Copy Grounds

This semester we read selections from one of my favorite books on the pitfalls of theorizing of intellectual property–James Boyle’s Shamans, Software, & Spleens: Law and the Construction of the Information Society. Drawing on examples from a diverse range of topics including genetics, fiduciary trust, and artificial intelligence, Boyle demonstrates how classical liberal theory attempts to resolve the tensions between public and private spheres through an appeal to romantic notions of authorship. James Boyle is currently the William Neal Reynolds Professor of Law and the co-founder of the Center for the Study of the Public Domain at Duke Law School. We were delighted to have him answer a handful of student questions and his responses are featured here.

Copygrounds: Do you think contemporary technological developments and social practices have devalued the notion of individual authorship to a significant degree? That is to say, does the emergence of the Internet, “remix culture”, file-sharing, and other collaborative systems signal a departure from romantic notions of authorship? continue reading…

Along with aspiring filmmakers our class is also home to a growing number of ambitious video game producers. We have lots of fun each semester learning the ins and outs of 3D modeling. But we also spend considerable time learning about the video game industry itself. This semester we read a portion of Greig de Peuter’s and Nick Dyer-Witheford’s Games of Empire: Global Capitalism and Video Games. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the field of game studies. The authors’ work is grounded by the concept of immaterial labor—a reoccurring concept in our class. This book insightfully explores video games through a cultural, social, and economic lens. We are honored to have Greig de Peuter respond to some of our questions below.

Copygrounds: Is there something substantially different about the immaterial labor associated with video games as compared to radio/television? Much has been made out of the passive nature of the engagement with these latter technologies, but isn’t the process of interpretation or the creation of meaning similar for both? Or more broadly, do you see continuity or a significant break in the transition from so-called ‘industrial labor’ to ‘post-industrial labor’?

Greig de Peuter: A short answer is that there are continuities and discontinuities. As students in the course know, there’s a tradition of reception studies that’s challenged simplistic assumptions of audience passivity and emphasized the active agency of mass media audiences in the meaning-making process. Even so, it wasn’t unusual for early game-studies scholars to herald the interactivity of computer and video games as a democratizing advance over the viewer or listener’s position within one-to-many broadcast media—an exercise in contrast that obscures continuities like corporate ownership structures and marketing-led content design and so on. Looking back, early celebratory perspectives on interactive entertainment might be read as rehearsing some of the ideas later associated with the rhetoric of user empowerment now surrounding Web 2.0. continue reading…

Copygrounds partnered with Third Coast Activist recently to bring you this amazing speech by Robert McChesney recorded on February 6, 2011 here in Austin, Texas. Robert is one of the leading scholars of mass media and an ardent critic of the commercial media system.

a Last Sunday special event presents Robert McChesney from Copygrounds on Vimeo.

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…

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…

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…

Hi everyone. Three or four times this semester I will submit long posts on some of our core topics. These posts are probably inappropriately long for a typical blog, but they are intended primarily for my students and as such are a necessity. A good analytical framework is vital for a good class, so I don’t really have much choice. That being said, I will keep long posts to a minimum.

Since our course is concerned with digital media, a few words are required here at the outset about the particular approach we will be taking to the study of technology. We will be spending a lot of time talking about the amazing technologies which lie at the heart of digital media systems. And we will come to see that it is these very technologies which are implicated in some of the biggest conflicts in the realm of digital media.

A commonplace definition of technology is the application of scientific knowledge to some productive end. Nice and simple right? Class dismissed. No wait. The reality is much more complex than that. Technology sits at the intersection of numerous social institutions like law, business, politics, and religion, just to name a few. In fact, it is rather difficult to talk about technology without bringing at least some of these other institutions into the conversation. Over the course of the semester we will investigate the interplay between technology and many of these institutions by looking at specific examples. But what can we say right now about the general nature of the relationship between technology and these other continue reading…