright laws are not in the best interest of common sense. For example, he says that he agrees with supporting drug patents, but the fact that our government is stopping the flow of medications to Africa {for AIDS} because of patenting and cost, is ridiculous. People are going to look back on how our country has been acting in accordance to our copyright laws, and wonder how we could let such occurances happen. The United States has stopped the flow of knowledge in Africa, on how to develop drugs that could save 15 to 3o million lives. Bottom line: There should be balanced patent and copyright policies, and no one is doing anything about it. Not many people are aware of our present situation with intellectual property and copyright laws.

Later on in the book, Lessig talks about his idea with Creative Commons. However, since my post is getting a bit long, and since Daniele has covered this section in depth, I think that I will leave it at this.

Everyone have a great summer.

Grand Prix: How Much Is Too Much?

2006-04-23T22:29:00.000-07:00

The Grand Prix tradition started on May 17, 1958. It was created because “students wanted a way for engineering students at Purdue to exercise their skills, knowledge, and enthusiasm.” The track that the race is held on was built in 1968. By the time the track was finished, we were into our 11th annual run. Next year will be the big 50 and I’m sure it will be a bigger and better celebration for some of us.

Being a Boilermaker in her first year of college, I got to hear about the fun festivities of Grand Prix; well most of them anyways. After I heard exactly what Grand Prix was about (from my view and what others have told me it’s a week long celebration where it’s expected that students sometimes come to class either drunk, hung-over, buzzed, or all of the above. On the last day of the festivities there is a race where go-kart type vehicles are raced around a track made specifically for Grand Prix. Teams consist of fraternities and independents) I have come to the conclusion that though going out every night and having fun with friends can be a great experience, some people don’t know where to draw the line. Being a friend to one of these “non-line drawers,” I have seen the effects it can do on someone. She frequently (ok…every night since Monday) has come home drunk and oh so proud of her state of being. I feel that while going out and drinking should be there to loosen you up and help to let go to have fun, it is not there for you to act like a fool in front of everyone you come across and be proud of it. She would (and sometimes still does) gloat and brag about how much she drank, what she drank, and that she spent the night with the “porcelain gods” on more than one occasion. How can someone have fun with friends and be responsible when they are passed out on the bathroom floor in god knows what and still think that it was the coolest thing that ever happened to them?

It’s great that she thought she had fun and I guess that’s what it’s all about: having fun and not caring what anyone else thinks, but there are consequences for all of the alcohol intake in a week. First of all, too much alcohol can lead to alcohol poisoning, which I still find amazing. I, personally, never drank until I came to college and I don’t regret any experiences I’ve had thus far, but to think that something that makes you feel good as well as tastes good could kill you in one night is astonishing. When I think of something killing you I automatically think of solid objects impacting our body in some sort of way and ending our life. Instead, this is a liquid that most college students consume on a weekend basis. Anyway, back to my study subject…she complains of being sick and not knowing why. Hmm? Why do you think? IT’S BECAUSE SHE IS ACTING LIKE AN IDIOT! She doesn’t give her body enough time to recuperate and “refocus” itself. Sure, go out the next night or whatever but don’t come and complain to my room mate and I that you’re sick and you don’t know why. And on top of all that, she’s majoring in nursing. I’m glad she’s having fun but just imagine what could of happened if she got stopped with her sober driver by the cops or the XI’s (non-Purude, non-Lafayette, non-West Lafayette cops who come in from surrounding areas and go undercover to help and get drunks off the street) since she is a minor and all.

I know a lot of this sounds like I’m just complaining but I want to make it announced that this is what in fact actually happens so some people and I know I’m not the only one who has experienced a situation like this. People need to know when to draw the line and still learn how to have fun all at the same time. I hope everyone had a fun and safe week because I know I did and am looking forward to next year when the big 50 comes.

Let the GAMES Begin. . .

2006-04-19T00:26:00.000-07:00

Here is list of some top games (in my view). It is tough to think of every great game you have ever played. It's a little bit like accepting a great award - there are so many people that have helped you get where you are that you need to thank. You also know that if you leave anyone out, you will be a complete d-bag.

!. Goldeneye. This game revolutionized video games. There were some other decent games for N-64, but Goldeneye changed everything. The graphics (for their time) kicked. The clarity of the image was mind-blowing. The gameplay rocked. There is not a single game from its time that could compete with the amount of action and shooting that took place in Goldeneye. I cannot count the number of informal "Goldeneye Tournaments" I had with my friends. Goldeneye is the only game from its era that I would still play on a regular basis (if I still had an N-64).

@. AB game. Some people may have not heard of this game by this title before, but it is truly great. It is a game that was absolutely not invented by me or any of my friends (I'm sure it was invented long ago), but my friends and I sort of stumbled upon this game by accident. (Countless hours on the bus, driving to our high school band tour destination forces some creative means of entertainment.) The AB game goes like this. . . You think of two of the most disgusting or terrible situations that are physically possible to present to the contestant(s). The contestant is naturally not going to want to do either of the situations, but they must choose one. The person doesn't actually do it, of course. These are all hypothetical situations. You take turns going around your circle of friends thinking of terrible situations, and presenting the rest of the group with the choice: scenario A or scenario B? This is the ultimate game of indecision. It's like being forced to choose between eating goose crap or moose crap. You don't want to eat either, but which would you eat if you had to? (The scenarios you usually come up with are far worse than eating any kind of crap. The scenarios often involve sexual activities with disgusting people. . . but we won't get into that.)

#. Duck Hunt. I have to admit that this was not originally on my list, but when someone else suggested it, I had to put it on my list. There is not much that needs to be said for this game. It was for the original NES (Nintendo Entertainment System). You shoot ducks that fly up on the screen with a gun that you hold in your hand. For the NES, this game is just pretty darn fun. (Plus there was that stupid dog that laughed at you when you let the birds get away. It just pissed you off and made want to shoot the dog. But they wouldn't let you. How frustrating.) Additionaly, the musical jingles were fantastic. They are simply indescribable; you just have to hear them. If Duck Hunt had a soundtrack. . . I would buy it.

$. Grand Theft Auto. Whether we are talking about the games made for original Playstation (which had unnecessarily bad graphics, which made it even more fun.) or the ones for PS2 - it doesn't matter. They are all fun for one reason. You can do whatever you want (namely going on mass murdering sprees). This is no joke. You can do WHATEVER you want. You can even do it with a hooker in the back of your car (GTA3). If you want to do the missions you can. If you want to drive around in an ice cream truck running people over and shooting them with an M-16 - you can. The possibilities are limitless.

%. Dodgeball. You throw balls at each other.

As for what great means: Great in the context of this blog means that it has provided me with much pleasure and entertainment. More so that anything else.

Our Culture

2006-04-16T16:42:00.000-07:00

In my opinion, Lessig’s book is a very useful book to understand the concept of intellectual property through the way of historical examples. It was astonishing to learn about the reality of how Disney’s Mickey Mouse came to be, how ridiculous the US government can be, how blogs have taken the world collective ideas to the next level, and many other examples that made their way and became part of our culture, but Lessig's way of explaining his examples seamed kind of repetitive. The examples were different but the idea behind it was all the same. Lessig finds it in his book to discuss intellectual property in regards to a collective culture from all possible angles.

Close to being informative, Free Culture has expands the view of how intellectual property affects us in everyday life. It is everywhere; there is no running or escaping it. It is in our hands, in our home, our computer, our car, the foods we eat, the tools we use, the things we wear. Ergo, we cannot escape the bowels of our own culture.

The End of the Beginning

2006-04-16T10:41:00.000-07:00

We are done with Lessig. However, we have been discussing intellectual property for over three months now. As we all know intellectual property exists in many forms, but it is becoming less and less accessible for us as it gets more and more expensive. Every one of us has a choice of going with it or going against it. Most people in the class could have been able to associate themselves with every presentation that was made in class. Education is always the beginning, now it is the time to use that education. This three month conversation was made to educate all of us. It is hard to decide whether this is the right time and the right place for us to join the world discussion, but it is easy to see that we are not late take part in it. This is like any political election, except every term is every time Congress passes out a new copyright law, or when there is a law suit concerning someone’s intellectual property. Whether we want to or not, we have entered the Parlor.

Greatest = Best

2006-04-12T14:04:00.000-07:00

1. CHESS, So many years have passed people still play it and it is one of the few games that i haven't beaten yet...
2. Fencing, (Physical Chess) Don't let the modern name confuse you, it maybe perhaps the oldest game of all time.
3. Football(Soccer) There is a reason the whole world and I love it...
4. Bridge, at least one card game has to be here, cards have exsited for a long time and entertained people during the worst times.
5. Tetris makes you think and it is the only computer game that I play that is older than 3 years "race-against-machine-to-inevitable-death-game" - Santos

Just Gaming...

2006-04-12T06:41:00.000-07:00

"What are the five greatest games of all time?"

My list (in no specific order):

1. Bridge [mother of all card games]

2. Pac-Man [first big "race-against-machine-to-inevitable-death-game"]

3. Hide n Go Seek [anyone never play this game?]

4. Madden Football [I'd probably have to ditch this one for chess...]

5. Cricket [baseball's better, but cricket came first!]

My list is not definitive, as I already said, I would have to get chess up there and am not in love with cricket.

Also, I interpreted "greatest" as "influential, important."

Responses? Let the persuasion begin...

The Conclusion

2006-04-10T21:23:00.000-07:00

In the final pages of Lessig, he concludes everything that he explained in the book. In the conclusion he states, “Blindness becomes our common sense,”(262). He believes that people have not unlocked their common sense and begun to revolt. People should be fighting for their free culture and Lessig believes that we are losing it and need to get it back soon.
In the Afterwards chapter, there is a section called, Rebuilding Free Culture: One Idea. In this section, Lessig talks about the Creative Commons. The Creative Commons is a nonprofit corporation. Their aim is to “build a layer of reasonable copyright on top of the extremes that now reign,” (282). The plan is to make remixing the work of others a lot easier. They will develop free licenses that people can attach to their content and it gives them some freedom. “They have freedoms beyond the freedoms of fair use,” (283). This means that they have more rights to tinker with other content than someone who only has their fair use rights. Creative Commons is doing this along with their fight for more freedom. They don’t want to fight the “All Rights Reserved” notion, but they want to add to it and maybe adjust and add some new rules that can be used by people without lawyers. Their licenses express the “Some Rights Reserved” notions. Though the Creative Commons is very popular, they are not the only ones that have joined in this fight for intellectual freedom. They are trying to regain their free culture.
In this book, Lessig explained the society that we live in that has slowly taken away our free culture. One person is not going to win this fight alone. If people aren’t informed of this issue, and not fight for their freedom, will it be lost forever?

Can Common Sense Free Culture?

2006-04-10T16:45:00.000-07:00

Lessig writes an op-ed piece on his way to Washington D.C. in order to give a speech to technologists at Disney World. An op-ed is termed a newspaper page which features personal viewpoints. The New York Times published this piece in which he proposed a simple fix and named it the Eldred Act: “Fifty years after work has been published, the copyright owner would be required to register the work and pay a small fee. If he paid the free, he got the benefit of the full term of copyright. If he did not, the work passed into the public domain.” Lessig goes onto say that a world without formalities harms the creator. The fight against formalities achieved its first real victory in Berlin in 1908. Basically, Lessig is offering a solution which remakes the Copyright Office whom has done a terrible job in enabling simple and cheap registrations.

In Lessig’s conclusion he makes a reasonable comparison with the AIDS virus. His views agree that drug research is the clearest case where patents are needed. He uses this analogy because people feel irate about the situation. Moreover, the best solution is for common sense to act in order to free culture. Individual action alone cannot reclaim a free culture. Yet, we have time to build awareness until politicians will finally listen to our ideas and implement these reforms. He states, “It will take some will to transform the RCAs of our day into the Causbys.” I take this to mean that it would take some determination to transform our Rural Cellular Association world into something similar to the Causbys case in which common sense or rational reasoning overcomes. The Causby’s of the world need to be surpassed with common sense.

Valuable Quotes:
“You need to make them see why it is important.” (248)
“For all these years the act has impeded progress in science and the useful arts. I just don’t see any empirical evidence for that.” (248)
“The consequence will be an increasing permission society.” (256)
“The corruption is our own politicians’ failure of integrity.” (260)
“So far, common sense sleeps.” (262)

Losing Pieces of Our Culture

2006-04-02T10:42:00.000-07:00

Chapter 13 of this book brings up the topic of digitizing works to make them more accessible to the public. It also discusses the “Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA), enacted in memory of the congressman and former musician Sonny Bono, who, his widow, Mary Bono, says, believed that ‘copyrights should be forever’” (215).

The first story in this chapter is about Eric Eldred, who wanted to put Hawthorne’s works and links to more information about the works on the Internet in hopes of making his daughters appreciate Hawthorne. Although he failed in his initial purpose, he did expand his “library of public domain works by scanning these works and making them available for free.’” This was fine and legal until he wanted to add Robert Frost’s poems to his collection. Eldred was not able to publish Frost’s poems legally because Congress extended the copyright based on the terms of the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act. Lessig filed a lawsuit on Eldred’s behalf declaring this Act unconstitutional because the Constitution says “Congress has the power to promote the Progress of Science…by securing for limited Times to Authors…exclusive Right to their…Writings…” (215).

I understand that the owners of these copyrights want to make more money off of these works, but works that have been published for a very long time are not as accessible to the public anymore. Some works have no commercial value anymore and are just going to sit around not being used because the owners of the copyright do not want to give up their rights. Old films in particular are in danger of becoming extinct because they “were produced on nitrate-based stock, and nitrate stock dissolves over time. They will be gone, and the metal canisters in which they are now stored will be filled with nothing more than dust” (225). Lessig goes on to say that “one researcher calculated for American culture, 94 percent of the films, books, and music produced between 1923 and 1946 is not commercially available” (228). How sad that we are losing a part of our culture all because some people will not give up their rights to the money from the sale of these works.

Although Lessig lost this lawsuit, he got the idea out there that maybe it was wrong to extend copyrights so far into the future. Lessig particularly enjoyed the cartoons that were made in reference to this topic. He put one of them in his book on page 247 that is worth taking a look at.

What the *$&@!

2006-03-27T05:45:00.000-08:00

I just read pages 177 to 207, and all I can say is wow. I do not understand this crazy mixed up nation and its laws, but it sure makes me say, “What the *$&@!” Some of the statistics I read are just mind boggling.

The first thing I would like to discuss is on page 185 where Lessig talks about how “Jesse Jordan and three other students were threatened with a $98 billion lawsuit by the RIAA for building search engines that permitted songs to be copied.” How can music cost that much money first of all? And then Lessig goes on and states, “A doctor who negligently removes the wrong leg in an operation would be liable for no more than $250,000 in damages for pain and suffering.” Does someone actually believe that music costs more than someone’s physical body/life? The RIAA thinks that everyone who downloads music is a multi-billionaire. They are asking for an obscene amount of compensation which is just unrealistic to the everyday human being. So I wish them the best of luck if they think they are going to get what they initially asked for.

Another section I would like to point out is on page 186: “There is a free market in pencils; we needn’t worry about its effect on creativity. But there is a highly regulated, monopolized market in cultural icons; the right to cultivate and transform them is not similarly free.” The artist who uses an easel and paintbrush never had to worry about stealing another person’s work, yet an artist using Photoshop is constantly on his or her toes worrying about if their work has previously been used. It is unlawful to use or manipulate an icon’s image. If you really think about it, considering how long art has been around, it is pretty hard to come up with something that is really your own unique creation. The only reason why artists who do not use the web or Photoshop are not prosecuted is because it is harder to catch them.

The last section I would like to mention is on page 192: “The building of a permission culture, rather than a free culture, is the first important way in which the changes I have described will burden innovation…” After finishing this part of the chapter, it made me think about how hard it really is for the people in our culture to write/create something. There is this long on-going process to make sure what they created is okay to become public. They must ask a lawyer for permission if they are following all of the laws/rules. A lawyer is not on the same mind level as an author/writer/artist. I understand the lawyer knows the “laws” but these lawyers are taking so much away from these people’s creativity. If I were in that type of position, I would pick a new career because the hassle and the risk of being sued for millions of dollars are definitely not worth it.

Culture is Free for People with Money

2006-03-10T13:27:00.000-08:00

After reading Kristin's post it hit me. Lets take Disney for example, at the time Dinsney was a company with few releases, maybe wasn't so rich but adjusted revenue of "Snow White and Seven Dwarves" was over 600 million dollars this is the smallest number of all sources i've looked this is also earlist available data. Disnay had a few cartoons out already before Mickey, when "borrowing" the image of another character, Steamboat Willie, nobody cared about it. In fact it wasn't important enough to be remembered and because Disney had already reputation on the market it was a lost cause for the original creator in my opinion.
If I would go and try to copyright "That's Hot" for TV before Paris Hilton I would be laughed at. Paris Hilton got the copyright because of her family's reputation and money. However, this is my opinion and the fact that culture is free for people with money is bugging me. Also my opinion is that nothing like that should be copyrighted, language was created to be spoken freely and not a source of income for people.

How Free Is Our Culture?

2006-03-06T13:10:00.000-08:00

After skimming the first thirty pages of Lessig’s Free Culture, I still wasn’t exactly sure what intellectual property meant, or how it could greatly affect a culture. In addition to the fact I’ve never read an introduction to any book I’ve read, the other reading on intellectual property helped to more so understand Lessig’s book when I read it a second time through. Although the term “intellectual property” is not clearly introduced with any type of definition in the first section, we are given more of an understanding of the situation by the examples Lessig uses to portray the ways intellectual property has been taken advantage of in our culture.

In the first chapter, “Creators” we are told that the character that made Disney a household name, wasn’t even Disney’s original creation. Mickey Mouse’s image was “borrowed” from the cartoon Steamboat Willie. “Disney added to the work of others before him, creating something new out of something just barely old.” We all know that copyright infringement happens on a daily basis, whether it’s downloading music on your personal computer, saying “That’s Hot” without crediting Paris Hilton, or using a company’s logo on a school project. But its confusing to me why such a big company was not held responsible for borrowing such a character, and the fact that nothing no one spoke up after Mickey Mouse became such an icon.

Another example of this is Japan’s “copycat” comics, or doujinshi. In Japan, comics make up 40% of all publications and are a huge part of Japanese culture. These copycat comics are basically copies of mainstream comics, but they are altered very slightly. Although its obviously illegal, the market for these comics is huge, and just as the Disney situation – it seems as if nothing is being done about it. Part of this, I think, is because it is such a huge part of culture. No one is going to challenge Disney. No individual artist is going to be able to bring down the manga market, which produces Japan’s largest public gathering when selling them.

The last page in the chapter asks a question. How free is this culture? America is the “land of the free”, but is that label giving people the impression that they can take ideas from others to build upon their own?

COPYRIGHT IS WAY OVERRATED!!

2006-03-01T22:54:00.000-08:00

After reading the article "Who Own's Electronic Texts?" that I volunteered for, I finally understand so much more on intellectual property and copyright. I mean I somewhat knew what we were talking about in class, but with the scenarios given, this stuff just makes much more sense. It's somewhat mind-boggling to me though because it seems like these people are just after the money. There are probably about ten things that I would like to comment on, but then I decided to just comment on two different passages from the text.

The first passage that I would like to bring to attention is on the bottom on page 182 to the top of page 183. Howard compares copyright to driving a car and having a driver's license. He states that driving and having a license is a privilege granted by the government rather than having the right to drive as a human being. I completely agree with his statement. We need to remember that driving is a privilege in this society. People take for granted the right to drive. They believe that since they bought their car that they can pretty much do whatever they want with it. But what happens when one loses their license to an unlawful act or some other action that is severe enough to lose their license? They can't get to work, school, or whatever obligation that they have. Then that finally makes them realize the privilege of driving, instead of taking it for granted. This entire concept is the same with copyright. I agree that the author or publisher should get credit for their work, but it's getting taken way out of proportion. These writers need to realize that copyright is also a privilege for them.

The second passage that I would like to comment on is on page 186 towards the middle of the text. The passage is saying that writers need some type of profit out of their work. I understand to a certain point that they don't want to work for free, but how can one put a price on his or her work? Why must they have that incentive to do a good thing for our society? I would think that their work should be priceless because its their own, it comes from their mind, their intelligence. Maybe I just don't understand their point totally, but to me it just makes the writers/software developers seem greedy. I thought writers were suppose to have a passion for their work...wanting to make a difference today. The more and more I read the article, pretty much everything is going to have a copyright on it. I mean could I get a copyright on this blog that I am typing right now. It's beginning to sound so ridiculous to me. Maybe I am being a little bias on this copyright thing, but that is just how I felt after reading the article.

One more thing that I would like to mention is about the visual co-op we did in class. In scenario one in the article, it talks about manipulating a photograph and how that would be unlawful to use it without consent. I think the projects we did in class were awesome, and it should be done more often by students and professionals. I just don't agree with having to pay to manipulate a photograph, but that's just me! Sorry this was so long!

The Prostitute

2006-02-28T19:23:00.000-08:00

This section of the book really had my mind traveling in different directions. Every time I read, I wonder if I’m interpreting his message in the correct way. Is there a correct way?

In my mind, the prostitute is ultimately being compared to the complex cultures and ideas that emerge in the world today. Spooky states, “Enter keyword “truth,” and the search engine brings you conflicted meanings. That’s the prostitute’s revenge: so many people, so little time.” There is so much going on in the world today, at such a fast pace, that there is no universal truth to anything. However, he goes on to say that like chasity, the wandering mind should not be given up so easily. One never knows how he or she will act in accordance to all of the sights and sounds that make up culture.

The multiplex concept got me thinking. Spooky talks about how whenever our minds are unoccupied, someone takes our place. This “someone” is the constant flow of our culture. It grabs us and pulls us along, whether we like it or not. In a way, our thoughts are not our own, but of many others before us and with us. These thoughts can be open to interpretation. As Spooky states, “Nothing is direct”.

Because this is an “extending post”, the following is an extension of his last paragraph. Can we be both a product and a process? I believe we can. A product doesn’t have to be a finished one. At any point in time we are products of our environment and its culture. However we are also processing and ever changing beings. Before we process, or remix, we must start with some sort of product.

Prostitution and Transactional Realsim

2006-02-28T14:28:00.000-08:00

DJ Spooky makes many references back to the “oldest profession” he believes is prostitution. It intrigues him because it centers on the principles that you give and you take and you recreate and you make new. This fits in with his repeated quote, “Always try to create new words, new scenarios at almost every moment of thought”. He says that it his goal for himself and I think he is succeeding in reaching that everlasting aspiration. He is encouraging creation and discovery and development. When he is relating this all back to prostitution he is saying there is this relationship between the performer and the receiver that goes on between the unspoken imagination that creates thoughts and images and fantasies on it’s own through someone else’s reactions or influence. To pull together this whole thought process he then says, “Nothing is direct, everything is an interpretation”. Very interesting because as I now think hard about all this I found that many and possibly all situations could truly be spun and twisted to symbolize or define different outcomes. Then how easily could wrongs be righted and people’s minds be put at ease.
Another thing I wanted to address was the term he used “transactional realism”. When I searched for the term on the internet, I found that it was known as a “Deweyan perspective on disequilibrium”. A passage from the text reads as follows, “In this transaction ‘inquiry’ is the tool of the goal ‘sense’ [or equilibrium] and ‘knowledge’ is the product of a transformed context. On an individual level this transformation is learning, enculturation and reflection.” DJ Spooky critiques this by saying, if taken too far, there is all sampling and not enough creation and innovation.

Euphoric Satisfaction

2006-02-27T07:53:00.000-08:00

Spooky effectively portrays several aspects of society, of our culture, in forms that aren’t readily looked at or accepted. The abstract vision on the prostitute plays with my intellect and provides a contemporary era of light on our culture. The prostitute. What the hell? Who scrutinizes the prostitute and examines the outlook possessed by the role portraying it as a relationship of cultural consequence. It plays on one of those concepts, obscure, yet painfully obvious when made noticeable.

Obviously, Spooky’s intent was concentrating on the metaphor behind the idea, get past the role of the prostitute as a being and gaze upon the scenario as a correlation of information and beneficiary as provocatively unpredictable and ever-changing. This is huge. I do not know what to do with it. I have never looked at the flow of knowledge in such a cynical way. Yet, it makes total sense. We will pay whatever price required to receive our information in puppet form. “What do you want me to be?” This sentence could sum up what drives our “voodoo” economy. Goals of gaining the reputation and resources to have what I want, when I want it, and in the form on want it, on a silver platter…this is what directs our minds. Paul writes, “…just as much on the basic fact that the money being handed over is an emblem of your time and energy. It’s a dance contest between master and slave, but again, and maybe, just maybe, it might possess you…you pay the price and expect to receive satisfaction. Think of it as a Taylorization of urban pattern recognition…” Our obsession with the euphoria of satisfaction blinds our minds to the catastrophe of being, actually, possessed by what we strive. The very thing (literal sense inthe broadness of the term) we seek is what becomes us, to the point of possession. Weird.

Spooky begins to hack at the multiplex concept of self in this section (112). This is glaringly evident today. We become zombies among a moving culture of order when our attention is unoccupied. Putting upon ourselves a screensaver of cute fishes and lawnmower dudes, blind to the transforming culture around us. A state of hypnotic liveliness, stumbling through the corridors of the “I want” philosophy.

I embrace the crossroads of music and philosophy (112). The office in which transformation is nonexistent if the process of change is dead. Transformation becomes the genre, change becomes the means. We are either a product or a process. I submit that the product is fictional. An imaginary goal in which we strive, essential to our existance, but never reach. We change at great speeds that often exceed change itself. Think about how many times you’ve (as so dutifully pointed out in class, illegally) loaded Limewire or DC++. For what purpose? To update your archive of electronic media, to remain current, to be active, to be a parasite of technology in this culture. Thus, the complexity and vastness of the Prostitute moves ever forward, ever changing. The Prostitute? What the hell?

The Future Is Here

2006-02-22T21:21:00.000-08:00

I’m still not exactly sure what is going on in this book. The more I read, the more confused I get. The four stories that Spooky tells, which start on page 101, in my opinion, have nothing to do what he was previously talking about. Everything goes back and forth and I can’t seem to follow much of anything that he is trying to say in his writing. Saying that, I will try to take a stab at what he is saying.

Spooky comments on page 101 that “We’re probably the first generation to grow up in a completely electronic environment.” I’m not sure that I would call this a “completely” electronic environment. There are still many aspects that have not been set to today’s standards. But on the other hand there are many things we can do today that would have seemed impossible even a few years ago. When he talks about John Cage in the anechoic chamber, it is interesting to me that the sounds made by the blood in his veins (low frequency) and the sound of his nervous system (high frequency) could be heard as a rhythm. It is even more interesting that we can take those sounds and replicate the person’s body.

I think what Spooky is saying is that rhythm science is not only about changing, but reinventing. Taking something and changing it is remixing. Spooky goes beyond that and reinvents.

Rippling Actions

2006-02-21T17:09:00.000-08:00

Paul Miller states that rhythm science is “the creation of art from the flow of patterns in sound and culture,” or the changing same. As was discussed in class earlier this week, we could define culture as preferencing one term over another. This is exactly was DJ Spooky achieves throughout his book. I will extend my thoughts on how culture can mean one's different outlooks on subjects but can also mean to enhance or reform.

On page 87 he says, “From math to code to culture, contemporary art has shifted as well.” It just makes everything a little more interesting, although most are reluctant to change or shifts for some reason. We are all in our own comfort zone with the exception of Paul Miller. He speaks about his Errata Erratum project he composed. He remixed Marcel Duchamp’s developments. He is actually a French Dada artist, who exerted a small but strong controversial output on the 20th-century avant-garde art. DJ Spooky’s remix of Duchamp’s “Erratum Musical” has a lot of “finished” pieces, meaning it can be interpreted in many ways. It started out as a fun thing that turned into something more serious. An expression Spooky uses pertaining to this project that sparked my interest is when he states “digital sublime.” I think what he is trying to say is that everyone’s diverse versions of one theme is like a digital high. It is like a rush of various thoughts and feelings on the subject that can elevate joy perhaps. In fact, Spooky said that he wants to give people a sense of improvisation. I believe this verifies my statement.

Albert Einsten once quoted, “It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity.” I think Spooky somewhat believes the same and is actually infatuated by it. He talks about his multiple maneuvers across the country, listservs, laptops, internet, wetware, hardware, CD players, and synchronization. He also makes reference to Alan Kay, Douglas Engelbert, and Ivan Sutherland. Each created the laptop computer, mouse, and computer graphics respectively. He even said that “we’re probably the first generation to grow up in a completely electronic environment” and “this cycle will only intensify throughout the twenty-first century.” This also could be signification of culture. We, members of society, will use technology to cope with our world and will transmit this idea from generation to generation in hopes of them to revolutionize our thoughts and ideas with “flows, patterns, or rhythms”. In Spooky’s words, it will become the “changing same.”

Space, Errors, and Future

2006-02-19T16:09:00.000-08:00

As the book starts to get repetitive and is starting to run out of the vaguely bright ideas that were expressed in the beginning of the book. DJ Spooky comes up with some new material about traveling and how he rushes in front of the whole world by traveling and spending only few moments in each place as if he had something extremely important to do in each place and is accomplishable in such diminutive time. He stresses more than just a few words on his traveling habits “transfer in Frankfurt, and then a day flight back to NYC. I’ll be there for a day then off to Sweden and Denmark for four days.” However, he comes up with a very good point of how he is always on the go, but these destinations are only instigations that have destinations of their own. Everyone is in the hurry, yet nothing is out of ordinary. He mentions his CD, I reread the sentence to make sure. He really said CD player. He was saying how everything is changing and how nothing is the same anymore, how everyone is keeping up with technology. At the same time he was listening to the same CD in a CD player, in a CD player. Maybe not everyone is keeping up with the technology. I verified that the book was written within past few years, and then I went to the web site and saw that he has a playlist on itunes. Quote “I restart my CD player that I’m listening” on page 89 is troubling me a little bit, since if people would really keep up with technology as he stated, he would have an mp3 player instead of a CD player. In the next paragraph he switches his idea to code and how today’s world is infused with digital creations. This really upsets me about the book since he already stated that in so many forms that this seems is very repetitive.

Errata Erratum or Error Errors, here he talks about a time where he had to make a piece for Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art on-line gallery a clear explanation of this passage lies in one sentence on page 93, “Filling space in becomes a dance with emptiness, and that’s what my Errata Erratum project was about.” He really establishes Dj culture as a culture of its own and unique. He does that after he researched Errata Erratum on the internet and found how that really interconnected with Dj culture. He doesn’t really want to get off the internet and computer topic, as every different chapter becomes not so different when you realize he revolves it around the internet, code, and computers.

He transfers the idea of “The Future is Here” into a new chapter by not only naming it that way but also quoting William Gibson on page 100 “The future is already here, it’s just unevenly distributed.” He yet again brings an example of computers and this age, which also made me think about his CD player in the airport. He wrote about four stories that completely did not make sense and the point that he was trying to establish by writing them.

P.S. Why Macs Suck Video: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6553260189868317794

Mutliplex Consciouness

2006-02-13T06:17:00.000-08:00

I believe all of us can relate to what Dj Spooky speaks of in this reading starting on page 60. He discusses a "self" that is not only one but a possible two or three selfs telling our conscious self what to do or say. He dicusses a writing by Du Bois on "double consciousness", if the African American condition, we are faced with "a world which yields....no true self consiousness, but only lets [us] see [ourselves] through the revelation of the other world. It is a peculiar sensation, this double consciousness, this sense of always looking at oneself through the eyes of others...on ever feels his two-ness-an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two uncreconciled strivings, two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder"(61).
Seeing that we are in a time where image is everything, I believe this concept is extremely relevant to our culture. Everything you do, wear, say, is being judged at all times. So having other layers of consciousness telling us basically what people what to see and hear helps us to maintain a sense of well being to our "conscious self". The best quote from this passage sort of sums the allagations up "Today, the voice you speak with my not be your own."(69) Everthing that we do is shaped around the our culture.
From all of this talk about potraying a different "you" so that you are accepted stems then into what Spooky discusses on page 68, "originality". Is anything truly original? A good example of this is rap music today. A majority of the songs you hear are remix's of songs from the past put to another beat and sung in another voice. By conducting a little background check you will soon find out that almost nothing is original. Spooky then discusses a writing by Emerson that copyright disputes go back all the way back to the sixth-century. "Christianity was a farily recent import, and almost all of the sacred manuscripts were copies"(73). He then talks about a dispute between St. Columba and Finnian of Druim Finn in which a manuscript was given to Columba from Finnian and Columba made a copy. After hearing of this Finnian took the issue to the king saying he wanted both the original and the copy back. After the king ruled in Finnians favor, the king stated "As the calf belongs to the cow, so the copy belongs to the book."(73)
These two passages bring about the same point, is anything truly original whether it be [you] or another object. From my standpoint, nothing is original, everything has been shaped by culture, information, and the way it is percieved by each individual object.

expanding the pantheon

2006-02-13T05:37:00.000-08:00

I’m not going to lie. I am still somewhat (more like very) lost with this book. But I am still going to take a blind stab on what I think my section was about. To play it safe, let’s do it by the sections.

Multiplex Consciousness

Spooky first starts off speaking of the creation of dual and triple consciousness, meaning that you could act as two or three different people yet are the same person. The creators of these consciousnesses were African Americans suffering from segregation. One claims that on one hand he was black and on the other he was American. The other claims the same but also adds that there is a middle that decides which consciousness to react with.

Spooky also goes into the compatibility of hip-hop with all other genres, which I agree with. “Hip-hop is always innovative and it can absorb almost anything.” He is even so bold as to compare Walt Whitman and Biggie Smalls, a.k.a. Notorious B.I.G., which I thoroughly enjoyed.

Phonography

Spooky is paying tribute to the man that allows him to make a living spinning turntables, Thomas Edison, inventor of the phonograph. He then goes on to analyze what it was exactly that Edison opened up by creating the phonograph. He writes, “Recording the voice proposes an ontological risk. The recorded utterance is the stolen sound that returns to the self as the schizophonic, hallucinatory, presence of another.” Honestly I had no clue what this section was about, so we are just going to move on.

Rhythmic Cinema

Spooky goes into what Rhythm Science really is. “Automatic Writing” is what he says a surrealist would call it. I can start to see that spooky himself is a definite advocate of this style of writing, since I get so easily lost reading this book sometimes. He makes it seem like a steady flow from the mind. Nothing is rushed, sit and wait for it. “Set your browser to drift mode and simply float” was a good way of saying it.

He goes on to comparing music, particularly electronic and jazz, to telling a story. They are both closer to the side of improve than any other style of music. Whether it is playing different notes on the same scale to make a new solo to mixing several noises to create one track, both are the same idea.

I hope that I didn’t butcher this up too much.

Spooky and the Visual CoOp

2006-02-07T12:55:00.001-08:00

Here's a passage from a conference paper I read in San Francisco last spring. A umber of you have touched on this in posts or in conference conversations, so I thought you might find it interesting to see how this stuff shows up in my scholarship. The paper opens with a discussion of the "skeumorph" and then jumps to my discussion of Spooky, if your just interested in Spooky, then jump down to the paragraph that begins "I find justification..."

Katherine Hayles refers to the skeuomorph, a concept she borrows from archeological anthropology, in the opening chapter of her work How We Became Posthuman. She writes that “a skeuomorph is a design feature that is no longer functional in itself but that refers back to a feature that was functional at an earlier time…” and that “it calls into play a psychodynamic that finds the new more acceptable when it recalls the old that it is in the process of displacing.” She offers as an example the faux stitching molded into the dashboard of her Toyota Camry. This faux stitching aided in assuaging the acceptance of plastics and synthetics in automated automobile manufacture; the skeuomorph operates as a transitional lubricant easing the integration of a new technology into popular social practice. Hayles is careful to warn that this ease of transition or acceleration of cultural acceptance comes at a price; since the primal baptism of the new in terms of the old restricts our vision of the new’s possibilities. New dog, same old tricks.

Perhaps the logic of the skeuomorph is nowhere as present in our contemporary society as it is in electronic discourses, especially those discourses concerned with digital writing and the internet. “Web page.” “Bookmark.” “File.” “Folder.” “Header.” “Footer.” All define technological developments in familiar terms and thereby nod to what Hayles’ refers to as the skeuomorph’s psychodynamic by “testifying to the social or psychological necessity for innovation to be tempered by replication.” Those familiar with the work of Lawrence Lessig, our keynote speaker, or critic Paul D. Miller, who I will discuss the later in this paper, understand that it is imperative that we work to identify the ways in which skeuomorphs are limiting emerging technologies. (imagining Walter Ong, what will it be like in the will have been?) Today I would like to identify one limitation imposed upon digital textuality, to work through this limitation in light of an emerging digital aesthetic, and to share a digital assignment I have been developing over the last few years that in some way represents the new aesthetic (the aesthetic of the mix) and, I hope, opens access to new pedagogical possibilities for composition.

A large part of the impetus driving my presentation today developed as I was compiling an annotated bibliography focusing on the treatment of digital writing in popular contemporary first-year oriented composition textbooks. Even a cursory perusal of the chapters covering “electronic writing” or “document design” show the skeuomorphic limitations restricting our conception of digital textuality. Thus far the possibilities of digital textuality are framed in stylistic terms: students are often instructed to be aware of the wide range of choices available to them: font size and color, alignment of information, prominent placement of images and hyperlinks, and so on. Certainly, these are important considerations for any contemporary student (if you don’t think so, take a look at eBay sometime to get an idea of how much every student needs a fundamental awareness of basic visual rhetoric…). The problem with this stylistic approach, however, is that it preserves the sanctity of the process model for the analogue paper as a finished product—we might say that thus far our pedagogy maintains the old process models with an added step: “digitize” or “electronify.” The web is often framed as a place to publish, and thereby perish. The final step. The end. I am trying to identify two interrelated limitations here: first, we have yet to identify the ways in which digital textuality changes invention and the entire writing process; second, we have yet to identify the ways in which digital technologies will change invention by changing the possible lifespan of student work (and, in fact, all information); riffing off of the product/process binary, how digital technologies can hold student work open in a state of perpetual process. (Delivery)

Think of the life span of an average student paper. Two weeks? Six weeks? No matter how long its incubation or pubescence, we know when it will perish: the day it gets handed back. Perhaps it gets a stay of execution: the re-write. Or it might be held in a state of suspended animation for a few months in a portfolio. But what happens once the semester ends? Goner. If extremely lucky (if that’s the right word), then it might get exhumed once a semester as an example to be investigated, examined, autopsied like a corpse. Its creator gone, no longer present, it is dead. This is the life of the paper as product.

Besides making it easier to store and share student work as dead product, digital technologies make it possible for us to keep student work alive—to grant it existence as ever-in-process. This is especially pertinent when working with images. Those familiar with photo-imaging software such as Adobe’s Photoshop or Macromedia’s Fireworks know that these programs can track the development of an image. They keep the various components used in composition separate on different layers or frames. The example we truck out can not only be examined, but also engaged. Students can access the elements previous students used in the composing process, re-arranging, manipulating, and changing the original. It is my belief that allowing students to engage past students’ processes will help them better understand and improve their own compositional process by making them more cognizant of the rhetorical decisions all writers make as they compose.

I locate theoretical justification for this approach in the work of new media visionary Paul D. Miller, aka DJ Spooky that subliminal kid. Miller’s recent contribution to MIT’s Mediawork series, Rhythm Science, draws significantly on the experiences of one of his multiple alter-egos, DJ Spooky, a well respect techno DJ. Miller argues for rethinking aesthetics and creative processes in terms of the “sample” and the “re-mix.” Surrounded by the glut of information and access as we are, Miller stresses how selection is becoming synonymous with creation: writing that

All inclusive data networks transform individual creation into a kit of interchangeable parts, Lego building blocks of consciousness in a world that moves under the sign of continuous transformation and atomized perspectives. The machinery of culture acts out in the theater of the mind—how we navigate through the abstract systems we use to maintain meaning. As we say in the DJ world, it’s all in the mix. For the most part, creativity rests in how you recontextualize the previous expression of others, a place where there is no such thing as “an immaculate perception. (33)

Miller finds inspiration in Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay “Quotation and Originality” where Emerson writes that “it is as difficult to appropriate the thoughts of others as it is to invent”(68). It is in Miller’s writings that we find an attempt to imagine how digitality and the hip-hop aesthetic, the mix and the sample, is in the process of influencing invention [creation of persuasion] and epistemology [considerations of knowledge]. And as he draws inspiration from Emerson’s conclusion to face conservative opposition, so do I draw inspiration from his conclusion to an early essay “ideas in the mix: loops of perception” when he recalls Hayles and the skeuomorph. He warns against the lure of the skeuomorph:

The semantic web is an intangible sculputural body that exists only in the virtual space between you and the information you perceive. It’s all in continuous transformation, and to look for anything to really stay the same is to be caught in a time warp to another era, another place when things stood still and didn’t change so much. But if this essay has done one thing, then I hope it has been to move us to think as the objects move…

I would argue that a major part of this movement concerns realizing how the role of the creator, the “I am,” has changed. Rather than the classical mirror or the Romantic lamp, the contemporary creator is perhaps better symbolized as the forge—an assemblage of instruments of re-combination-- a shaping, violence that pounds the disparate together. What emerges is the new media creator as someone who works with (even as she is worked by), who works with/out, who works through, who works across.

Dying Imagination

2006-02-05T23:28:00.000-08:00

I would have to say that this section in DJ Spooky’s book has been my favorite so far and for many reasons. The number one reason that I, along with possibly many others, find this section much easier to read where he steps out of his reality of dj mixed words to our reality of comprehendible, easy to understand, non-rhetorical sentences.

In the section of “Districts,” I think it is important to know of his background which Spooky is doing. He talks of himself as “…a product of Washington D.C.” where he is exposed to a world of music of all different types. But later, I feel Spooky really becomes a product of New York City. It’s in NYC that he truly starts his life as a DJ and puts his own beat/mix on things for all ears to enjoy.

One part that intrigued me in “Districts” was when Spooky said, “Jackass and Who Wants to Marry A Millionaire had taken over the discourse machine of the academy, and even a book with a title like Philosophy and the Matrix wouldn’t make anyone blink.” I think that the point he makes is that these new trend setters have taken over the human imagination and that a book with an intriguing and maybe confusing title of Philosophy and the Matrix has no more effect on us to use our imagination. The imagination needs something more to feed off of. He accomplishes this through his own music making. He uses improvisation in his music because this is what makes the imagination tick and what makes no two pieces of music alike.

The Angela Davis Trial

2006-02-05T20:27:00.000-08:00

On page 37, DJ Spooky mentions that his father was involved with the Angela Davis trial. Angela Davis is an African American female, a radical activist, and a member of the Black Panther Party. She is an activist for racial and gender equality. She was also in favor of doing away with prisons and is quoted as saying, "Imprisonment has become the respose of first resort to far too many of our social problems."
The Black Panther Party, which she was a member of, was a revolutionary party that formed in October, 1966 and fell apart in the early 1970's. This party was founded by Huey P. Newton, Bobby Seale, and Richard Aoki. This revolutionary party was a Black Nationalist organization. The group's main focus was a Ten Point Program which outlined the members' beliefs of greater independence for black Americans and ways to right the injustices done to black Americans. This was a radical group because of their violent and uncompromising attitudes.
Angela Davis is most famous for allegedly helping Jonathon Jackson, who was the younger brother of George Jackson, in his attempt to free his brother from prison. George Jackson was a criminal from a very young age, and he took a great interest in politics and political revolutionary tactics while in prison. He was not in favor of the peaceful ways of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Jackson was quoted as saying, "The concept of nonviolence is a false ideal. It presupposes the existence of compassion and a sense of justice on the part of one's adversary. When this adversary has everything to lose and nothing to gain by exercising justice and compassion, his reaction can only be negative." While in prison, he and two other inmates became known as the "Soledad Brothers." On August 7, 1970, George's younger brother Jonathon entered a Marin County courtroom with a machine gun to demand freedom of the "Soledad Brothers." He freed three prisoners and took Judge Harold Haley hostage. Haley, two of the prisoners, and Jonathon were killed as they drove away. Eyewitness testimony testified that Judge Haley was shot by a shotgun inside the automobile. This shotgun was traced to Angela Davis. She fled the police for two months but was eventually captured. She was charged with conspiracy, kidnapping, and homicide. Eighteen months after she was captured by the police, she was tried and acquitted of all charges.
I learned many interesting facts while researching this topic that I would like to include here. The Soledad Brothers are a blues/rock trio from Maumee, Ohio, whose name references to the "Soledad Brothers" that I researched. George Jackson wrote a book called Soledad BRother while in prison, and it became a best seller. In 1972, John Lennon and Yoko Ono released a songe entitled "Angela," which was about Angela Davis. The Rolling Stones also released a song entitled "Sweet Black Angela," which was about Angela Davis's legal problems, and this song promoted her release from prison.
I obtained most of my information for this summary from www.wikipedia.org. I researched Angela Davis, George Jackson, and Black Panther Party on this online encyclopedia.

Sociosonographic Expression

2006-01-31T17:18:00.000-08:00

I agree with Brian that money seems to be the center of society and how “imagination comes from your body and connects to your surrounding environment.” Musicians are prime examples of connecting their imagination to their environment. They may write about an event that has happened or maybe it hasn’t happened and it was just a figment of their imagination. DJ Spooky states, “Music is always a metaphor…it’s not set in stone,” (20). DJs especially represent this in the way they mix their beats. They may be telling a story. It’s all relevant. I have often had beats in my head; maybe it’s just my inner DJ trying to tell my story.
Many musicians, including DJs, may take someone else’s music and add their own creativity and imagination and make it something original. Another example would be the visual remixing that we are currently working on. Someone else had an idea and used their creativity to make an original piece of their own, invention. What we are doing is “sampling” their material by using some of what they have, but using our own ideas to create something “new.”
He also talks about “sociosonographic expression- sound writing-,” and says that it “mirrors the inscription and re-inscription of text,” (36). He talks of a DJs needle on a turntable as his sociosonographic expression, a mediator between self and the external world. In a sense the DJ uses this needle to connect them together and to tell the external world who he is.

Prosthetic Realism

2006-01-31T14:42:00.000-08:00

In the beginning of pages 20-36, Spooky speaks of the power of "imagination." He first states that "without imagination, everything is empty" (20). He means that without any creative insight, society will not prosper and will be left with nothing. Spooky then describes how imagination flows from your body and connects you with your surrounding environment, allowing you to truly express and experience your true inner thoughts and creativity. He also explains how everybody interprets and sees the world around them differently. Spooky establishes this by saying, "Sometimes the images carve out a blank space that memory later gives meaning to... We are never going to remember anything exactly the way it happened," (28-29). Everybody can see the same event happen, but everybody's interpretation will be different, because not everybody sees things in the same way and has the same kind of "spin" on the way they view the world. This allows for everybody to add on something newto their predecessor's understandings and interpretations of the environment around them, which in turn opends up new possibilities on how to perceive life.
A real world application of this idea is the different type of "spin" that we can put on society through the means of technology. People nowadays are able to take older forms of technology and modify it using newer technology and their own creativity which brings about different answers to similar problems. These new forms of technology also opens up our eyes to even further possibilities that weren't seen before, allowing us to expand our knowledge even further than before.
Spooky then starts to talk about the idea of a prosthetic realism on page 32. After carefully reading this passage many times, I have come to the conclusion that he is referring to the growth of technology as a never-ending and repeating process that is simultaneously different and similar. Imagination sparks creativity which allows people to put a new spin on technology and create something newer and more efficient than before. This innovation opens up a new world of possibilities allowing for future generations to expand on it. The process then starts all over again with the next generation because they are brought up in a world that has already adapted to and based their society on this "new" technology, so it automatically becomes apart of the lives of the next generation. They are able to look at this situation with fresh eyes and use their own imaginations to improve on technology, thus repeating the same process. Each generation puts their own spin on the innovations of the previous, which allows for society to continue to evolve. But in the end it is all the same; it all stems from the same source. Spooky compares this process to a CD player. When you press play, the music changes as time goes on, but in the end it always comes back to the beginning.
The major flaw with this type of society is that it relies on one thing, money. "CREAM: cash rules everything around me" (24). Without money and the spark of imagination, society will cease to grow and eventually be swallowed up in the ever changing world around it. Spooky speaks of the media and advertisements as a solution to this money problem. The media uses creativity in advertisements to generate curiosity and maintain a steady cash flow. However, in doing this the media creates a sense of conformity which smothers the fuel behind innovation, imagination. It is a double-edged sword, I guess we need to use our imaginations and creativity to come up with a new way of dealing with our problem in order to maintain a balance in our society.

The Collapse of Technology and Sound as a Vector.

2006-01-26T18:33:00.000-08:00

Sampling Intellectual Property
I agree with Jen about the rhythm of the book. Spooky seems to be able to write effectively, and say what he wants to say, while still keeping a rhythm. Indeed technology has become our life. What would we do with out technology? What Santos said in his comment, “Is all this technology leading to our salvation or our destruction?” is a very big question. What would happen in the case of an enormous catastrophe that fries all of our computers? Technology builds off of itself. The cell phone is a very large part of everyday life. However, it would not be such a big deal if all of our cell phones got fried. Cell phones can be replaced. A much larger disaster would be if the all of our cell phones got fried and the computers and databases that hold the plans to every cell phone ever built got fried. We would then have to reinvent the cell phone. What happens when all of the latter occurs, and the computers that hold the plans to build the computers that hold the plans of the cell phones got fried? The technology process is accumulative like this. A little bit like a game of Jenga. The closer to the base you pull a block out, the more catastrophic the ensuing result will be. The more we rely on technology, the more damaging to society a blow to technology will be.
I think the most interesting proposal Spooky makes in the first 20 pages is the concept of sound as a vector. Some passages that stick out to me: “Rhythm science is a forensic investigation of sound as a vector of a coded language that goes from the physical to the informational and back again.” “…in front of us like an amorphous cloud made of zeros and ones, 1s and 0s.” “In the case of certain infectious agents, vectors are capable of transmitting the disease only during a certain time period. In these situations, vectors play host to the agent. Once the agent is within the vector animal, an incubation period follows during which the agent grows or reproduces or both, depending on the type of agent.” “It’s a carnivorous situation where any sound can be you, and where any word you say is already known.”
Basically, I think what Spooky is getting at as far as vectors are concerned is as follows. Vectors are represented on paper as an arrow, or in geometric terms – a ray. Sound is like an arrow being shot from a bow. The speakers of our stereo or computer, or the headphones of our iPod is the bow. Sound is the arrow. Our ears, and eventually our memory is the target. The artist is Robin Hood. The DJ is the wind that redirects the original intent of the arrow. These arrows carry an infectious disease. If the arrow is shot well (if the music is made right), it will hit the intended target – our memory. This is when you walk around all day humming the same song. If you can’t get a song out of your head, it was made well. It hit its target. You may not like the song, but it is obviously catchy enough to stick with you. Once you are infected, the virus undergoes a time of incubation, where it multiplies and evolves. The song takes its own shape in your mind. The song in your mind is no longer the song you listened to. For DJs and remixers, they sometimes get inspired enough to spit back out what has formed in their head. This is an entirely new arrow, carrying an entirely new virus. The DJ is now Robin Hood. The virus spreads to the target audience, and the process starts all over again. This is the evolution of music that I believe Spooky is talking about.

Finally getting this whole mix thing

2006-01-25T13:32:00.000-08:00

After reading the first twenty pages of DJ Spooky three times or so, what I am reading is starting to make some sense. The book definately did not make sense to me right away. DJ Spooky aka Paul D. Miller is not only a write but also mixes like a DJ, hence his name. He mixes words with other words/sounds/ideas that are like the lyrics to a song. As Iwas reading his text, I could hear how the song should sound in my head. He repeats the words just like the lyrics of the chorus in a a song such as "this outcome, that solution." The pages were like that of a mix CD: Sounds and words were tied together along with using rhythm all at the same time, for example if you read the bottome of page eight to the top of page nine. He starts off with "Flow. Machines that describe other machines, texts that absorb other texts, bodies that absorb other bodies..." It is amazing how he can make his book sound like a song from a CD. My love for music has also assisted me to have more respect and understanding for this book we are all currently reading. DJ Spooky is making our culture more creative with this type of writing. As I read through more pages, the word rhythms are really what stuck in my head. Also i enjoyed the idea and connection between culture and technology: "Home is where your cell phone is." Technology is culture and vice versa. Technology has pretty much become our life. You can not enter a building or walk down the road these days without someone listeingin to some type of MP3 player or talking on a cell phone. I know I can never go anywhere without my cell phone. DJ Spooky understands this whole concept and that's what he's discussing in this book, and I believe as we read along, we will too.

Mixer

2006-01-25T13:25:00.001-08:00

To get things going with Spooky, I want to spend a few minutes with RS before we get going today. Or we can get going by checking the flow. Or something.

So, either respond to this post by:
1) quoting your favorite line /passage /flow /assemblage/ riff from Spooky's first 20 pages, along with a brief commentary on why you choose that passage/selection

OR

2) take a stab in the dark--and explain pages 14-15. [Hint: I think a solution to this hermeneutic proposal lies on page 13].

K?

Welcome to our electronic parlor...

2006-01-09T11:34:00.000-08:00

Welcome to our English 106 blog for the spring semester. This space will primarily be used to discuss our readings, since we often will not have time to get to the readings in class. Also, no single person can monopolize an electronic conversation (and I am the most likely to fill this role)--hopefully, everyone will get to make a contribution to our conversation.

In addition to your individual research, we will be reading two books this semester: DJ Spooky's Rhythm Science and Lawrence Lessig's Free Culture. The first book we are reading is by far the more difficult and abstract--which makes sense, since our first unit on visual rhetoric stresses the productive possiblities language's inherent ambiguity provides (hopefully the previous sentence will make more sense as the semester goes on). The second book, centering our unit on research and argument, is far more pragmatic and addresses the legal and cultural implications of Spooky's "ambiguous" aesthetic re-mixes.

Every week, two students will be responsible for our "launch" posts--the initial posts on the week's passages. A week's posts must be "up" by noon on Monday. Looking forward to our conversation.