the rights and wrongs of copyright & left

'Never worry about someone stealing your idea...
If it's original you're going to have to ram it down the world's throat!'
Howard H. Aiken, IBM Computer Pioneer.

While much of DMC leaves me feeling like a backward 5 year old suddenly asked to do calculus... (especially sitting next to Tech Uberlord Gav) copyright is something that I think I have some understanding of. Or I thought I did - then along comes copyleft.

'There is nothing new under the sun'... [Ecclesiastes 1 v 9]
'If I have seen further it is by standing on ye shoulders of giants' [Sir Isaac Newton] (no pygmy himself)


There are countless examples of creativity being 'inspired' by other creativity. In 'Teach Yourself Screenwriting', Raymond G. Frensham talks about 8 basic stories that all other stories are based on, then updated, given a new twist etc:

Achilles - the fatal flaw
Candide - the innocent abroad
Cinderella - the dream come true
Circe - the chase
Faust - the debt that must be repaid
Orpheus - the gift taken away
Romeo & Juliet - boy meets girl, (it goes pear shaped and they kill themselves)
Tristan & Isolde - the eternal triangle, (one boy or girl too many)

(Interestingly enough when you look up Frensham in imdb.com he doesn't actually have any screenwriting credits)

In music there have been countless examples of shameless rip-offs. The Beach Boys 'Surfin' USA' was so close to Chuck Berry's much older 'Sweet Little Sixteen' that they eventually had to give him a co-writing credit. Even those considered to be true originators like Ray Charles acknowledged predecessors like Louis Jordan, Nat King Cole and Charles Brown (Ray's early years were spent as virtually a Nat King Cole impersonator) And ever since 'sampling' became standard operating procedure, originality seems as rare as rocking horse crap.


So is there really anything new under the sun and why should people 'own' ideas?

I've tended to side with the 'creatives' in the past... It is hard, lonely work to stare at an empty page and find something new to say. (Saying this I also acknowledge that bands generally waste have ridiculous amounts of time and money on producing music - getting an advance from a record company used to be considered a license for partying with the label's money. And it is also true that record and film companies own the best accountants this side of the Mafia ).


I have often wondered how relaxed the 'Napster generation' of 'rip it/burn it/we're just stealing from the obscenely wealthy record/film companies who can afford it' would feel about something they've sweated bullets over being taken out of their hands and distributed without them having any control or reward. Then again this just may date me as part of the pre 'gift economy' generation.

Me, Myself, I - Why ?

After today's DMC session I looked back on my first blog and was pretty dissatisfied - the luddite grumblings of a disappointed old fart. It's all been said before and said better. But I do find it a bit of a worry that these 'social networks' are keeping us 'in touch with each other' yet we're becoming more and more isolated, stressed. A fascinating statistic... in the 1970s the average Australian house was about 14sqs and housed 4 to 5 people (min). 30 years later the average house is well over double that size and usually houses half that number people! And on top of that , much of the inner city factory space has been converted into warehouse living and extra storage space! Exactly how much room and junk do we really need? Sorry - more reminiscence... The playground of the decrepit.

but rather than change the blog I changed the profile photo instead! It's probably hard to make out as a thumbnail - but an awesome shot enlarged from when I was an exchange student, 16 years old at the Grand Canyon...My God what a beautiful place, if you ever want a sense of your own insignificance go to the Grand Canyon... My host brother and I dared each other to climb over a safety fence at a place called quite fittingly THE ABYSS and sit on this tiny outcrop of rock with that awesome background behind us to take a photo. My host Mum would've had a heart attack if she'd known. It was a mile straight down - but how cool's this - you could still hear the Colorado river from a mile away!


We looked over out essay topics today... Was greatly relieved to see the relatively distant deadline... Hopefully I will have caught on and caught up by Nov.


Talking about identity today... How we see ourselves, how we present ourselves - is there an unchanging observer - a true authentic soul, or are we just the sum of many personas? Deep and interesting stuff. Luckily I'd just done a series of 'Introduction to Philosophy' lectures at the Royal Society of Victoria so I wasn't completely head scratchingly dense.

Nostalgia Ain't What It Used To Be

It's interesting looking at the other blogs for this class. I found Katie's 'nostalgic' blog interesting and disturbing as it clearly demonstrates, (like I needed any reminding) how old I am. Katie talks about how much things have changed in 10 years and she's undoubtedly right... But I can actually remember being in Grade 4 when Martin Luther King, then Bobbie Kennedy was assassinated. Being in Grade 5 as the whole school watched when Armstrong walked on the moon . I can remember my parents arguing about the rights and wrongs of Vietnam War and the start of the protests... Seeing the young naked Vietnamese girl wailing in horror and pain as she ran from her napalmed village. All of these news events and more (and yes the odd 'human interest triviality') were delivered to us in a nightly half hour bulletin by oracles like Brian Naylor and Sir Eric Pierce (he was a knight of the realm! just a couple of steps away from deity!) Always male, always with proper gravitas. Of course there has been overdue progress ( women news anchors: though they rarely have the same longevity as their male counterparts) and technological advances like satellites but I actually remember a time when news wasn't just another commodity to be consumed - when news from Paris could be about the Paris peace talks for Vietnam rather than about an anorexic celebroholic. There was half an hour of news per day - full stop. We sat in silence around the dinner table so that our parents could absorb all the news that Channel 9 deemed it necessary for us to know. On the ABC they'd also have 'This Day Tonight' and 'Four Corners' but half an hour was generally considered plenty.

I remember a time when a family actually sat down to watch 'The Sullivans' and reminisce (or learn) together. I know I'm sounding like the boring old fart I am - I know 'nostalgia ain't what it used to be' but does this tsunami of information really make us better informed? An interesting irony... I was just researching Alvin Toffler who gave the world books like 'Future Shock' and 'The Third Wave' and concepts like 'information overload' and it quotes Ted Turner as having been very inspired and influenced by Toffler... Ted Turner created CNN , the 24 hr news cycle, probably the culprit most responsible for 'information overload'! And what about 'tyranny of choice' as described by social theorists like Barry Schwartz in his book 'The Paradox Of Choice. Why Less Is More'? Freedom of choice is better than no choice, right? So a multitude of choices should logically make us happier on a corresponding level? Wrong. It's becoming clear to social scientists that too many choices actually makes us less happy, less secure than fewer choices.

When Obama's speech about America's 'racial divide' is delivered cheek by jowl with God knows how many 'dancing cats' videos, hasn't his eloquence and deeply thought out ideas been devalued? And when did we become such passive targets for marketing and it's ugly partner rampant consumerism as Emily suggests in her July 28th blog?.. If we're really serious about saving the planet we're going to have to leave all that marketing hype behind and really start thinking beyond the 'mantra of convenience' (ie instant gratification) /I need it/want it NOW!!' mindset. We're watching the rise of the Chinese century - again: and that's a culture that doesn't value individualism

Because I'm old enough to realise now that the best things in life, AREN'T things.


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So far in Digital Media Cultures we've looked at the development of the web leading up to and including Web 2.0, analyzed the ABC website -its functionality, its similarities and differences to a broadsheet newspaper ie logo in the top right hand corner sections, toolbar across the top, "Breaking News", "Sport" , "Entertainment" which are further broken down. The way 'traditional' media has expanded into cyberspace and the way 'new media' have tried 'new business models' ie 'giving away service - then asking for users to pay for it' and the general resistance to this and thus failure of many of the 'new media pioneers'... How later 'new media' have often had to borrow from 'old media' business models like paid advertising to create cash flow.

In the third lecture we looked at how media has multiplied - starting with printing, then photography, then films, then radio, then TV, then cable TV, then internet, then MP3 players, : each of these medium have reached 'mass audiences' then been overtaken by other medium but they haven't died off - rather the market has increased, broadened but not deepened. In other words the pie has increased in size but there's been more and more slices due to 'narrowcasting'. And we looked at the public vs private spheres and we took up quite a bit of time on swearing on blogs...

Unfortunately I was sick for week 4...