[mike sopranikSpectator]

An affordance of audio/visual media over standard text is the richness and depth of the media. For example I can write “Hello World”. Boring. Yet, when you incorporate sound effects, motion, 3D, animation, soundtrack and other affordances, this simple phrase can come to life and creating ever expanding depths of meaning to different people.
This will allow me to take a rather obtuse subject and create a remix of the given data to create a completely different meaning. Or, on the other hand, I can remix the chapter by moving parts around and still have the same exact concept as to the way it was originally written. Audio/visual media allows for the creator to even create a concept of a basic written subject, that would require an entire chapter just to explain the conceptualized process of the subject presented.

[mike sopranikSpectator]

Remix ethics are as old as humankind. Although we consider it technology based, the concept has existed for thousands of years. Through the spoken word that was memorized and then expanded to the first written words and they way that they’ve been expanded upon in thought, collaboration, inspiration, and the execution of that initial process.
When considering the public sphere versus copyrights the entire process can become muddy. A good example is the recent lawsuit from Marvin Gaye’s family over the Blurred Lines song. I personally still don’t hear the copyright infringement, but a jury decided that it was worth $7 million.
Anyone that creates an original item should deserve to have that entity protected by law and not allow someone to just borrow or steal it for their own personal gain. Yet it can be argued that as in music, you have a finite amount of chords and notes and literally every song can and usually does resemble a certain portion of another song that was created before. I hear similarities all the time between new songs and ones that have been around for years.

[mike sopranikSpectator]

How long does the storyboard need to be to accommodate the chapter remix? 1 minute, 2, 3, etc?

[mike sopranikSpectator]

I chose Sarah Silverman’s The Bedwetter: Stories of Courage, Redemption, and Pee by Sarah Silverman.
I chose this format because it is informational and yet not too serious to promote her book. It mixes enough information about the book to create interest, yet she markets the book with her normal offbeat sense of humor.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WM0glA5SDQY

• This reply was modified 9 years, 1 month ago by  mike sopranik.

[mike sopranikSpectator]

Surprisingly I found that I fit into two different categories.

The first is, Those who can function effectively in different contexts and collapsed contexts (Net Smart p. 214), where a user is active in different groups with differing norms and structures. I am very active on LinkedIn.com due to my two very different businesses.
As a computer consultant and a private investigator, the groups and members are very diverse in topic and socially. In addition, I’m a member of many motorcycle themed groups, which is yet different in structure from the other two groups.

The second category is, Those who manage their time well, especially strategic multi-taskers (Net Smart p. 215), which relates to people that must be able to manage their time effectively while online. Running two businesses and then including school and its requirements means that I have very little time for socializing on the internet. Whenever I go online it is for research, school, problem solving, tech support or intelligence gathering.

From time to time I will encounter something that has been circulating online that is interesting yet not relevant to my life at this point. When bringing the topic up in discussions, I might find that it was ‘popular’ weeks and at times even months ago. It is funny to watch the reaction of people that spend a lot of time online and how they can’t believe that I just saw whatever the hot topic on social media was “a long time ago”.

Although I find use in the internet, I have never used it as a social tool. I see my children, as with their friends, almost live their lives virtually anymore. You can walk into a room with 5-6 kids in there and no one is interacting with each other. Everyone is either on their phone or tablet posting or texting to someone about what they are doing instead of interacting with the other kids in the room. Do you think internet usage as a whole is damaging children’s ability to interact in social situations or do you think that this is just an evolutionary byproduct of technology?

[mike sopranikSpectator]

In the textbook, Blown to Bits, the author (B2B pp 115-116) describes an interesting issue about Eli Lilly and a lawsuit started by the Lilly company over an internal memo that was considered a confidential exhibit in a court case. This exhibit involved the drug Zyprexa, which had potentially lethal side effects that Lilly was disputing.
The judge ruled that although the attorneys that had uncovered the memo had to return all forms of the document to Eli Lilly, it was not possible to issue a cease and desist order for the websites that had used the same material.
This ruling enhances the concept of Net Neutrality and the right to freedom of speech in my opinion. At any time that the government or legal system rules and enforces the inability of individuals to report items of interest to the population, we will fall down the slippery slope of censorship. This would allow corporate concerns to literally no longer be held accountable for their shortcomings and at times, even criminal activities.
Over the past twenty years, there have been many accounts in the news of corporations winning lawsuits that are unreasonable at best and dangerous to the consumer and possibly even be considered criminal.
A good example was the lawsuit against 60 Minutes by Piggly Wiggly, the southern based grocery store chain. (I remember seeing the episode and the eventual ruling that 60 Minutes had filmed the story undercover and therefore had violated the employment rules of Piggly Wiggly; In addition, after searching on Google for 40 minutes-surrendered and this story appears to have been lost in the great internet search void of old news…)
Using an “employee” 60 Minutes filmed the practices in one particular store where they would soak rotten chicken and fish in bleach and then repackage it to be sold the next day on their shelves.
My question to you is do you think that with the proliferation of websites and by proxy search engine overload, do you think that some articles “get lost”, get archived to never appear again or that there is only so much room on the search engines for older topics and files?

Citation
H. Abelson, K. Ledeen, H. Lewis. Blown to Bits. Pearson Education Inc. Boston, MA. Print

[mike sopranikSpectator]

In chapter 8 of Blown to Bits, the author (pp. 304-305) states,
Incumbents, such as existing radio and TV stations and cell phone companies,
have spectrum rights granted by the FCC in the past, perhaps decades
ago, and renewed almost automatically. Incumbents have no incentive to
allow use of “their” spectrum for innovations that may threaten their business.
Innovators can’t get started without a guarantee from regulators that they will be granted use of spectrum, since investors won’t fund businesses
reliant on resources the government controls and may decide not to provide.

When you have antiquated regulatory conventions such as what the FCC approves and appropriates, it can cause serious issues with innovation and development. As he stated, there is no incentive to allow sharing or usage of their allocated spectrum to potential competitors.
This is one reason why the US places #9 in internet speed worldwide, and we have one of the most expensive costs for internet in the world (huffington post)
Link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/24/us-internet-speed_n_3645927.html

Without viable competitive options, a few providers control the overall access to the infrastructure of the internet and will undoubtably freeze out any and all competitors within their marketplace.

[mike sopranikSpectator]

Subculture Genre Conventions

Websites
Outlaws MC- http://www.outlawsmcworld.com
Hells Angels MC- http://affa.hells-angels.com
Mongols MC- http://mongolsmc.com/index.php
Bandidos[sic] MC- http://bandidosmc.com/index.asp

All of these organizations utilize their name and club colors (logos) as the primary brand identifier.
Common multimodal usage:
Black/Gray backgrounds
Horizontal Navigation
Intimidating visuals such as members on motorcycles
Multi-level links throughout the websites
All authors are listed as the club only and are trademarked and or registered trademarks
Guestbook Link
Contact Link
Gallery of images

As with all subculture websites these are intended to garner potential members that this type of lifestyle appeals to on a personal level.
The use of intimidating imagery and a strong sense of bonding with the presented brand, through membership or support, are constant across every example. Although there are some variations in design capabilities and overall appeal, the Mongols and the Bandidos[sic] websites are professionally designed and implemented.
Overall, the multimodal design is as with any other product/organizational brand. The websites are designed to inform potential supporters and members with information that is relevant to that organization.

[mike sopranikSpectator]

In some ways the laws have become more stringent, yet are harder to enforce. For example, under copyright law:

§ 2323 · Forfeiture, destruction, and restitution.6
(a) Civil Forfeiture.—
(1) Property subject to forfeiture.—The following property is subject
to forfeiture to the United States Government:
(A) Any article, the making or trafficking of which is, prohibited under section 506 of title 17, or section 2318, 2319, 2319A, 2319B, or 2320, or chapter 90, of this title.
(B) Any property used, or intended to be used, in any manner or part to commit or facilitate the commission of an offense referred to in subparagraph (A).
(C) Any property constituting or derived from any proceeds obtained directly or indirectly as a result of the commission of an offense referred to in subparagraph (A).
(Source: http://copyright.gov/title17/92apph.html)

This law vaguely allows for law enforcement to seize your computer and the house it is in, if it so desires for the crime of copying music, software, movies, etc. Although they seem more concerned with pursuing sharing providers and certain sharing server services, they do have the ability to prosecute individuals.

It appears the more common action is from the RIAA(p. 196-197), in Blown to Bits, which states that lawsuits are common practice for piracy of copyrighted material. Although it seems many of these suits are frivolous, the ability exists for the RIAA to fund itself substantially through them.

In late 1999, I wrote and sold a Help-based learning aid for graphic designers called PublishGuide for Mac and PC. After sales started to decline and finding it on every software sharing site, I discontinued revisions and let the software fade into oblivion. I have no idea of how much income I lost, but I soon realized that I didn’t have the resources to encode the installers and require a serial number, which would have been a minor annoyance versus a fix.
(Source: http://download.cnet.com/PublishGuide/3000-2056_4-7886.html)

Prior to creating and selling PublishGuide, I was known to copy software for personal use. I learned an expensive lesson when it was being done to me. Not every software developer is a major corporation that “can afford it”.

I’m not sure it is possible to open the gates of copyright free media on the internet. It seems to be overwhelming in that people will copy music, movies and software when they assume there is no penalty or cost for their actions. As with drug dealers, it seems that the government pursues the big fish such as large server farms and developers of sharing software.

As a result, it would be impractical for the government to pursue each and every person that copies a song, movie, etc. As long as anything is available in digital format, there will be a way to circumvent any safeguards put in place and it will be available online somewhere for free.

[mike sopranikSpectator]

That is an excellent point about knowledge hoarding. As in any field, when certain people refuse to share their knowledge, which is common in corporate america, it hampers the flow of intellectual stimulus and expansion and development of the product, service or field.

[mike sopranikSpectator]

I agree too that the problem of technology addiction will continue to grow with every generation. I know many people that are at events and the entire time they are sharing the event with people that aren’t there, versus the people that they go with.
There are others that I know that refuse to use anything beyond a phone and they won’t even text.
My daughter is in the realm of constant tech usage. When I communicate with her, I have to text her. She literally refuses to talk on the phone unless forced to and she says that her friends are the same way.

[mike sopranikSpectator]

Very true about the double-edged sword. It is getting more difficult all the time to distinguish quality information from agenda driven information. When anyone has an agenda, it is easy for information to be lost, discounted or just plain lies.
I just read an article on a freight liner that was leaving Columbia and they found tons of cocaine onboard. This article was on the drudgereport.com. This was one of very few websites that reported this incident. Not a big deal normally, but the very next week, Congress was debating on censoring certain “news” websites. One of which was drudge. The interesting part of this is that the freighter just happened to be owned by Mitch McConnel of Kentucky.

Coincidence or that certain people didn’t appreciate any link between drug smuggling and a U.S. Senator?

[mike sopranikSpectator]

In my job as a private investigator, it still amazes me at times, just how much information is online about people in general. I use it daily searching for witnesses to interview in cases that I work.
Even if you never use the internet, there is data on everyone of legal age in databases that are compiled by the government and consumer related companies. If you do a search for yourself online you can probably find social media posts, pictures that you’ve posted of yourself, and with the right access to certain databases, your past and current vehicle, addresses, phone numbers etc.
When performing my job, I can’t imagine what it was like years ago when a person needed to be found for a court case that didn’t want to be found, which is common. It would have taken weeks of interviewing and searching just to find the correct person to talk to for a couple of minutes.
At the same time, it is scary how far our rights to privacy have slipped away. The access that law enforcement now has can even build a travel history of your vehicle over the past 90 days. This data includes pictures of your license plate and the exact latitude and longitude and time that your vehicle was in a particular spot.
I think it has become a slippery slope of data access. We can find more information on any topic easier than anytime in history, but at the same time, there is more information online about us personally than ever before. This is why it has become common for many companies to request any social network login information when applying for a job with their company; this is so that the can check into your habits and private life that shouldn’t be applicable to most jobs.

[mike sopranikSpectator]

The FCC as compared to parts of the industrialized world is a little behind the times and at times, in my opinion, overstep the boundaries of censorship. For example, the Smothers Brothers TV show was canceled in the late 1960s because it was considered controversial by the FCC. What the real issue was that Nixon hated them because they were avid supporters of the antiwar movement. Although the FCC clearly violated their rights to free speech, there was no recourse since the network was actually an employer versus a media outlet in this case.
I also agree that editing what any politician says is not the place of the FCC to decide. They should only be rule makers, versus the judge as to what they deem appropriate to air.

[mike sopranikSpectator]

I agree that the only option to reduce copyright infringement through piracy is the option of services like Netflix. People are people and many will always “take” something for free, even if it is not something they really want or need.
It seems impossible to have a free internet exchange where the artist can still get paid. There does not seem to be a model where that is possible. Even with the encoding Apple puts on their iTunes downloads, there are hacks out there to override the coding.
In a perfect world, everything would be free for people to enjoy, but the problem is that the effort that goes into creating software, music, videos, etc., is unknown to people that don’t create. People that freely copy and share would probably change their minds when their product ended up on the same sharing sites.

[mike sopranikSpectator]

Chasity,
I agree with your assessment of Rheingold’s textbook. I also question the purpose in some textbooks, especially since I’ve had to buy/rent required textbooks for courses that were never used, other than either the professor teaching the course had a hand in writing the textbook.
I personally like his style in that he isn’t overtly technical and writes in an easy to understand style. I have a long technical background and it is enjoyable to read a technically based book that wasn’t written by an engineer!

[Author]

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