Final Project: Music Pirate-Nazis

Original Poster

Original Poster

   For my final project, I wanted to do something that had a lot of personal meaning for me, something that I could really sink my teeth into. We've been talking a lot in the past few weeks about fair use and what constitutes a culture that is fair and just, copyright laws and creative commons and all sorts of things. As an art major and something of a music fanatic, these issues are very near and dear to my heart, and so I decided to center my creative works around this theme of copyright legislation and fair vs. free culture.

     The basis of my project - that is, the underlying theme - is that copyright law, as it is now, is outdated and no longer appropriate for our society, much as Gaylor argued in his Remix Manifesto. To this end, my project was to take old WWII posters and edit them in such as way as to reflect the "war on piracy" that much of American society is engulfed in nowadays. In my poster series, instead of the familiar enemy being the Nazi, the enemy of the American people is the Pirate, the hacker who steals music content "from artists," the unsuspecting youth who downloads a song from YouTube, the mother who uploads a video of her child with a copyrighted song playing far off in the distance (a la Lessig's  Remix). In one iconic poster, the familiar face of Rosie the Riveter, iPod in hand, calls upon her fellow Americans to put a stop to music piracy, together!

Original Poster

     As mentioned before, this project draws heavily from the arguments raised in RIP: A Remix Manifesto, and the points that Gaylor raised in the manifesto itself. At the heart of my project is point #2 on Gaylor's manifesto "The Past always tries to control the Future." I consider this fact to be a travesty, especially in the context of copyright laws and fair culture. Written as far back as the 1700's in America, copyright law was created in order to deal with printed works, before anyone even knew what the word "digital" meant. In today's world, the world of computers and technology galore, these legislations are becoming increasingly outdated in their treatment of digital content management and sharing, an issue hitting the homes of more and more American citizens by the day.

Original Poster

     Lawrence Lessig, founder of Creative Commons, a movement taking a very positive step forward to remedy our broken copyright system, outlines the increasing dangers of this "war against piracy" in his book Remix. In his introduction, he discusses the plight of Stephanie Lenz, a mother who uploaded a video of her toddler dancing to a tune by Prince, and the shocking overreaction it caused in the Universal Music Group. By uploading a video with a barely audible song in the background, Universal deemed Lenz in blatant violation of copyright laws, threatening her with fines up to $150,000 if she did not take down her video of her 18-month-old son dancing. Lenz is one of the types of "collateral damage" that Lessig talks about in his book, damage accrued by these huge corporations' war on "piracy," and I whole-heartedly agree. Putting aside that recent research has shown that music piracy actually helps music sales, contrary to what big corporations want you to believe (don't believe me? check out some of these links: this one, this one, and even this one), we have to, as Lessig argues, think of the collateral damage to our children and even ourselves. The harsh reality of today is that a mother can't even post a video to YouTube of her child without worrying about record companies coming down on her like a ton of bricks. The state of modern copyright law and corporations' vehement protection of what is "theirs" is almost reminiscent of Reagan's Red Scare, where the public jumped at even the mention of Communists.

Original Poster

     What I hope to prove with these posters is that, as Gaylor and, to an extent, Lessig argue, these laws and regulations are outdated and potentially harmful to our society. The Entertainment Industry's campaign against piracy has become akin to the world's campaign against Hitler and his Nazi regime, but is music piracy really on the same scale as the mass execution of million of people? Is it really worth growing up and living in a state of fear that, at any time, the government could swing their hammer of "justice" and land you with hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines for something as harmless as a 30 second video of someone dancing? According to the record industry, yes, and they are hell bent on defending their rights (to music that they didn't even create, I might add) to the bitter end. But I say nay. These laws are too old, too outdated to be relevant in the digital world, and their rules and regulations allow big corporations more power than they deserve to protect content from a threat that doesn't truly exist. Lessig created Creative Commons, Gaylor argued against this regime of fear in his documentary, what will you do?

Unprompted Post: NETMundial

Seeing as we haven't really been looking at a lot in class specifically this last week, for the final unprompted blog, I thought I would try to bring in something outside that ties into the themes of our final unit. I get messages from a group called Access, which is a net neutrality group, and lately, their messages have been about a huge meeting that took place only a few days ago called NetMundial.

Basically, the meeting deals with the future of governing the internet, seeing as copyright laws and intellectual property on the internet has been a very hot topic since way back when SOPA was first announced. The interesting thing about this meeting, though, is that rather than the typical meeting of government bureaucrats and lawmakers, the NETmundial was a meeting of "stakeholders" as they put it, people that have the most stake in the future of the net.

It's certainly a cool idea, and I think it's definitely a step in the right direction. Since the introduction of SOPA, as a public we've been arguing that WE'RE the ones that are the most affected by these kinds of legislation, and so it's good to see lawmakers finally taking that into consideration.

Unfortunately, I honestly feel like this isn't the step we needed. One of the things we've been talking a lot about in class and in the readings is the drawbacks of what "fair" culture gives us right now. As we saw in the TED talk about a truly fair culture, those with more money and power are naturally in a better position to usurp the rights and power of those less fortunate, much to their detriment. This meeting feels very much like it falls into the same trap. Even though it's a step in the right direction, expanding the making of internet legislation outward from just governments, the people are still not fairly represented. Only those with the power and sway to get themselves to Brazil are represented, and as we've seen countless times, those speaking on our account often do not do their job correctly. I personally believe that for there to be a truly fair and successful internet governance meeting, there needs to be some way for the whole world to participate, not just by proxy and definitely not represented by those that "have the most stake in it," because like it or not, the internet effects almost everyone, and we all deserve to have a say in something so monumental and important to society, and it's only going to become more and more relevant as the years go by.

Da Sampling: Authorship and Fair Use in Daft Punk's "Da Funk" (Blog Post #5)

Our hot topic right now is sampling and fair use as it relates to the idea of sampling. Who really owns the content? Is it right for an artist to sample another artist's work and call it their own? It's widely up to debate. To provide some substance to this theoretical debate, I took a look at an example of sampling myself, and picked a track that has a lot of nostalgic value for me.

Daft Punk are a duo of two amazing musicians, nay, pioneers, responsible for some of the finest electronic music of the 90's and 2000's. "Da Funk" is one of their most popular early hits from the album "Homework." What many may not know, however, is that this song actually contains two samples from other songs in the liquid beats and synths. Daft Punk use a drum hit from Barry White's "I'm Gonna Love You Just a Little More Baby" early on in the song, and utilize a drum groove from Vaughan Mason and Crew's "Bounce, Rock, Skate, Roll" throughout the tune. This usage of other artists' tunes raises a few important questions about copyright and ownership for us. Is it really right for Daft Punk to consider this song their own, even though they took samples from two other artists? The answer, in my opinion, is yes. I think one of the most important things we need to consider in a debate on musical sampling is how big of a sample is being used, as well as the way that the sample is being utilized. If Daft Punk had been making a funk song, and simply ripped the drum track out of "Bounce, Rock, Skate, Roll," that may have been a concern, as they're just blatantly stealing a full part of the song, but that's not the case here. Instead, Daft Punk use very small bits from these tracks to add some spice to their beats. Unless a website like whosampled actually pointed out the usage of these tracks, it is doubtful you would ever make the correlation between Da Funk and either of those tunes.

Would these gents steal anything?

So that takes us to a question of fair use. Under fair use, copyrighted material can be used for satirical or educational purposes legally. Does this fall under that blanket? Not really. This kind of use is neither satirical nor educational. Another problem for Daft Punk is that, unlike in the case of Chander and Sunder's Mary Sues, these two gentlemen are selling this material and profiting from it, which definitely violates the ideas of a fair use agreement.

However, I hold to the idea that these two are not crooks, they aren't stealing these tunes. Not only are the samples short and used in a way that make something truly original, it engages the ideas of the Remix Manifesto presented in the REMix movie we saw. One of the key points was the idea of the past having too much control over the future. While Da Funk came out in 1995, the two songs it sampled are from the 1970s. While copyright is important for protecting the intellectual property of content creators, we really have to think about how far we ought to go to protect these properties. By 1995, the property of the songs sampled in Da Funk are no longer relevant, the artists practically non-existent, so why is there a question of whether or not Daft Punk have the right to use the small samples they did?

Ownership and Domain: The Travels of the Hawaiian "Uli-Uli" Rattle (Official Post 4)

As we discussed in class, Museums are essentially thieves of content, taking artifacts and objects from the world and heralding them as their own discovery and property. In class we proved this observation by tracking the path of the Native American chief club that was effectively stolen by a researcher hundreds of years ago. To further prove this point, I've tracked the path of another artifact in a museum collection, specifically from the National Museum of Natural History.

This is the "Uli-Uli" Rattle:

 This gourd rattle is an instrument native to Hawaii, used in traditional music, as well as ritualistic dances. These rattles are often adorned with feathers, as seen in the picture here for decorative purposes, though the rattle itself is simply made from a gourd.







The Museum of Natural History has one such rattle on display in its Hawaiian artifact collection, but where did it come from? Did a Hawaiian native give the rattle to the museum as a gift? Unlikely.

In fact, the NMNH lists the collector of this particular rattle as Nathaniel Bright Emerson. Seen to the left, Emerson was a physician and published author of Hawaiian mythology, one of his greatest works being the translation of David Malo's work on Hawaiian folklore. He was born in Hawaii himself, though he could scarcely be considered a "native."

In addition to Emerson, the NMNH lists the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition as the donor from which the rattle was given to the museum. The Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition, was, in fact, a world fair held in Seattle, WA in 1909. Countries from all over the world gathered to present their collections and informational prowess on the campus of the University of Washington.


Given this information, I would surmise that the rattle was presented at the Exposition by Emerson, taken from his homeland of Hawaii, and remained the property of the Exposition after Emerson's death in 1915, where it eventually passed into the hands of the NMNH.

This journey raises some interesting questions about the ideas of ownership, though. As a part of the NMNH collection, the rattle now technically "belongs" to the museum, and before that, it was the property of Nathaniel Emerson. But the rattle was made by neither party, and has little to do with the culture and tradition of either of them. The rattle is a Hawaiian instrument, made and used by Hawaiians, and merely taken from them. Though it is not a particularly rare object, as the true "creators" of the object, are the Hawaiian natives not the true "owners" of the rattle?

This dilemma is much the same as our discussion of privacy policies in the digital world, oddly enough. As we discussed, websites like facebook, twitter, imgur, etc, technically have ownership of any photographs you might post to their site, regardless of the fact that you've authored them. Even though you are the creator, once the photo leaves the safety of your personal space, you effectively give up the rights to your creation to the internet.

 

Blog Post #3 - Unit 2 Takeaways

Social media is a huge part of all of our lives in the digital age we take part in today. The internet has really redefined what it means to be part of the world, and what it means to be a "public." One of the bigger takeaways from this unit was Boyd's idea of "networked publics," the kind of publics that exist over the internet, or connected by their cellphones or any manner of technology. This is particularly noticeable in the way that social media sites have almost completely redefined social interaction with a group of friends or acquaintances, promoting online chatting or "liking" of a huge group of friends, rather than the traditional methods of going out and actually interacting. Additionally, the idea of these networked publics speak to the shifting of the world into a more digital era, where the "public" is less defined as the mass of people you might see as you walk around on the street, and more often their digital selves, as seen on sites like twitter or facebook. This is especially interesting when you take into account that over half the world is still not online, and that this "networked public" that many herald as the amalgamation of all the world's people, with the internet serving as the catalyst for worldwide social interaction, only takes into account less than half of the world's people, completely leaving out entire nations in the "global" voice. Especially on social media sites, the primary users are people in developed nations that have near unlimited access to the web, giving them the ability to use social media the way that we consider it for the purpose of a networked public, and those in poorer nations, those who may not have computers at all, are more and more becoming overshadowed by the staggering presence of those with the power to participate in the online game.

The second and biggest takeaway from this unit has to be social media's place within the sphere of activism, and the idea of "slacktivism." We read Gladwell's article about how social media, while it has its uses, isn't really "true" activism, because it doesn't foster the kind of communal bonds formed between people faced with adversity. Going back a bit to the idea of a networked public, this criticism seems to hold up. Since the world is so easily connected now through social media and the internet, those kinds of communal ties that Gladwell is talking about are evaporating everywhere, not just within the sphere of activism. However, the dissolving of these kinds of ties is no reason to write off social media activism, colloquially coined "slacktivism" for the slacker kind of attitude it fosters, allowing people to support a cause without having to actually "do" anything. Rather, I believe, as does Mirani, that this new world we live in calls for a re-interpretation of what "activism" really means. In the modern age, while there are certainly those who go out and picket, those who make signs, march on business, all those acts of "old fashioned" activism, the use of social media to raise awareness and the ability of people to pledge to a cause from the comfort of their own home is still a form of doing something, and as such still counts as activism. As we learned from our projects, even actual activist groups, ones who are out doing "real" activism, use social media in such a way as to foster the exchange of information, to alert people to the causes they're fighting for, because they know that most people aren't going to care enough to just get up and start doing something right off. All of these groups use social media in conjunction with their physical activism to garner people to their cause, and to further their activist goals. While sharing an article on facebook certainly isn't as impactful as creating a billboard in protest to a product, you are still able to potentially open the minds and hearts of others, and if nothing else spark debate over the issue at hand, and at its core, that's what activism is really all about.

Blog Post #2

     After taking a look at the social media use of the environmental group Friends of the Earth, it is apparent that the group very much falls into the category of "slacktivism" that Gladwell discusses in his article, at least in the case of their social media usage.

     As a group that started in the 1970's, Friends of the Earth started on Gladwell's ideal kind of social activism, the kind where people would go out and picket, group together and sign petitions, old fashioned kind of lobbying. With the advent of media technology, as a prominent environmental activist group Friends of the Earth wanted to get in the social media game in order to attract a wider group of people to their cause. In the case of one of their largest social media endeavors, Twitter, FoE's activism tends to fall into the category of slacktivism.

     As seen above, rather than actually grouping people to a cause of doing any kind of hard activism, FoE uses their twitter posts to links to their articles, and keep their followers in the loop on the news surrounding the goings-on of the environmental group.

     However, contrary to Gladwell's harsh take on the role of slacktivism nowadays, I believe that FoE's twitter outings, though not an example of hard activism, they do succeed in their goal of gathering a larger group of people together towards their cause. Even though their posts about articles or news in the group doesn't necessarily rally anyone to take up arms against environmental aggressors, the lack of hard activism apparent in their social outings makes people more likely to want to be involved in any way that they can. And if even one of those people they attracted with their "slacktivist" social media decides to join the core group in their outings of hard activism, then the social media was a complete success. In this way, while slacktivism may not get anything significant done, it facilitates the continuation of the hard activism that Gladwell is so in support of.

Official Blog Post #1

     Throughout the first couple weeks of this class, we've covered quite an interesting span of topics. I have to say, I never really thought that "information" as a topic of discussion could honestly cover so many things and have so much depth to it. I always thought of information as just, well, information. It just is. But there's a whole lot more to it than that.

     I think one of the biggest takeaways from these first couple of weeks on this topic is the idea of Participatory Culture that Jenkins talked about. The idea that our new world of Web 2.0 affords us a social platform, that is, the internet, where all the people online can come together to author, edit, and participate in the formation of information is at the heart of many of the different articles and topics we've covered thus far. For example, take last week's discourse on Wikipedia, and the successes and failures that encompass it. While Wikipedia is certainly not a site that allows for just anyone to put in their two cents about any topic they want, at its core, the website is a machine driven by the concept of Participatory Culture. Users author the information, others police the site, looking for faults and issues, and while the site requires sufficient backup to claims and edits, the entire user base is, for the most part, free to edit Wikipedia in whatever manner they choose.

     This idea is also at the core of the missing iPhone scandal that Shirkey wrote about, as well as Jenkins' idea of Convergence. With the help of the limitless user base of our online world, the small website about a missing phone spread like wildfire, jumping not only around the internet, but eventually landing in more "real world" venues like the news, and eventually led to a complete change in the way that the case, something completely separate from the internet, was handled by the NYPD.
   
     In essence, I would argue that the most important thing we've covered so far in these first few weeks is Jenkins' work. His ideas, minus the Black Box Fallacy perhaps, are at the core of every investigation into information we've delved into thus far, and they provide us with some excellent fundamental tools for analyzing the information superhighway that the web has presented us with, and continues to expand upon. I anticipate that these theories will continue to be relevant throughout the rest of this class, though I look forward to seeing them expanded upon by future authors.