With the position of the copyright sign and dollar signs replacing certain stars I tried to make the $'s look like a mushroom ring to express the epidemic aspect with copyright law at the center of it.
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
In Class Sampling Remix
When I saw raj's sampling projects I noticed the communist flag's use (I assume) to associate copyright law with totalitarian governments. That inspired me to think that maybe instead it should be associated with capitalism because it's the pursuit of profit that prompts the overuse and overenforcement of copyright law. To express that sentiment (of copyright law exacerbating the contagion of avarice at the expense of our freedoms) I made the following picture-
With the position of the copyright sign and dollar signs replacing certain stars I tried to make the $'s look like a mushroom ring to express the epidemic aspect with copyright law at the center of it.
With the position of the copyright sign and dollar signs replacing certain stars I tried to make the $'s look like a mushroom ring to express the epidemic aspect with copyright law at the center of it.
Monday, November 5, 2007
Sampling Experience
In case the message here wasn't clear, I was trying to depict a businessman yanking money out of the brain of a creator, and the ideas (represented by mickey mouse) being pulled out along with the money. I might go on to claim that the complacent smile worn by the creator was intentional, but it's just not true. The picture I originally had in my head that I wanted to create had a guy sitting down with a sketchpad in his lap, watching a mountain dew commercial while lawyers lobotomize an image of mickey mouse from his brain. I looked for a while but couldn't find images of television, a guy being lobotomized and lawyers all in the right configuration. At that point the lobotomy idea went as those pictures were the scarce link and I didn't think I had the skill to modify another picture to look like brain surgery. After I got some of the images I did want I realized that it was going to be difficult to show the TV and the guy watching it, and have those two elements facing each other. So the TV was no more, leaving me with the image above.
In a couple cases the sampling aspect enhanced my creativity; when I looked for businessmen and lawyers to do the brain-pulling I stumbled on one (the one you can see above that I ultimately used) with the businessman emphatically pulling on a chain of money, something that I think sells the direction of motion that I otherwise might not have thought of.
Overall, however, I thought of using sampling like that as a crutch. It's of course much easier to produce the sampled product above than it would have been to sketch out exactly what I was thinking, but in that case I would have been able to add all the elements as I wanted them.
Taking this idea that businesses are yanking creativity away from creators I tried for the second part, where we don't use copyrighted material...
That's a symbol from the US justice department balancing an image of a one dollar bill and an image of the thinker. Not very close, is it? My search for that section started with images of old statues, so that it would be in the public domain...I found few businessmen. In the end I ended up with the above eyesore, consoling myself with the knowledge that trying to connect the first and second images will provoke a lot of creativity.
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
Ghostwriting Experience
I ghostwrote an essay for my old high school buddy who's now in business school.
Having neither the knowledge of economics nor the writing skill, and ghostwriting that essay more than a week after the real one was due, I was certainly not involved in any true dishonesty in that ghostwriting experience. On an intellectual level I know that I should not therefore feel any guilt for writing in answer to someone else's prompt, in (an attempt at) his voice, and under his name.
On an emotional level I also felt no remorse, no gut instinct telling me to come clean. Perhaps the lack of fear of being caught left my myopic self-interest unengaged, and without that all perceived wrongdoings were no more emotionally weighty than the cartoonish crimes of the villain in a bad action movie.
Perhaps my lack of experience being caught in a truly damaging lie lets me connect the cause (dishonesty) and the effect (punishment) only vicariously.
Perhaps I'm just so arrogant that I don't think the reader deserves the truth.
Or Perhaps I'm so lacking in confidence that I don't think my name as an author has any meaning.
I said in class that while capitalism is an evil necessary to the smooth function of our society but an evil regardless and therefore we should not let money control production where it will not amplify production. I now am starting to think that that evil is small in comparison to the evil of widespread compulsory honesty. If a lie will enable the synergy of a famous image with a genius for composition (not that my ghostwriting experience had anything to do with either of those ingredients) then let it be so.
Having neither the knowledge of economics nor the writing skill, and ghostwriting that essay more than a week after the real one was due, I was certainly not involved in any true dishonesty in that ghostwriting experience. On an intellectual level I know that I should not therefore feel any guilt for writing in answer to someone else's prompt, in (an attempt at) his voice, and under his name.
On an emotional level I also felt no remorse, no gut instinct telling me to come clean. Perhaps the lack of fear of being caught left my myopic self-interest unengaged, and without that all perceived wrongdoings were no more emotionally weighty than the cartoonish crimes of the villain in a bad action movie.
Perhaps my lack of experience being caught in a truly damaging lie lets me connect the cause (dishonesty) and the effect (punishment) only vicariously.
Perhaps I'm just so arrogant that I don't think the reader deserves the truth.
Or Perhaps I'm so lacking in confidence that I don't think my name as an author has any meaning.
I said in class that while capitalism is an evil necessary to the smooth function of our society but an evil regardless and therefore we should not let money control production where it will not amplify production. I now am starting to think that that evil is small in comparison to the evil of widespread compulsory honesty. If a lie will enable the synergy of a famous image with a genius for composition (not that my ghostwriting experience had anything to do with either of those ingredients) then let it be so.
Wikipedia and Tying
Tying: Using monopoly power to dominate complementary markets (Machulak). For example- if I'm dominating the flour market and want to get a foothold in the sugar market I might sell those two products together. Recent cases against Microsoft in the US and Europe illustrate how this practice is frowned upon in the economic world.
Similar practices can be found in the political world...
One might piggyback a personal project onto a bill that is otherwise very strong in order to pull it through. In a less clearly objectionable case the public may elect a politician due to his/her popular stance on many issues and accept her/his less popular stances on less critical issues.
There is no way that I see to mix and match the attributes of many politicians into one super-candidate or eliminate effects of the nature discussed above without fundamentally redesigning our system; is it also necessary that this platform phenomenon extends to the ubiquitous political parties and through those to our very identities?
Though this political 'tying' cannot be attributed the stigmata of a monopoly that is only a mitigating factor to the central issue that it takes power away from the people.
One important check to the towering (I almost said monolithic) bipartisan structure is regionalism- the democratic parties of two different states may differ on many points and that difference is seen even more acutely across the borders of nations.
But Wikipedia is global. Wikipedia takes its homogenized (if subtle) political 'consensus' everywhere, and the emergence of sites countering that agenda only exacerbate that problem, taking power away from the individual.
Similar practices can be found in the political world...
One might piggyback a personal project onto a bill that is otherwise very strong in order to pull it through. In a less clearly objectionable case the public may elect a politician due to his/her popular stance on many issues and accept her/his less popular stances on less critical issues.
There is no way that I see to mix and match the attributes of many politicians into one super-candidate or eliminate effects of the nature discussed above without fundamentally redesigning our system; is it also necessary that this platform phenomenon extends to the ubiquitous political parties and through those to our very identities?
Though this political 'tying' cannot be attributed the stigmata of a monopoly that is only a mitigating factor to the central issue that it takes power away from the people.
One important check to the towering (I almost said monolithic) bipartisan structure is regionalism- the democratic parties of two different states may differ on many points and that difference is seen even more acutely across the borders of nations.
But Wikipedia is global. Wikipedia takes its homogenized (if subtle) political 'consensus' everywhere, and the emergence of sites countering that agenda only exacerbate that problem, taking power away from the individual.
Monday, October 8, 2007
Unrelated Ghostwriting Anecdote
I worked as a summer school teacher where at the end of each two week session the teachers were supposed to write a brief comment for each student. A week or so after each session it would become apparent that one or two of the teachers (not me!) had skipped town without writing their comments. At that point some poor summer school office assistant (again not me, thank goodness) would have the privilege of ghostwriting those comments, not having ever attended the class, met any of the students, or even the teacher. All this in the name of the continuity of the comment record and, more importantly, making parents feel good about having signed up their kids.
Friday, September 14, 2007
Digital Rights Management
Something closely related to plagiarism that I'm interested in is Digital Rights Management (DRM); that's how modern technology is used to restrict a consumer's access to certain features of their devices (especially in computers) in order to limit copy protection.
The consequence for me is that sometimes for no good reason windows media player freaks out and tells me that it can't play the remainder of a legally purchased DVD.
There's nothing wrong with my drivers grumble grumble grumble...
More seriously the existence and widespread use of DRM technology indicates a lack of respect for the privacy and sovereignty of an individuals own computer. I know that position seems more than a little extreme, especially if the existence of such things serves only curb illegal activity (which would result in the easier distribution through acceptable channels), but it's not just that. The DRM software causing problems here is far from perfect. Not only does it frequently give a false positive and lock down on acceptable use (forcing me to use software without any DRM baggage), but it's quite ineffective against any pirate with a shred of determination.
As an emerging technology it's forgivable that not all the bugs have been worked out of things like the DRM above, but the bigger problem is that DRM often takes the form of a piece of software that tries to install itself on a computer without the express permission or knowledge of the user and runs quite inefficiently. In essence, that software is stealing system resources from the consumer in a desperate attempt to prevent the user from stealing content. One high-profile misuse of this technology is the rootkit scandal.
The consequence for me is that sometimes for no good reason windows media player freaks out and tells me that it can't play the remainder of a legally purchased DVD.
There's nothing wrong with my drivers grumble grumble grumble...More seriously the existence and widespread use of DRM technology indicates a lack of respect for the privacy and sovereignty of an individuals own computer. I know that position seems more than a little extreme, especially if the existence of such things serves only curb illegal activity (which would result in the easier distribution through acceptable channels), but it's not just that. The DRM software causing problems here is far from perfect. Not only does it frequently give a false positive and lock down on acceptable use (forcing me to use software without any DRM baggage), but it's quite ineffective against any pirate with a shred of determination.
As an emerging technology it's forgivable that not all the bugs have been worked out of things like the DRM above, but the bigger problem is that DRM often takes the form of a piece of software that tries to install itself on a computer without the express permission or knowledge of the user and runs quite inefficiently. In essence, that software is stealing system resources from the consumer in a desperate attempt to prevent the user from stealing content. One high-profile misuse of this technology is the rootkit scandal.
Friday, September 7, 2007
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