Looking Back

This semester has been challenging for me in many ways because I am very bad with technology. Creating this blog and trying to get it publicity because I am not very active on the internet and do not know a lot about it. The most interesting things that I learned over the course of this class is how greatly the internet has affected our culture and the entire world. It is so interesting to me to consider how vital the internet and technology is in our world today. We rely heavily on computers to do things now that we would never have thought computers would even be able to do in the past. I think that my most successful blog post was probably the post about the group Anonymous. It was very interesting to research and write about, and I think that a lot of people did not know about it until reading my post. Overall, I think that this was a great class and was very helpful for giving me a better understanding of how the internet works, its history, and its role in our modern society

No Copyright, No Problem

Earlier this semester we read an excerpt from Nathanial Hawthorn called Fire-Worship. Hawthorn wrote this in 1846, and in this he writes about his fear that the new invention of an airtight iron stove will change family dynamics and our culture as a whole. In class we compared this to the rise of the Internet and how some believe that the Internet is changing our culture. Many argue that this change is for the better, while others say this change is negatively affecting our modern culture. One of the negative effects that many authors and artists fear is that technology is making it easier to steal and copy their work. Because of this, Congress has extended and expanded on copyright laws in hopes to adapt to the changing technology and protect authors’ work. However, as Lawrence Lessig argues in his book Free Culture, that American copyright laws have been limiting availability and conservation of many great works. According to Lessig, copyright laws are constricting, not only the availability of these works, but also the opportunity to build upon others creativity.

            Eric Eldred was one of the first to begin questioning the copyright laws in the United States when he began taking books in the public domain and putting them online for everyone to read in a website called Eldritch Press. He had hopes of making an online library where anyone had instant access to these famous works. Lessig wrote about his plans saying, “Eldred was producing derivative works from these public domain works. Just as Disney turned Grimm into stories more accessible to the twentieth century, Eldred transformed Hawthorn, and many others, into a form more accessible—technically accessible—today” (213). For the first time works in the public domain were available for free because there was no publisher to produce a hard copy, and therefore, no one to make money off of the work. Eldred wanted to keep adding works to his website after they fell into the public domain. However, this became challenging because, as Lessig explains, “in 1962, Congress began extending existing terms regularly—eleven times in forty years” (236). Each time a famous work, such as Disney’s Mickey Mouse, was about to fall into the public domain Congress would extend the length of the copyright. This way, companies like Disney could keep the rights and money that Mickey Mouse collected. Then in 1998 the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act(CTEA) made the claim that copyrights should be extended to protect the authors. This act says that a copyright will last the length of an author’s life, plus 70 to 120 years. At this rate, anything published in 2013 may not be available for the public domain until 2133. Lessig and Eldred argue that these long-term copyrights are limiting the availability of knowledge and damaging our culture. Many authors have had huge impacts on our culture and should be remembered, but because of the copyright these works are becoming forgotten.

Copyright only protects the commercial value of a work, but over time all copyrighted works loose some of their commercial value. Lessig thinks that the, “noncommercial life of culture is important and valuable—for the entertainment but also, and more importantly, for knowledge. To understand who we are, and where we come from, and how we have made the mistakes that we have, we need to have access to this history” (225). Without access to all of the creative works that are under copyright, we are loosing pieces of our culture one at a time. With the Internet we have the opportunity to create an endless catalogue of books, films, and information that can be accessed by anyone at any time. Copyrights make this impossible because in order to digitize a book or film one needs permission from its owner. Tracking down the owner of these copyrights can be nearly impossible for older works or things like films that may have many owners of the copyrights. Lessig fears that if we do not digitize some of these works then they will be doomed to sit “in vaults gathering dust,” then ultimately decay and be forgotten (224).  The public must buy copyrighted works from the owners, and it is illegal to copy, edit, or build on them without direct permission. The life of a creative work should no end at its commercial value. Lessig feels that this is important because their cultural value will always be greater than the monetary value. Because of this, Lessig claims that the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act is unconstitutional. He claims that the constitution gives Congress too much power, while it originally was only meant to have “limited” power (236).

Even after filing a lawsuit and going to the Supreme Court himself with many highly respected authors, lawyers, and politicians, Lessig was unable to change Congress’s view on these copyright laws. Could these laws be the end of the public domain as we know it? I went to the website www.copyright.gov in order to see what exactly modern copyright laws permitted. On the first page it lists six rights given to owners of a work, including reproducing written or recorded copies, create or distribute derivatives based off of the work, and publicly preforming the work. If copyrights continue to be renewed and extended, then it is nearly impossible to learn from a work or even be inspired by it. Without the ability to access and use these different pieces of our culture, we are unable to grow and learn as a society.

Just like in Hawthorn’s Fire-Worship, many view new technology as a threat to our culture as we know it. What Congress and lawmakers fail to see is that the new technology of the Internet has already changed our culture. It is up to these legislators to continue to adapt the laws in order to keep up with our changing culture. 

Stop Webcam Child Sex Tourism

A freiend recently sent me and article about a little girl named Sweetie. She is 10-years-old and is from the Philippines, and she has helped to catch over 1,000 online child predators committing webcam child sex tourism. In this form of child abuse, wealthy men around the world go online to chatrooms and social networks and find children in poor countries to preform sexual acts in front of a webcam. In return for being virtually raped, these men send the children money from anonymous accounts and credit cards. These poor children seduced and abused online every day. Terre des Hommes is an international group centralized in the Netherlands who's mission is to stop webcam child sex tourism and raise awareness of its threat to children around the world. Using Sweetie, a computer model made to look and talk like a young, vulnerable Filipino girl they are able to track down these pedophiles. Here is the video from Terre des Hommes about Sweetie and their international campaign:

This disgusting abuse is growing more common and the predators are getting harder to catch. Please SIGN THE PETITION to stop this abuse.

The Fifth Estate

I saw The Fifth Estate this weekend! It was so interesting and such a fantastic film. I'm so fascinated by WikiLeaks and how controversial the website is. It was cool seeing how it all go started and the behind the story behind what the public saw at the time. My recent creation of this blog and enrollment in my Internet Studies class has fueled my interest in this movie. Because of this class, I learned about WikiLeaks and how it has affected our culture. It will be interesting to see how it continues to change and affect the world in the future. Below is a trailer of the movie! Everyone should go!

internet memes

Made a meme for the first time today! My freshman year when App Atate Memes came out, and I remember it consuming an entire day at the library when I was supposed to be studying. I still haven't fully mastered the art of meme making, but it's been fun to play around with.

Essay 1: Social Media is Making us Anti-Social

Social media is changing the way in which we communicate with each other. We thrive off of “likes” and notifications that are making us superficial and self-centered. In Michael Wesch’s lecture on YouTube called “An Anthropological Introduction to YouTube,” Wesch discusses how media “mediate human relations.” I think that the new media of the Internet has changed the way we communicate, and in turn, changed the relationships we maintain.

            According to Wesch’s lecture, “media is not content”(11:59). By this he means that the act of communicating is only meaningful when there is meaningful content. Take Facebook, for example. It is one of the largest and most popular social media sites. In a college atmosphere especially, I’ve noticed that I have more friends with Facebook profiles than without. I know that I personally rely on Facebook to keep up with friends that I don’t see often. Two of my best friends are studying abroad in Spain right now, and because it is hard to keep in touch with them on the phone, Facebook is very convenient. I message them when I’m thinking of them, and the posts and pictures on their profiles help me to stay updated on their adventures. They also have a Tumblr blog where they post pictures and stories about their time in Spain. These technologies help me to feel like my friends aren’t so far away. However, no amount of online chats and “liked” pictures are equal to a genuine face-to-face conversation with a friend. Wesch argues that the Internet allows for a deep state of community because everyone can be a part of it and it’s easier for people to communicate (30:40). He thinks that the distance helps us to form more strong connections because we can connect more easily. Although I agree with him in many ways, I do not think that this distance helps to make stronger connections. On the contrary, these connections are more shallow and meaningless than ever. Wesch himself says that “connecting deeply without the responsibilities of a deep connection” is what people are looking for online (30:45). He thinks that this is a positive thing that helps create community, but I think it is negative. Online communication takes little effort, and because of it’s short-term, 160 characters format, it is hard to say anything with meaning. In Sherry Turkle’s TED Talk titled “Connected but Alone?” she describes this as the Goldilocks Effect. Technology keeps us “close, but not too close”(5:56). Writing “Happy Birthday” on an old friend’s Facebook wall is not equivalent to picking out a card, writing them a note, and mailing it. That takes too much effort for this generation’s superficial Facebook “friendships.” We write “Happy Birthday” on an old friend’s wall because we want them to think that we still care. Suddenly, it doesn’t matter if you’re feelings are real, you just want everyone online to believe the illusion that you care; it’s all a show. According to Turkle, the problem with face-to-face conversations is that they “take place in real time, and you can’t control what you’re going to say” (6:20). The distance provided by the Internet gives us more control over the conversations because we can revise and rewrite our responses before sending them. We can decide what would make us sound cool or what the other person would want to hear. Real conversations don’t allow for this time to sit and consider your replies. Online, you only reveal as much of yourself as you want, and only receive the information given to you. Relationships can not be based only on short messages and comments because they lack real content. Although I am able to stay updated on the activies of my friends in Spain through social media, I still feel disconnect with them.

            These shallow online conversations not only affect the relationships we have with others, but also the relationships we have with ourselves. Facebook is notorious for causing “hyper self-awareness” as Wesch would describe it (26:20). Facebook makes us aware of how people view us, and because Facebook is all about what you post on your profile, it can make people overly conscious of what people think of them. People believe that the number of “likes” on a picture determines how pretty or popular they are, and they base what they post off of what they think would get them the most “likes.” This is an easy way to let someone know that you are thinking of them, but without real conversation social media becomes more a form of entertainment than communication. This surface level conversation doesn’t work for actually getting to know each other. Since we now rely so heavily on social media, we are forgetting how to have real conversations that make real connections. Social media is making us isolated and ironically anti-social. Kids would rather sit on a computer in a chat room than go outside and play. Turkle claims that technology is compromising our “capacity for self-reflection” because “we use conversations with each other to learn how to have conversations with ourselves”(8:38). Because we lack deep discussions with people, we cannot have deep reflexive discussions with ourselves. Also, technology and the Internet is a part of our everyday lives. Between cell phones, school email accounts, and Facebook the Internet is hard to escape.

We often think of the internet as though it has been around forever, but it’s still very new and the affects that this media has on the world are still being revealed. Few would have guessed that technology would be sucha large part of every day life today. Although new technology is good, social media has made us shallow, lazy communicators. We have access to the world, and yet we are more alone than ever. 

Works Cited

Wesch, Michael. “An Anthropological Introduction to Youtube.” Library of Congress, Washington D.C. June 23, 2008.

Turkle, Sherry. “Connected, but alone?” TED Talks. April 3, 2012.

Silk Road

At the beginning of my internet studies class we learned about how the internet works and how the World Wide Web connects everyone through the internet. When learning about this, I instantly thought of the internet's version of the black market, Silk Road. When I asked my teacher about Silk Road he had no idea what I was talking about, so I did a little research on my own. I found this online article that explains everything anyone would need to know about the Silk Road marketplace. I thought it was very strange how easy it was for me to find this information. I didn't think much about Silk Road again until I heard that earlier this week the million dollar deep web marketplace was shut down. Attached is a link to an article I found about Silk Road's shut down in the L.A. Times. I think that the most interesting part of it all is that Ross William Ulbricht was a regular, 29-year old dude, and now a multimillionaire who will spend the rest of his life in prison. It makes you realize how the internet can level the playing field, so to speak. When you get on the computer no one knows who you are or where you come from. This middle-aged, white American man living in San Francisco was basically the world's largest drug lord. This, along with my previous research on Anonymous, have made me realize that there is still a lot that we're still figuring out in the World Wide Web. Amateur hackers and local computer nerds are becoming the trailblazers in discovering new ways to use the internet, and it seems that the government and it's attempted regulation can't keep up. Maybe the reason that technology and the internet's popularity have exploded so quickly in the past couple years is because for the first time the entire world is doing research and experiments with this new technology. Everyone, every mind, every group has the ability to use the World Wide Web, and because of this the possibilities in the future are virtually endless.

http://articles.latimes.com/2013/oct/02/business/la-fi-silk-road-bitcoin-20131003