Establishing the problem - not solving though

Below is a copied email I sent out to my class about the two films I watched this weekend about my public policy issue and how I'm trying to reconcile what we've figured out in class from the two texts we've read with the information I'm gathering (about my policy issue). I made the mistake however of stating at the end that I was going to solve the issue through the concept I create about my topic. I was quickly corrected by Professor Ulmer that as a class experiment, our goal isn't to solve the issue we choose, but to bring about an "unthought" or a way of thinking about/understanding the topic, that may not have been previously established.


So this weekend I watched Good Copy Bad Copy (which I blogged about) and RIP!: The Remixer's Manifesto (which I haven't blogged about yet) in an effort to gain at least a general background on the issue of piracy (perhaps specifically in regards to music, but also to other media) and appropriation. I thought the problem was that these corporations wanted to keep their money and so any appropriation of any form of media was out of the question; but this was taking a biased stance (i've been blogging about neutrality quite a bit to keep reminding myself of it).

I think the question, and this is based on some of the points brought up in both documentaries, is that if the old business model of intellectual property and the dissemination of media in culture will not work in the age of the internet, what new model can we create that will work? We know that there's just too much power/control in the hands of the people to try to regulate all of it - this is exampled by the many protests enacted by those who believe counter to what the corporations (specifically the RIAA and MPAA) try to enforce, and by the ethical questions brought about by the American government's attempts at controlling/eliminating piracy (suing individuals who download music, imposing policies internationally, etc.). And we know, if you agree, that the regulation of appropriation (or piracy as some consider it) hinders creativity (a point made by the Remixer's Manifesto), then we must find a neutral ground or compromise that allows for both a system of payment/credit for one's intellectual property (media) to be established that doesn't hinder people's creativity in taking that property and "remixing" it to create new forms of property (media).

I just simply copied the email since I thought it expressed my thoughts just as well as if I had taken the time to rewrite the whole thing again. Hope you enjoyed the second edition of the Count of Monte Christo stills (I have to figure out a better name for those).

Good Copy Bad Copy

This documentary was incredibly interesting as it not only focused on the legal issues that have cropped up in America, but how Copyright has been interpreted around the world. At first I was finding it difficult to remain neutral (remember that I have to be unbiased to create my Theory) and not immediately take the sides of the pirates, but the documentary itself did a good job of not taking sides - the fascinating thing was that I found myself starting to see what the "corporations" were saying. I still don't completely agree but some of the points they were articulating made sense.

One distinction the documentary made was the difference between sampling (taking bits of music and using those bits in other songs) and piracy (file-sharing). There is no arguing against it, piracy is illegal. In regards to the Grey Tuesday event that was organized in support of the Grey Album, Jonathan Zittrain, professor of Internet law at Harvard Law School, comments that, "As a matter of pure legal doctrine, the Grey Tuesday protest is breaking the law, end of story. But copyright law was written with a particular form of industry in mind. The flourishing of information technology gives amateurs and homerecording artists powerful tools to build and share interesting, transformative, and socially valuable art drawn from pieces of popular cultures. There's no place to plug such an important cultural sea change into the current legal regime." (Rimmer, Matthew, "Digital Copyright and the Consumer Revolution")

I found myself thinking, "Yes, piracy, on a legal level, is wrong - but in my opinion, sampling is all good." Those who sample have come under the criticism that the method is uncreative. I feel this is wrong, but then again, I have to remain neutral.

The primary question those being interviewed were asking was how should businesses approach the copyright (protection) and distribution (exposure) of intellectual property? The old model of doing so does not work due to the growth of the internet as a powerful force for the spread of information. The filmmakers don't really provide answers to this question, but I suppose that wasn't really the point of the film. In any case, it was fun to watch and very informative of the issue.

Charbydis the Concept

This post is basically a restating of an email that I sent out to our class list - the imagery was so strong for me that I decided it need to be on here.


In thinking about this new consumer society that is being illustrated by Marchand, I couldn't help but think about the Greek sea monster Charbydis. Marchand writes about advertisers convincing this newly enfranchised "mob," whose tastes they intended to uplift, that these commodities (established in a hierarchy of class and "style"), when bought in greater and greater quantities harmonized their lives and created a sense of elegance and luxury. "In some industries, the ensemble provided a welcome solution to the problem of inducing people 'to use more and more, in order to escape the bugaboo of market saturation.'" (137) This is hardly in tune with the model of utility that was once prevalent in American society. "Once accepted, the ensemble idea profitably increased the average size of each consumer's purchase." (137) So consumerism (or perhaps the consumer) became this whirlpool, sucking in ship after ship, product after product, "satisfaction" after "satisfaction" - never to be satiated. If we can learn for their [the advertiser's] model for the construction of our own concept how can we construct it so that it would almost be impossible (for our readers - people on the internet) not to get sucked in. Is it through the digital image, the empathy/sympathy for the conceptual persona? Or maybe the whirlpool imagery is too violent - perhaps a siren's song? Either way, our purpose is different - which why we place the Marchand text in the contrast slot of our CATTt. Maybe this is a tangent, but the image was so striking to me I thought I'd share it.

I'm now about to do something fun for a change and watch a movie - ah, but not just any movie - a documentary about pirating music called Good Copy Bad Copy.