Pre-class Discussion for Jan 14

Wired reports: DRM Is Dead, But Watermarks Rise From Its Ashes

Lessig, Free Culture, Introduction (pp. 1-13)

• Does widespread generativity offset attempts to assert increased levels of cultural ownership to any significant degree? Can those attempts keep pace with the constant and diffuse creation of new cultural content enabled by the internet (at least absent substantial technological changes actually as opposed to legally constraining the creation itself)? Jhliss 07:34, 13 January 2008 (EST)

• From a value-based perspective, Lessig argues that generativity does indeed offset widespread assertions of ownership. Lessig views generativity as, more broadly, a "culture of values that have been integral to our tradition from the start" (Lessig, 10). Connecting this seemingly fundamental notion with evidence that culture is more "owned" than it has ever been (in a sense, more "pwned" by large, oft-corporate interests), Lessig's argument is quite forceful. savith 15:50, 13 January 2008 (EST)

• Turning to whether legal constraints can keep pace, one wonders whether a Justice Douglas-esque approach will be embraced. Was it was easier for J. Douglas to make his argument since "common sense" was aligned with the interests of the burgeoning airline industry? savith 15:50, 13 January 2008 (EST)

• Although Lessig believes that the shift away from free culture is due to the political system's capture by special interests, is there any weight to his suggested (but dismissed) counter-argument that it is simply a correction for a mistake in the past? Keen touches on some points in his critique of amateurism (which I see as a subset of free culture), but I can't think of any others -- certainly nothing that compares to the examples of societal correction that Lessig points out -- slavery and inequality. Amehra 16:36, 13 January 2008 (EST)

Amateurism

Andrew Keen, Cult of the Amateur, Ch. 2

• So many questions. I'll try to just pick a few . . . Jhliss 15:07, 13 January 2008 (EST)
  • Keen uses the words "we" and "us" a lot. To whom is he referring?
  • A doctor's not exactly like a journalist, right? Isn't the distinction important?
  • I don't think Keen and I read the same blogs. Even leaving aside the Britney/Paris criticism, doesn't Keen paint traditional media (and other cultural outlets) with a rather uncritical brush? Do I remain a "professional journalist" simply by virtue of my college education and employment by a traditional media outlet if I fabricate stories or act as court stenographer for those in power? Conversely, if I make my living producing original reporting and informed commentary while offering my readers both accuracy and transparency am I still not a "professional journalist" just because I don't have a journalism degree and my work happens not to appear in print? Does the ever-growing number of bloggers receiving press passes, for example, or paid serious attention by major corporations, suggest far more substance than Keen contemplates?
  • "Can the cult of the noble amateur really expect to bypass all this and do a better job?" Is the amateur entitled to create only if the product will be better than that of the non-amateur? If the reverse were true, would there by any major-label music released?
  • Was the $331,000 that Frito-Lay didn't pay for a professional Super Bowl ad really "sucked out of the economy"?

• I have a few questions to add to the strong ones outlined above.

• What does Keen mean by "Wikipedia's editors embrace and revel in the commonness of their knowledge"? Can we generalize contributors as jacks of all trades and masters of none?
• This question segues to Keen's point about Dr. William Connolley. Why do you think Connolley was unable to use his expertise to sway Wikipedia arbitrators? Is it possible that he based his changes on personal qualifications rather than using his expertise to cite compelling sources? (Personally, I think Keen defeats his own point here. That one's contributions should be weighted by assurances of personal expertise is prehaps weakened by his later focus on the 23-year-old contributer masquerading as an accomplished professor.)

savith 16:14, 13 January 2008 (EST)

• There was a small study done a few years ago comparing the accuracy of Encyclopedia Brittanica and Wikipedia. A short summary of it is available here. Essentially, it found that Wikipedia was surprisingly accurate, but not as accurate as Encyclopedia Britannica. The findings were based on a fairly small sample size, though, and should be taken with a grain of salt. --NikaE 17:55, 13 January 2008 (EST)

• Some of my thoughts:

• Keen doesn't seem to understand exactly how Wikipedia works. He claims that the site operates on the belief that "everyone should be given equal voice, irrespective of their title , knowledge, or intellectual or scholarly achievement" (Keen 43), when in fact, we've learned that there is a rough hierarchy among editors, with administrators and more experienced editors carrying more weight in the community than others.
• He says one of the advantages of experts over amateurs is "their ability to go beyond the 'wisdom' of the crowd and mainstream public opinion." It's true that they may be less influenced by general public opinion, but as prominent individuals in their fields, they are also more susceptible to "capture" by special interests, control bias, and other strong influences.
• In The Liquid Library section, Keen "fortells the death of culture" resulting from digitizing books and giving internet amateurs power over "remixing" them. He seems to imply that culture evolves, at least partly, from control. Lessig warns us that this kind of control by a small, powerful group is exactly what stymies culture. Amehra 18:31, 13 January 2008 (EST)

• I think it is interesting to compare this negative view of the amateur with Eric von Hippel's more positive view of amateur innovators and "Democratizing Innovation". Maybe it raises certain areas where the democratization argument isn't universally positive, but it probably serves a better purpose as a warning to keep in mind as processes and sources of innovation change. It is also an interesting theory to hold up against the idea of the open/free software movement where a lot of valuable programs are created by people, some of whom are amateurs, rather than only by professionals in a more structured process for deciding what projects are worth spending time on.--Mvogel 22:41, 13 January 2008 (EST)

Terry Fisher, Speech on Amateurism, (from OECD Digital Content Conference)

• I was surprised to read that the number of performers has declined over the past century (until the past few years). Terry Fisher certainly knows what he's talking about to a far greater degree than I do, but can that be right? Jhliss 15:43, 13 January 2008 (EST)

• Prof. Fisher mentions Yochai Benkler's study of "machinima." Here's an example, complete with cheesy musical soundtrack. After viewing, you may want to return to reality by addressing copyright concerns. I believe that studio films (as well as non-profit producers like NPR and WGBH - when it comes to online availability) have to obtain permission before including any musical composition in their work. Could this song's distributor request and obtain the film's removal from YouTube? Or would you rather ignore this inquiry and watch another clip? savith 16:40, 13 January 2008 (EST)
  • Though Fisher's speech only addresses this slightly, every time I start thinking about this semiotic democracy stuff, my mind is always drawn back to the wide and exciting world of fandom. I'll come out and admit that I am a fanvid addict. While in the machinima example you might have a fair argument that the images from the video games are not protected under copyright because it is the user who is controlling what they do, and maybe to an extent what they look like, in the case of fanvids there is no escaping an accusation of double infringement, because in addition to the music, actual clips from television shows are being used. DRM and the anti-circumvention statute, if perfectly implemented and enforced, would completely wipe out this practice (I blush to call it an art). While many fanvids are trite shipper nonsense, some of them actually do comment on the works in intelligent, insightful and surprising ways, much like the body of fan written literary criticism (for instance) that is its low-tech cousin. Assuming that we think eliminating this opportunity for interaction with the media we love is a bad thing, which is the best option: continuing to fight DRM, etc, with a fair use argument until they relent and let us all get at the works; a licensing agreement like webcasters have, which would either give you a general key to access works, or keys to just certain works you sign up for; the current practice of unabashedly breaking DRM and crossing our fingers that we'll get away with it as long as our motives are pure?

• The amateur director of George Lucas In Love went on to sign a directing deal with Dreamworks. He subsequently directed Sleepover (IMDB rating 4.5/10) and American Pie Presents: The Naked Mile (IMDB rating 5.0/10), which seems to both support and disprove the view that amateurism is a source of vibrant culture. Amehra 19:15, 13 January 2008 (EST)

David Weinberger, Andrew Keen's Best Case (Huffington Post)

I guess the first question is: Are we satisfied with Weinberger's analysis of and response to Keen's piece? savith 16:49, 13 January 2008 (EST)

• Personally, I am. Weinberger addresses what I think is Keen's biggest oversight: refusing to even mention the possibility of traditional ecosystem for developing talent co-existing with an equivalent internet ecosystem. Weinberger I think correctly points out that the line Keen draws between "professional" and "amateur" is meaningless when we are talking about something as subjective as people's taste in the arts and when recognizing that what makes traditional talent is often dependent on economic constraints (which have been vastly reduced with technology) rather than any true difference in skill. Amehra 19:21, 13 January 2008 (EST)

• I do, however, question Weinberger's contention that music, movie, book, and newspaper publishers are all "failing." They may be in decline, but as long as the traditional ecosystem is capable of putting out "polished" talent, it seems like there should be a market for them. Amehra 19:21, 13 January 2008 (EST)

Open University

Nesson-Margulies Interview

• According to Margulies, MIT's Open Courseware program has no positive money flow. It has, however "enhanced" MIT's reputation, is internally "democratizing" the university, and gives students and faculty "incredible pride." That 37% of the $30 million budget goes towards copyright issues is striking (Margulies calls it "a very risk-averse position"), but seems justified by MIT's desire to promote its Open Courseware beyond that permitted by Free Use. Should HLS be the first law school to develop Open Courseware? savith 17:46, 13 January 2008 (EST)

Open Access

Peter Suber, Publishers launch an anti-OA lobbying organization

• Mildly interesting tidbit: Peter Suber wrote The Case of the Speluncean Explorers: Nine New Opinions. Jhliss 15:19, 13 January 2008 (EST)
• Suber suggests that having free access to the final version of the author's peer-reviewed manuscript (rather than the actual published edition) is not a violation of copyright. Is this a meaningful distinction? Do journal articles change much after the final peer-reviewed edition? This probably just reflects my lack of understanding regarding the journal publishing process, but how much exactly is the "value added" by publishers prior to publishing? Amehra 23:38, 13 January 2008 (EST)

Google Books

Michigan Google contract

• Here's an example of an old book from the U. of Michigan library that's been scanned into Google Book Search (with the scanner's fingers included!). I remember hearing about this project when Google first launched it a while back, but it seems they still have a long way to go. I imagine the UM library has millions of volumes, but only a small fraction seem to be online, and an even smaller number have hyperlinked index/table of contents pages or accurate titles ([http://books.google.com/books?id=DyoiAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover#PPP12,M1 here's an example with a linked index). Amehra 23:55, 13 January 2008 (EST)