You ARE the Weakest Link, Goodbye...

DRM is, and has been for quite some time, a concern for me. This is especially true for music and other content that I have purchased legally. A few years ago I purchased a Foo Fighters CD and promptly attempted to rip the CD so that I could play it using my iPod. No so much success there. No matter how many times I tried to rip the music I ended up with garbled songs that were utterly unlistenable. Eventually, through the previously discussed miracle known as Google, I discovered that the problem lay within software called SunnComm and First 4 Internet. These programs, installed without my knowledge and with only my kinda-sorta consent, were preventing me from accessing my CD properly. A full discussion of the issue can be found here: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/computersecurity/2005-11-13-digital-rights_x.htm

Ridiculous! I bought CD and intended to use it only for my own personal use. I did not intend to distrubute it, remix it, or do anything else illegal with it. But regardless of my intent, Sony was very concerned and decided to block my legal use. This was a big turning point for me. Up until that point I downloaded only very little music and the music that I did download was used for preview purposes, not in place of purchasing legally. However, since that time I have become an avid downloader of all sorts of digital content. If companies are going to put themselves above their consumers, I don't feel too bad for doing the same in reverse. I do NOT actively screw companies by getting things I would buy for free, but I certainly am not worried about using digital content without permission either. In addition, I am legally allowed to make archival copies of legally purchased DVDs and I take great joy in doing so regardless of what copyright protection is contained on the disc. Getting around their copyright protection is half the fun. I haven't met a DVD or software label yet that was uncrackable.

These practices are destined to continue and get worse. As we come into the era of increased amounts of entirely digital content, we are poised on the brink of disasterous levels of DRM and DRM-like protections. Nowadays we are seeing measures being adapted directly into hardware to prevent 'theft' of high definition digital content, even when it's not really theft at all. HDCP is an example of such measures. This protection, more here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDCP , is now intergrated into most new computer monitors as a measure to reduce copying of high definition content. However, HDCP protocol make no differentiation between legal unencrypted digital content and illegal unencrypted digital content. So there are certainly many instances in which this protocol will prevent or frustrate legal attempts at content distrubution.

In summation: DRM is evil and bad for consumers and merchants alike, including those people and bands that orginally produce the content. In addition, trying to truly prevent copyright violation is like trying to prevent all teenagers from having sex. You can try as hard as you want, but ultimately you're going to fail. Most attempts to prevent copyright violation are hacked or fixed before the technology even goes to market. So, to big business I say: give up and go have a cold one.

File Sharing

File sharing...good or bad? That is the big question posed by the readings and video. In my opinion there isn't really that much wrong with it. I think that by using a file sharing system that I do like Limewire there isn't a great chance to get caught. People that upload thousands upon thousands of songs a month and are all over the place sharing them should get caught. No one should fully depend on a file sharing system to get all of their music. I think that if you really like the artist and you just want to see what is on the CD to see if it is worth buying that it is okay to sample some of the songs. But if you do like the songs you should go out and make the purchase at the store. I also believe that buying the CD isn't really supporting the artist as much as you would think it was. I have heard that only one dollar out of the fourteen or fifteen that you spend on a the CD actually goes to the artist. I would rather support an artist that I like by buying a ticket to see them live in concert. I think that is a much better investment then a CD and a lot more fun then just listening to a CD in your car. Back to file shraing though...I think that it really isn't that big of a deal. I also don't think that when Napster got in big trouble for all the file sharing that that was necessary. I know that artists would like people to buy their CD's but the whole truth behind it is that no one really listens to CD's unless they are in their car usually. I know most people just use the music on their iPod or MP3 player to mainly listen to. This would mean that it is much easier to download a song on the internet and then put it on your iPod instead of going to the store, paying for a CD, uploading it onto your computer, and then finally adding it to your iPod. That takes a lot more work. I think aritists make enough money as it is that they don't need to be worrying about file sharing.

File Sharing

I don't generally buy into the argument that the internet and in particular piracy is killing the industries. To be honest, I think if anything allowing people to download music or movies is helping them. The example of how sales are down is more than ever people are more critical about what they buy because they have the option to "test" it out before they support the artist. So what that means is less money is going to the big names in the industries because they are making poor products and the more artists putting out a product that is worth something are getting the revenue.

What I think will be big for artists is now it is possible to release material on the internet that before they could only get released through record labels or film companies. There have been a couple of major label bands (Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails) that released their albums online without the record companies distribution. I know Radiohead offered a online download of their record "In Rainbows" on their website to fans who could donate money if they wanted where they could pick what they thought the album was worth. I could see this becoming a trend where artist will upload their album in low quality mp3s for fans to preview like they would on amazon samples to try it out and if they think it is worth it, they might actually pay for it. Who knows... the internet could benefit both artists and fans in getting the best product and cutting out the record labels greedy pricing.

What is Theft?

When dealing with file sharing and sampling there is a lot of skewed perceptions…much like we realized when we discussed it the other day in class. If you really take a look at forms of mediums one has to realize that you can listen to song or watch a movie and say hey that sounds like this older song or that shot was taken from this movie…people are always going to live in the past and references to Citizen Kane will NEVER go away. So if one ads an extra ting like Vanilla Ice did is it a different song….the lyrics are and the pace of the song is different. Another thing to look at is how powerful/impactive the band/artist you’re stealing from is…The Beatles would be a bad choice…Marky Mark do it up! Songs today are varied by very little, from just a slight chord change or extra beat and some people agree with it but usually the original artists like The Beatles or Tom Petty they’ll take you to court.

As for the DJs who take songs and mix them together and give props to the artists…I see no problem with that. Think about all the clubs in the world and all the DJ who are constantly ramping songs into each other and mixing beats night after night…that’s illegal? Plus how do they get the rights to spin the artists beats? Cause our DJ at where I work rips/burns his songs on his laptop…so someday we’re going to have a geek squad type police unit that rolls up in clubs and are like yank…no music for you…

SAW THIS COMMERCIAL THE OTHER DAY AND TOYS ARE GETTING CREEPIER!

Digital Rights Management

Digital rights management is something that we are going to be hearing a lot more about in the upcoming years. The current system is a complex network that still leaves the door open to who owns what material, and who is allowed to use it. “Good Copy Bad Copy” was a very interesting documentary in which the director examined piracy and digital rights management. What intrigued me the most was how record conglomerates would raise hell anytime a work they copyrighted was being reproduced even if it was non-profit. It seems frivolous to me that a company would pursue individuals who using copyrighted material simply to produce creative works. DJ Magicmouse for instance, who would have thought to use music from the Beatles and mix it with lyrics from Jay Z. Obviously artists are influenced by other artist, and I don’t see any reason why artists can’t use expired works to create new music. I guess this is just another example of money hungry fat cat executives trying to squeeze out every penny possible. With the accessibility of the internet to almost everyone, more and more I believe will see artists borrowing music from other artist. The cycle will never end, and record companies will probably end up spending more money on starting the cases then they ever will receive in a settlement. In the end I think there should be a element of respect for other artists work, but it should be between artists not record companies. If the music industry became regulated by artists and not multi-billion dollars corps, I think the piracy/digital rights management debate would have never existed. If they want to keep spending money trying to protect these works all your going to see is more of this:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,289546,00.html

DRMish

Uh oh it's happening to Macs too:

http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2008/11/apple-adds-copy.html

Obama was a package that was bought.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfpQfOENzjs

"organized civil disobedience"

My favorite part was when the Swedish boy called pirating a form of "organized civil disobedience" because part of me wants to say 'yea! screw the billion dollar music corporations.' As a broke student I want free movies and music and I want to be able to use those things in my own creative projects. It would be amazing to be able to use Food Network clips in my food show without worrying about if its legal, or to be able to pick some popular amazing music to jazz up the audio. This would be a dream come true. Then there is that pesky other side of my brain. The part that says what about when I am a famous filmmaker and some punk ass kids start downloading my movies and using them in their own works. Will that be ok? Will I be losing money or creative licence? Or does it even matter because will I be able to stop them? I like to think I would be happy to see people reuse my work in their own creative ways but I also like to think I will have some money some day so I don't know. Maybe I'll move to Sweden.

Is technology spawning new dating disasters?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27294186/wid/11915829/

When you don't want to be Facebook friends...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27775484/wid/11915829?GT1=43001&print=1&displaymode=1098

Nintendo Wii Going Second Life

"The Youtube Presidency"

I thought this was pretty relevant to what we were discussing in class on Thursday:

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/11/14/the_youtube_presidency.html

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/11/14/second.life.divorce/index.html

Politics on the Internet

Since when did the internet become such a great place for future presidents and congressmen to place their ads and run their campaign? I am not sure on the answer to that but I do know that the last election was all over the internet. It was especially previlant on Facebook. Facebook being a very popular and commonly used social netowrking site allowed Obama and McCain to put their faces on peoples' profiles. The readings for this week are a little out of date so I thought I would talk more about the internets effect on the election that was held a week ago. The election that made history. Probably a year ago you were able to put who you were supporting on your Facebook page. I never did this but I do know many people that did. This was just one way of supporting your candidate far before you could even vote for them. Then came the day of the election...a week ago. When I got on Facebook the first thing it asked me was if I voted. Since I had I clicked yes and it added a little tag to my profile. It had a count of how many people had told Facebook that they had voted so far and that number was around 4 million when I was on there. Then there were the gifts that you could send people. These were little "buttons" that said Obama or McCain. You could also get a general "button" that said something about voting in general. I didn't have Facebook during the 2004 election and I don't think I really used the internet that much at all besides to talk to my friends so I really don't know if the virtual politics craze was as popular then as it is now. I know now that many people learned all of their facts about what each candidate thought through the internet.
On to some reading...net neutrality is going to stay. I think that phone companies and and cable companies make enough money as it is that they don't need anymore. I also think that we need net neutrality to keep the internet unbiased. And although I know the internet isn't completly unbiased I hope to keep it like it is. So hoopefully since Obama is president he won't go and try to change anything!

To voice...or not to voice?

As I was reading the first article, I came across a sentence that spurred some thought to help support the topic of net neutrality. It stated, "The Internet is being understood as an extension of or substitution for existing institutions." This was probably referring to institutions such as those established before the birth of the internet who are now ready to jump beyond curiosity and indifference and dive into the vast ocean of internet domain. Yet, when I read that word extension it made me think how the internet is a place that people can extend their ideas, concerns, and concepts into material, and become voice to their positions that can be instantly accessible to others. Since "television, popular newspapers, magazines, and photography" are the public sphere of information and current issues, are these forms of info-sharing representing EVERYONE or just a small community?
The internet is a place that the people left out of the public sphere who dwell in places such as farm-towns in Iowa or U.S. burrows, who can voice their opinions in a way that U.S. citizens can access and hear through VLOGS, YouTube, internet forwards, and MySpace Music. When web opinions reach the ears of DC, you know that the Internet is effective and can then effect the policies of legislation. After viewing Justin's YouTube post of Obama's stance on net neutrality and how "voices get squeezed out" without that neutrality, his views are reassuring to my argument that people should be allowed to voice their opinions.

Net Neutrality

Is it just me or are AT&T and Vonage trying to become the new ExxonMobil. People already have to pay to get on the internet, and by making sites pay so they can be faster will most likely make them charge for people to use their sites, or further clutter the pages with more advertisements, or even both. On top of that it could basically allow them to monopolize the internet by choosing which sites are fast and which are not, and having all kinds of influence on what information get put out there the most, and more importantly viewed the most. In the long run this would have a negative impact on the internet for everyone except of course the Vonage’s and AT&T’s of the world.

The internet works good now, and by making it harder and costly to the sites such as YouTube, and eBay and others who are the base of the internet and have had a lot to do with the popularity of the internet, we would just be hurting everyone. With these sites there is more than just an entertainment value in them and these avenues are really beginning to be explored and taken advantage of, especially YouTube. For example it is great for the advertising industry, look how much interest in generated in Al Gore’s movie. Now think what it could do for a small business to make a cheap YouTube clip and allow them to expand stimulating out currently booming economy. Or better yet, we saw how it could call people to action with Net Neutrality, why won’t this work for calling attention to other important things like a cure for cancer (not to sound like Miss America or anything) My point is right now everyone has a voice, and if we change that and allow it to be taken over by big companies, bad things will happen.

The dangerous Internet

I just finish this paper for my consumer behavior class, where one of the topics was subliminal advertising. It is basically the idea about placing messages in commercials that are too weak for the conscious mind to react on. This technique has been used for years and there are no real evidence that it actually works, but people still belive that it works and can make you do things you don't really want like buying stuff you don't need or turn you into a communist.. Obviously people have been scared of this as long as it have been used and that is why I started to think about it in this context because of what Nancy Snow said in the "Al Gore"-text: "Internet videos could prove particularly potent, because they may influence watchers in ways they don't realize." I'm not really sure what she means when she say "in ways they don't realize" but in my mind it sounds like when people say that kids become violent because of playing videogames. I actually thinks that when I watch an youtube video I am more aware and more skeptical than if I watched it on the TV because I know how much you can do today on computers, but it might just be me..

Boo Gatekeepers

Save the Internet. Net Neutrality is an essential key element to the internet, with out it, there are going to be a lot of pissed off people. The big companies such as AT&T and Verizon want to charge us for the use for "surfing" the internet. The internet is what helped modify for the first amendment. Now these multimillion dollar companies are pushing to take away our chances at free speech. Now a days, many people spend a lot of time on Youtube. A lot of these pioneers who have work being displayed on Youtube, are armatures. These armatures are typically poor college students like myself who give life to a lot of the blogs and youtube videos. Now, AT&T and Verizon want to charge the armatures, (the poor college kids who can barely afford macn cheese) to utilize the internet and make popular websites such as Youtube and a lot of today's blogs?? The companies want to set up fast lanes for their partners in the business to use, making those companies not involved have slower connections... I guess its a smart move by the Big Cheeses, but sucks for us little people.

Net Neutrality

Net neutrality is something that I think we could all agree needs to be put into place so that the big telecom companies don’t get the opportunity to basically choose what the consumer sees on the internet by making some sites load slower than others. There are all kinds of videos and information out there for the uninformed person to learn more about net neutrality, but one of the things that was interesting to me in the readings was toward the end Reilly article. Ben Scott, advocate for the net neutrality movement, says that he has a simple message, which is that everything that people love about the web is “threatened”. This statement kind of goes along with what Nancy Snow says about the penguin video in the Al Gore video article. It sounds like it is a part of “Propaganda 101”, containing no factual information or anything like that. It is just a statement made to scare consumers into joining the side of net neutrality. The advocates of net neutrality need to stay away from the propaganda like that penguin video and make sure that factual, useful information is used to bring users over to their side.

The thing I don’t understand about the telecom companies is why they think that they should get to charge for faster access to different sites. Most companies, like Verizon and AT&T, make money from other resources besides internet, such as mobile phone service, television, etc. Maybe once they get our internet connection speeds caught up to all the other countries that offer faster access at cheaper prices, then they can think about charging for ridiculous things such as selected sites that load faster than others.

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