Copy Grounds

Oh the end of the semester is just about here. The caffeine is flowing, students are camping out overnight in the lab, everyone’s toiling away in a mad rush to get things done. That can only mean one thing…Final Group Projects! All the projects will soon be available for viewing here at Copygrounds but in the meantime here’s Group 4 with a teaser trailer for their upcoming video game documentary.

In recent weeks our class has been discussing some of the moral panics accompanying the increasing popularity of online social networking sites and services like Facebook and Twitter. These panics have typically centered on the misuse of communication technologies and the implications this has for issues like personal privacy, education, sexual predation, etc. Yet the emphasis on the potential for abuse–real though it may be–diverts our attention from the problematic way in which many of these communication technologies are structured even for proper or authorized use.

Mark Andrejevic is a scholar who offers a more critical assessment of online social networking sites and services. Prof. Andrejevic has written extensively on monitoring and surveillance in the digital economy, including numerous posts to the Department of Radio-Television-Film’s very own critical forum on television and media culture—Flow. We were fortunate enough to catch up with Mark recently and have him tell us some more about his critique of online social networking technologies.

Copygrounds: License agreements and shrink wrap contracts have come under criticism and have been subject to numerous legal challenges. Do you think that terms of service for online social networking sites like Facebook are similarly problematic in continue reading…

A major objective of Copygrounds is to give students a platform to showcase the digital production skills they have learned over the course of the semester. At the end of the semester this website will host a number of group projects that the students have been working on for some time now. However, not all student media is produced at the crack of the whip. They do it for fun too. The following digital media mashups were produced separately by William Nixon and Jacob Weiss.

William wanted to show how borrowing a little from a lot of different sources can create something completely different while celebrating the original material in a brand new way.

Jacob worked on this song on and off for several months. It’s an experiment in sampling various forms of audio including bits from Alice in Wonderland and original material.

What would a course on new media be without a discussion of porn? Pornography is so ubiquitous on the Internet it no longer makes sense to consider them separately. While it’s difficult to say just how much bandwidth consumption results from the use of online pornography it’s safe to assume the amount is significant. What’s more, the content of Internet pornography is seemingly more extreme and oftentimes degrading than the mainstream porn of just a few short years ago. In order to help us make sense of the relation between technological development and online pornography Professor Robert Jensen visited our class last week to discuss the feminist critique of pornography. Our discussion is presented here for your consideration.

Robert Jensen: I’m Bob Jensen. I teach in the journalism school and for the last twenty two years I’ve been thinking about pornography. Now that does not necessarily make intuitive sense. Journalists are not pornographers. What the hell is going on here? So how did I get here? Twenty continue reading…

I recently had the opportunity to ask Tiziana Terranova a handful of questions about her concept of free labor. My own work has been greatly influenced by Prof. Terranova’s particular analytical approach to the study of social relations in the digital economy. Therefore, I am especially pleased to share her responses to our questions here.

Copygrounds: How does your concept of “free labor” differ from other historical forms of unwaged work? For example, the domestic work of housewives or the work of raising children may both be seen as integral to the continued reproduction of the capitalist system and are often unwaged. Moreover, these types of labor may also be both enjoyable and exploitable. What sets your concept of “free labor” apart?

Tiziana Terranova: When looking at the concept of ‘free labor’, you need to remember that it was formulated about 12 years ago, that is at a very early stage of what people called ‘the digital economy’. There was much debate at the time about the economic transformations triggered by the specific properties of information. The article, that constituted my research output after a grant continue reading…

We were fortunate to get a chance to speak with New York attorney Ray Beckerman recently on the topic of P2P litigation. Mr. Beckerman is well known for his analysis and commentary on the RIAA litigation campaign and was nice enough to answer some of our questions.

Copygrounds: In both the Tenenbaum and Thomas-Rasset cases the statutory damages have been lowered—though for different reasons. Why did the judges employ different legal reasoning to arrive at similar results? What are the differences in the cases? And does this prevent the cases from being joined and sent to the Supreme Court?

Ray Beckerman: Neither judge provided satisfactory reasoning consistent with the law. Neither thought it through correctly. Judge Davis declined to decide the constitutional issue at all, for reasons continue reading…

We were thrilled to have filmmaker Andrew Shapter join us last week for a conversation about the state of the music industry. If you have not seen Andrew’s documentary film on the music business Before the Music Dies you are missing out. I cannot say enough good things about this film. It includes a number of great interviews with some of the best recording artists around and lots of incredible concert footage. Our discussion with Andrew covered a range of topics including the music business, p2p file sharing, and his experiences as a documentary filmmaker. Andrew also shared with us some details about his upcoming narrative feature The Teller and the Truth. Check out an awesome music video for the movie here.

Andrew Shapter Talks with Copygrounds from copygrounds on Vimeo.

Our class was delighted to be joined by Fritz Attaway and Craig Hoffman from the Motion Picture Association of America last week. Fritz is an Executive Vice President and Special Policy Advisor for the MPAA and has been a leading figure in developing the motion picture industry’s approach to  intellectual property. Craig is in charge of corporate communications for the MPAA. They joined us by telephone for a discussion which centered primarily on the challenges posed by technological development for copyright. Below is a transcript of the proceedings in their entirety. Many thanks to both Fritz and Craig for this informative discussion.

Interview with Fritz Attaway and Craig Hoffman

Interviewer:      Brett Caraway

Interviewees:    Fritz Attaway & Craig Hoffman

Date:                 September 30, 2010

Brett: I’ve got the whole class assembled here and we are on speakerphone. I guess first off I would like to start by Craig having you tell us a little bit more about what your position is at the MPAA.

Craig: Sure. I’m in charge of corporate communications for the MPAA which is public relations and continue reading…

Much of the criticism directed at the RIAA litigation campaign centers on a perceived disconnect between the artists and the industry. Many of the comments here and in class emphasize divergent interests between the two groups. However, I would caution against oversimplification. I have encountered musicians on both sides of this issue–none of them mainstream or incredibly financially successful. And I suspect that there is more nuance among industry perspectives than might be expected. That being said, I do think it is important to engage with musicians and other creatives to get a sense of where those communities stand on the issue. I know that Patrick Ross from the Copyright Alliance has been speaking with creatives who favor intellectual property provisions.

The Copyright Alliance is a coalition of trade associations, unions, guilds, corporations, and individual artists which solicits support for intellectual property protections. Mr. Ross has been documenting his trip across 35 states to speak with artists about their rights. I find this to be an interesting and compelling component to a greater dialogue and definitely worth checking out:

Copyright Alliance Road Trip Across America

This week we began investigating how the law is brought to bear on technological development and cultural production. The exact nature of the law’s influence is subject to debate. For example, we have already heard from those in the Copyleft movement who assert that copyright law is increasingly used to suppress the participatory and democratizing potential of new technologies. We will also hear from those who assert that strong intellectual property protections provide stable markets which in turn spur future creativity and innovation. The disparity in these opposing views of how the law should function in these contexts requires us to revisit our analytical framework once again.

We should start by clarifying what we mean when we talk about the law. A basic definition might refer to a system of codified rules and the institutions responsible for enforcing those rules. This type of system differs from the less congealed system of social rules and cues which govern ordinary daily activities. For example, there are unspoken rules and social institutions of enforcement which compel most of us to come to class in good hygiene, to not speak over one another, or to dress in a socially appropriate manner. But this is altogether different from a formally codified set of rules enforced by the state through gradations continue reading…