take 2

In case you are too lazy to copy and paste it into the browser...my project is here.

Link to my project

I believe that we are supposed to post the link to our final project on here, if I am wrong it is just your lucky day and you get it anyways.

http://h1.ripway.com/kharr/index.html

Pirates?

Unless I missed something, I am thinking that I am supposed to blog about pirates. Gyarrrr. Piracy boils down to nothing more than claiming another's property as your own. 18th century pirates pillaged; modern pirates download. It took a lot more physical effort to be a pirate in the 1700's than it does today. I can't really blame them. There isn't anything more satisfying than taking something from someone else while not even leaving the comfort of your own home. Well, apparently there's this thing called a copyright. If a person has an item that's copyrighted, then another person cannot claim copyrighted material as their own without legitimate representation. This is usually in the form of monetary payment. So if I download Ashley Simpson's I Am Me album, then I would be stealing from Geffen Records. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) can then come after me for money because I stole it. As a quasi-musician myself, I would actually want people to download my music; any publicity is good publicity.

! ! ! Mission Accomplished ! ! ! the ordinance is defeated ! ! !

I was talking to my neighbor's landlord a couple days ago and the topic of the landlord accountability act came up. As requested she passed my information on to city council to grant them access to the facebook group. This is the response I received:

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Hi Michael,

I represent Ward 4 on the City Council. I also work and teach at UNI. Melanie Griffith saw me at an event and mentioned that you were interested in information regarding this whole rental property proposed ordinance. She mentioned something about Facebook... (I don't even know where Internet is, muchless Facebook!)...

I too want to let students know what is happening--which is NOTHING. In a nutshell:

1. The council was exploring two ideas about a year ago: A) how do we better engage the landlords about certain issues on their property (not all of them have anything to do with renters), and B) how do we prevent chronic problems from occuring.

2. Nearly a year went by, and staff told us they are lookinginto another town's ordinance...

3. About a month ago, all of a sudden I receive a call from a landlord who was beside herself... "this an outragous ordinance", etc. I said, what ordinance... and she proceeded to tell me. I told her that I had not seen it yet and that Council was not even consulted about it yet.

4. And it turns out that neigher landlords, nor neighbors, nor renters ever were consulted.

In response to this poor process, at the first meeting it was briefly discussed (a public meeting that several UNI students attended) I insisted that we first get substaintial input from all stakeholders before we move ahead. And then at the last Council meeting, Councilman Darrah and I proposed that the Mayor appoint a committee of stakeholders (landlords, students, city staff, neighbors, etc.) who would review and revise the whole idea, BEFORE any further action. The Council in a 7-0 vote fully supported what I have pushed for--a fair process. Sires knows all this.

5. But the landlords and some students who have only listened to the landlords' pitch, keep talking about this "ordinance"!! There is no ordinance. It was a crappy first draft proposed ordinance, without anyone's input!! There is no urgency about this, because the council has not passed any ordinance and is not about to. But the some landlords and others keep scaring students as if something bad is about to happen, and of course their solution is "Vote for Sires" because, I imagine, they want one of their own friends on the Council.

This issue is not an "are you in favor or not in favor" type issue. It is about quality of life in our neighborhood around the University for students, neighbors, landlords, businesses. We all have a lot of work to do, and I have been doing it by bringing a lot of people together to work on it. It is not just about "making things pretty" on College Hill. I have worked hard to involve students in improving off-campus life around the Hill area.

My hope is that students who vote will consider all my accomplishments, all I have done for College Hill Area. More information about my accomplishments are at

http://enshayan.blogspot.com

Please take the time and read my take on the matter based on the news release I sent to the papers today (see below). The second version is more detailed.

Any way you can help share these ideas among students, please do it. There is no threat of eviction, no nothing. Please let me know if you need more information... Sorry for such a long email.

Kamyar Enshayan

319-266-5468

319-273-7575

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Contact:

Kamyar Enshayan

Enshayan for City Council

266-5468 or 273-7575

enshayan@yahoo.com

Enshayan Calls for Collaboration, Better Working Relations with Landlords

Cedar Falls, Iowa, November 19 – Kamyar Enshayan, the incumbent in the upcoming city council run-off election for Ward 4, is calling for collaboration between all community members in reviewing the recently proposed "landlord accountability" ordinance. Enshayan wants to help all stakeholders work together to find creative ways of resolving certain rental property issues, rather than just more of the same.

"The recent proposed ordinance, which did not seek input from landlords (nor tenants, nor neighbors) further deteriorated city-landlord relations," said Enshayan. "It needs to be clear to these small business owners that the city cares and is fair. Right now, for these small businesses, all we have is sticks and no carrots. We need a good balance of both."

"Neighbors' concerns about the condition of some of the rental properties are very real. Our code enforcement efforts over the last two years have been successful, and we need to continue; but we also need new approaches," Enshayan said. He proposes the development of incentives to help property owners maintain and improve their properties. "What if we offered certain incentives to help a responsible rental property owner make energy conservation improvements, which would help the tenants as well as owners? Or improve the façade, or landscaping to make it pleasant to whole neighborhood?" Enshayan asked.

Councilmen Darrah and Enshayan led the council recently in asking Mayor Crews to appoint a committee of stakeholders – landlords, tenants, neighbors, council members, city staff, business owners and others – to review and revise the proposed "landlord accountability" ordinance before any further action.

"All sorts of great things will happen as a result of developing positive working relationships. I am a strong believer that dialogue and better understanding will always lead to better decisions," said Enshayan.

- END -

A more detailed descripotion:

November 19, 2007

Press release by Enshayan for City Council

Contact Kamyar Enshayan 266-5468 or 273-7575

Need: Encouraging neighborhood-friendly rental properties by improving working relations with property owners

Background: We all benefit from well managed rental properties that complement their neighborhoods. While many rental properties around the city are well-managed, some with chronic problems (yard trash, poor maintenance, noise excess, unshoveled snow in the sidewalk) continue to cause trouble for neighbors, and the problem is severe in Ward 4.

I think it is fair to say that some landlords may perceive that City Hall is always after them for something, and that the city has done little to help them as small businesses. Rental property owners receive a notice or penalty when something goes wrong, but what encouragements do we have for well-run rental properties?

Certainly, the recent proposed ordinance, which unfortunately sought no input from landlords, tenants, or neighbors, did not improve city-landlord relations.

Because of this misstep, the council asked the Mayor to appoint a committee of stakeholders (landlords, tenants, neighbors, council members, city staff, business owners and others) to review and revise the proposed "landlord accountability" ordinance before any further action.

The italic parts above have not been emphasized in the media enough, which fans the flame of more misunderstanding, and unnecessary worries.

Enshayan's proposed solutions: I am a strong believer that dialogue and better understanding will always lead to better decisions. My hope is that, the appointed committee, if facilitated properly, can arrive at win-win solutions that will be robust, practical, and benefit the entire community. Here are a few I am hoping for.

• The last couple of years of code enforcement has been very effective in some ways, and therefore reviewing the accomplishments and identifying new strategies might be a good first step.
• Improving communications with landlords was the original intent of the proposed ordinance. The idea that better communication can help resolve problems. Let's focus on that. It was suggested that we make landlord's phone number available to neighbors so that minor issues could be resolved easily. Other such ideas are needed here.
• The city has been very generous toward new developments on the edge of town, but the improvement of existing neighborhoods (and commercial areas) also requires a caring investment of time, creativity and financial resources. That's what "urban renewal" policies were meant for. What if we offered certain tax incentives or cost shares to help a rental property owner make energy conservation improvements to benefit tenants as well as the owner? Or to improve a façade, or landscaping that could enhance the whole neighborhood's appearance? A successful program would help the City and landlords develop positive working relations.
• Some realtors discourage families new to Cedar falls to locate in the College Hill area. That happened to our family, but we insisted that we wanted to live near our place of work. Rehabilitation, creative financing, and redevelopment of existing older homes and neighborhoods can make Ward 4 attractive to young families who wish to live in modest-sized homes. This would increase the number of owner-occupied homes. Through involvement of various stakeholders, this committee can help the city plan and become a major force in re-inhabiting the core of the city.

Many creative ideas could come out of more dialogue about ways of revitalizing our existing neighborhoods. At the center of any neighborhood renewal plan, especially in Ward 4, are rental property owners. The City must develop better working relationships with them.

Do Not Read Me

All music already exists. It has no form, but every aspect of music is already in the universe. The only thing musicians do is put form to what is already there, kind of like putting water in cup. Nobody can own music or the parts that make up music. Music is a mixture of several elements that are as natural to this world as dogs eating each other's poop. Rhythm, sound pressure, dynamics, accents, tempo, harmony, dissonance, consonance, tonality, atonality, frequencies, silence... the list could continue. As musicians, we manipulate these elements. As music producers and remixers, we re-manipulate these elements. I would argue that as digital technology advances, it allows more people the ability to re-manipulate content thus allowing them a sort of creative freedom experienced by the initial musicians. This leads to creative expression through music by more people than ever before, but not the extension of music as artisan skill in the same sense of the original manipulation of the elements. Remixers are not musicians. They take musicians' manipulations and use a computer to manipulate that to their own means. That doesn't mean it is any less creative, but they are not the same. Remixers should give credit to those they sample though. One could look at it and say, "Hey, why don't you come up with your own shit? Oh that's right. You aren't a musician." That's not to say that there aren't remixers who are musicians. I just know very few who are musicians more than they are computer geeks. Like I said before, more people can participate in this re-manipulation of the manipulated elements of music. It is a decidedly more inclusive culture, and possibly a little too "lowest common denominator," So much to the point where so-called piracy and copyright infringement is as widespread as the legs of the old woman who lived in a shoe.

My point: In terms of music, nobody owns it. The music has been around longer than any of us and will be around long after we are gone. Drum beats aren't created by people. They are discovered through creative manipulations of the elements. If I want to sample a six second drum beat, then so be it. It is a fucking drum beat. It is fucking music.

I don't even know where I'm going with this post. Music is music, no matter how it is created. Anyone can do it. If you're gonna sample someone's shit, give them some credit, not because they own it, but because it is respectful. It isn't hard.

There is no such thing as intellectual property. It is a farce.

Comparing Apples and Storage Space

I wouldn't steal twenty apples from a grocery store to eat. For one the apples are going to get bad before I even got to eat all of them and so there would be a wasted effort and there would be wasted apples. No one wins. I may, if I feel so compelled some day, steal twenty apples from Wal-Mart and make an apple-slice-replica of the building from which I stole the fruit from. This is a fruit remix or medley if you like double meanings like I do.

The difference in music remixing as a cultural movement is that there is far less criminality to what Girl Talk is doing compared to what I'm doing (my action would be far more political and less enjoyable in total). Music is a commodity to those who sell it. Music is also, to everyone else, an experience, a passion, a medium for expression of emotions, beliefs, and any other thought that needs to be pushed out in some form. There is life in the construction of something from something else. A different life. The blatant theft and useless squandering of a commodity in this case musical tracks or apples (both for consumption) is much more wrong than re-creation.

What Lawrence Lessig is saying is that there is a need for copyright laws, but there is no need to lock up everybody who takes something that doesn't belong to them. There can be great value coming from this renewable resource's theft. Sometimes that theft leads to something even more valuable than a granny smith version of your local neighborhood evil-mart, maybe even more valuable than the evil-mart it represents.

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Yet again, another piece of media that completely makes sense, and it isn't produced by the intellectual "elite". GCBC encompasses a TON of ideas in which I feel we need to become more active as a society to protect. I thought it was quite comical how the US Government is yet again enforcing their power in other countries in which they do not belong (Pirate Bay). One tracker Demonoid.com has been battling being taken off the internet for months now. Currently, it is "down" simply because the authorities threatened the company renting servers to them, instead of taking the problem on directly. However, the message at the web site states that they will eventually return...thus proving that piracy will prevail.

As far as sampling goes, everyone is guilty of it in some way. Here is a wiki article about the Amen Break, which is a 6 second drum sample that nearly EVERYONE has stolen some clip from. This is a great example of how piracy is invading into nearly all forms of creativity be it an NWA album or a simple car commercial.

When I create any piece of media or art, I realize that someone may eventually pirate that and use it for their own creative means. As opposed to getting angry and suing them, I would take that as an honor that my media, that I created was good enough for someone to actually take that and turn it into their own. Take that drum beat that I created, or the video that I shot, or even the design for a website and used it for a "cookie cutter" to make their own piece of media.

There's a reason Jack Sparrow's a generational icon.

I found Good Copy Bad Copy to be a very interesting perspective on copyright. The film expresses that piracy is inevitable, and I agree. Just like the pirate generation of the past, we are always willing to rebel against some old pasty dudes (with or without the wigs.) Whether you think it is right or wrong is almost irrelevant. For me, I will buy something I think is worth spending money on...but how do you find that out? I think for people growing up in a generation with the recourses to skirt around copyright law, piracy (which Dan Glickman of the MPAA describes in the film as "theft intelluctual property without compensation") is a starting point to weed through the gazillions of media sources out there to determine for oneself what they deem "Intellectual property." If I hear of a new band and some people tell me I should buy the album, I will take it upon myself to "preview" that artist. If they are unoriginal--and therefore "unintellectual"-- I will not feel bad about listening to their album before deciding to waste my money on it. The industry must ultimately come up with a way for artist to be compensated by fans, while realizing there is no way to avoid piracy.


Speaking of originality, I am a huge fan of recreativity or reconstruction. I think Girl Talk put this concept in perspective when he said "everyone is bombarded with media enough that I think we've almost been forced to kind of take it upon ourself and use as an art form...that's what's happening with remix culture" If everything has already been "done" then why not redo it to make it better? (and I'm not talking about producers and actors alike making money from a fourth sequel of an already crappy movie.) Growing up in this digital age means an overload of information and media. Why not express yourself through the very sources we are absolutely swimming in. In the film Lawrence Lessig also says "Copyright...can prohibit creativity." Should one's imagination be forced to limit itself for the sake of appearing "original"? If an idea spawns from an existing idea, I say "Get off your ass and jam!"

arr

Ok. I'll admit that piracy is wrong. But I think there are defiantly some gray areas. There is a lot of music. A LOT. When you look at how many genres there are, and how long music has been around, its going to be hard not to copy someone else a little. Many musicians listen to a lot of older groups to get ideas and new things, and try to create their own sound off of that. The musicians they listened to did the same thing. In a roundabout way you could almost say that someone like Dr. Dre is ripping off of Bach. Now I know that idea is ludacris, but there could be truth to it. I think when it comes to piracy stuff, we just have to look at what the artist did - is it a remix? is it a new play on an old idea? is this guy a total hack and completely ripping off someone else? I hear songs on the radio today that have an exact same pattern and background as a song from the 70's, but they don't get hit for piracy at all. As consumers, we just need to be aware of what we are listening to.

Wanted: New Copyright Laws

I find piracy to be a very engaging issue since almost everyone is affected by it. Although many may not know how to download all the latest software for free off the internet, most people know how to download music off the internet, or even just burn a copy of a CD from the original. These are all forms of piracy and piracy is one of the most heated and discussed issues in technology today. Institutes that enforce copyright law against pirates understand that it can never be stopped, but this does not deter them from enforcing the laws on individuals and making an example out of them. While I agree that piracy is wrong, I don't always agree with how the rules against it are enforced. Recently the RIAA decided to crack down on college students. I feel that the way they are singling out these college students and using the members of the university to enforce their dirty work is entirely wrong. It also seems that the monetary penalties are a bit high. If the so-called pirate decides to settle up front and out of court the fee is on average $3,000. Artists should definitely be compensated for their work, but it seems with the use of the internet in downloading music there needs to be a new system incorporated to achieve these goals. They mentioned in the documentary Good Copy, Bad Copy the idea of a bulk payment issued for one year that would enable someone to download as much music as they wanted to. To me this seems like a good idea. At least the artists would get some kind of compensation, rather than nothing, which is happening now. I thought the musicians within the film were very interesting as well. It is amazing how someone can change and rearrange music with the use of computers. I believe if copyright laws are too strictly enforced we may miss out on a lot of good, interesting music. We should allow creativity to flow and not hinder it with the overuse of a law that is now aged well beyond its use.

The Many Flavors of Free

Lawrence Lessig is a pretty visible figure in the discussion of copy rights, privileges and freedoms. He's pushing for real creative development and ease of exploration within a cross-disciplinary media culture implied by electronic communities (collectively known as the Internet ;) What Creative Commons and other licenses like GNU provide is an outlet for multimedia artists and computer programmers to share their work openly while opting to maintain a bit of control over the potential of being ripped off. While they may provide their software and source for free, they may be free of implying any sort of warranty. Even when free, they may also demand that it never be modified. They could demand that even if modified and redistributed, it never be sold (become payware). Other creators may opt to release all rights - allowing anyone to profit from or re-engineer the software or media as they see fit. To me, the best flavors of free are those that promote more freedom. Applications like DVDShrink are not open-source, but are completely free to use and are incredibly well designed and updated. They are often built off open-source code distributed under a flexible license. Other apps, like Apache, PHP, and OpenOffice, are direct competitors to payware that dominate PC's worldwide. Keeping them free provides an alternative to the high costs imposed by the big boys, but it also encourages the community to improve the products themselves. Sure, software developers deserve some dough too, so many will find ways to attach paid services to their products instead of destroying their manifestos of information freedom. Why shouldn't you go free? Maybe because transparency breeds knowledge. But who should you really trust? Your payware probably has more security holes, anyway.

Who Really Owns What?

I think the most interesting question posed by one of the speakers in the video was, "Who really owns what?" That question is truly legitimate because music in today's day and age doesn't ever seem to be the "first of its kind" anymore. Variations of genres of music are so vast and widespread, who's to say an artist was the "original" recording artist? I think the notion of lawsuits and copyright infringements can go too far; I really do. Just because an artist heard a riff and got an inspiration from it doesn't mean the artist stole the music from the original source. The example the video illustrated was a Dr. Dre music video that contained some background music consisting of three notes. Those notes were taken from another hip-hop recording artist's song and remixed to sound almost entirely different. Isn't this idea an act of creativity and inspiration rather than copying and stealing? I believe it is sad that there was a lawsuit resulting from Dr. Dre's video because he was "borderline copyright infringement". I think he heard something that inspired him to be creative with a completely different sounding song entirely. If everyone had the mentality that music is stolen from a simple three notes, I don't think much music could ever be produced because the truth is, any sample of music can sound similar to something else even if the artist was completely ignorant of the other sample. There would be lawsuits for every new piece of music. So, the man's question from the video is completely up in the air. It is very hard to tell who really does own what piece of music.

taking a different view

As Electronic Media students, it would seem almost blasphemous to be against piracy in any way. The whole aspect of our major revolves around ways to beat 'the system'- to prove that we are smarter and better. It seems that way sometimes, anyway. I understand the idea of creative work being made public for all and it seems difficult to argue with that when a DVD costs $27.95 as a mediocre Jennifer Lopez gets paid over four million dollars for every godforsaken hour that she's on screen. It also seems absurd that the industry would be surprised at the uprising of piracy. Their entire bases is built on advancements in technology, they look for any possible chance to use it to their advancements. How, then, could they not have understood that the layperson would use it in the same way? On the other hand, a certain respect has to be paid for those that work below the actors: set designers, costumers, and production teams. After all, these are jobs that many of us aspire to do and their salary is increasingly cut into due to piracy. It seems almost ridiculous to charge for entertainment now and to not use what we have learned. But we are sitting on the outside looking in. Perhaps then, it is merely a matter of perspective. Will it be the same for us in 1o years?

Microsoft Paint - yet another way to procrastinate thesis work.

While watching Good Copy Bad Copy I continually thought about how the standards in academia seem so different. One of the people they interview even tried to make the analogy and said that he publishes books for a living and does so with the understanding that college students all over could possible mis-cite his work. In some ways that analogy works for me - after all, when I write an article I use other peoples ideas to the point that sometimes I am not even sure when their idea ends and mine begins. I get to do this in academia so long as I provide some sort of credit at the end of my paper. The analogy breaks down for me though when I think about how academics don't make money from their writing (usually or very much). The main reason that academics write is so that they can get tenure at a university and get a pay check for that university and thus it doesn't hurt them financially. I have always thought of musicians as different because they make music in order to make money from it. Towards the end of the movie though I realized that maybe that isn't where the bulk of profits are supposed to come from - maybe musicians should depend on things like concert sales and therefore not depend on the sale of CDs for profits. I guess I am still trying to work out whether or not the analogy to academia works in this instance...for now I am perfectly content being an academic pirate and just "thanking" my sources at the end of my papers much like Girl Talk does in his liner notes.

Yo-Ho-Ho a Pirate's Life for Me

The Tetzlaff reading gave me a better reason to show interest in the pirate "phenomenon." I use quotation marks because it is referred to in news television and magazines as a phenomenon. In truth, a phenomenon is something that happens, and it slowly either dissipates or vanishes without a trace. That could have been done about five or six years ago. But now, pirating has become a business, a way of life. I know a friend of mine from high school that has pirated movies and music for years now, and only has to work at his job about twenty hours a week, and still is able to pay for his $350 a month rent. As a good comparison, I'd like compare the issue of pirating to the war on drugs. Pirating, while not as widespread as drugs, is getting to that point. And since it is as secretive as drugs, then the outcome of said governement intervention may be the same.

Uncertainty Lurks...

I don’t know how to feel about piracy, intellectual property, and copyright for sure. I think that creative property should be available to all, yet I think that artists should be paid or at least recognized for their efforts. Give credit where credit is due, whether that’s fiscally or mentioning the original artist’s name in your CD’s liner notes. Buy the song, whether it’s online or from the CD if you plan on remixing it. It would be what you would want the next musician/producer to do if they manipulated your original work. Sampling and remixing are not new concepts, older arts have always inspired or been mimicked in new arts. Now it’s just a matter of copyright laws and giving credit where credit is due. I found “Good copy, Bad copy” to be a very interesting documentary, and really opened my eyes about piracy, remixing, and how “creating” can mean a bunch of different things.