Linking Capitalism and Culture:
"[N]on-commercial cultural production and unconstrained expression within the Internet undermines capitalism's production of meaning." page 135, Michael Strangelove'sThe Empire of Mind: Digital Piracy and the Anti-Capitalist Movement (University of Toronto Press, 2005)
Cultural Industries Affected by Web 2.0:
-News Media: losing readers
-Advertising industry: how do you reach customers? With Tivo and AppleTV allowing you to fast forward through commercials and BitTorrent ripping them out completely, how do you make money?
-Television and Movies: because there are more/other things to do with our time, will we be spending less time watching?
-Music: the industry that has changed the most because of new technologies; leading the attack against digitalization
-Fashion
-Books: e-Text is faster to find, easier to use, more search-able, more portable, and in some cases, cheaper than hardcopy.
They're terrified that this is a zero-sum game: either I win, or I lose; there is no in between. Just as radio was supposed to replace newspapers, and television was supposed to replace radio (which clearly did not happen), we simply adapated (both ourselves and the media) to these new technologies.
Technological Determinism: a social theory that society's technology shapes its values, history and culture, and we are helpless to change this.
Capitalism, Culture & Copyright:
A Fair(y) Use Tale: An Explanation of Copyright Law
(a short film by Professor Eric Faden of Bucknell University)
Copyright protects "creative and expressive works"; it's automatic in that you don't have to file or register (for the full scope: US Copyright Office), does not extend to ideas or facts. But now, copyrights are a commercial entity: they are (ab)used to, instead of protecting the owner of the media, to for the owner of the media, or the
Copyright Length:
-1709: copyright lasted 14 years
-Pre-1923: almost all content was part of the public domain (probably)
-Post-1978: the life of the author + 70 years OR work-for-hire (ie created for a company) 95 years from creation OR 125 years from creation
-Want to use material created between 1923 and 1978? Ask a lawyer!
Copyright Infringement:
- "Copyright Infringement" means exercising one of the copyright holder's exclusive rights without permission.
- Should a copyright holder sue on grounds of infringement, the defendant may argue that the use was "fair use"
- The fair use doctrine allows copyrighted works to be used in some circumstances, such as commentary, criticism, news reporting or educational use
Digital Rights Management: lock and key system used to control digital technologies/media (music, movies, etc.); used by iTunes and Amazon Unbox.
Creative Commons: Making it possible to easily explain how we want others to use our works
-Attribution
-Non-Commercial
-No Derivative Works
-Share-Alike: if you use my work, you must use these same terms
Digital technologies enable a "tinkering culture [. . . a] read write rip burn culture"
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