DIGC335 - Copyrights and Copywrongs

In my experience, discussions surrounding copyright regulation have focused largely on the protection of content producers through the prosecution of end-users, ignoring the periphery issue of copyright law application to intermediaries. I was previously unaware of a carriage service provider’s protection under a ‘safe haven scheme’ and was delighted to find that unlike the majority of Australian legislation, a review is under way to properly locate this policy in a digital world (Attorney-General’s Department 2011).  A key issue in this review will be whether or not internet service providers, or ISPs, fall under ‘safe haven’ protection. After examining the Roadshow Films Pty Ltd & Ors v iiNet Limited case (High Court of Australia 2012), I believe a precedent has been rightfully set to remove an ISP’s responsibility from the wrongdoing of its customers, and hope this influences revisions of Australian copyright law.

Digitally prompted revisions to Australian copyright law have not all been positive though, with the Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement pressuring local replication of three incredibly contentious American copyright laws (Moore 2005, pp.71). I take particular issue with the criminalisation of circumventing digital rights management, or DRM. I have personally had countless encounters with DRM in ways that have invariably limited desired functionality, with the most frustrating being the inability to use two legitimately purchased Apple products until I entered a long-forgotten password. I now find myself not only circumventing, but actively avoiding DRM in all forms because I morally object to the idea of having the ways I can consume my content dictated to me, even if that means having to obtain said content illegally until legal distribution catches up. Cases such as those outlined by Martin (2013) demonstrate the over-zealous desperation of governments, particularly the U.S., to exemplify cases of copyright infringement through callous punishment and while I understand the need to appease content creators, I believe this could be better achieved by focusing on the creation of functional frameworks for legal content distribution.

References:

Attorney-General’s Department 2011, Revising the Scope of the Copyright ‘Safe Harbour Scheme’, consultation paper, viewed 19 May 2014 <http://www.ag.gov.au/Consultations/Documents/Revising+the+Scope+of+the+Copyright+Safe+Harbour+Scheme.pdf>

High Court of Australia 2012, Roadshow Films Pty Ltd & Ors v iiNet Limited, judgement summary, 20 April, viewed 19 May 2014, <http://www.hcourt.gov.au/assets/publications/judgment-summaries/2012/hcasum16_2012_04_20_iiNet.pdf>

Martin, P 2013, ‘Legal anvil hovers over the unwary tech user’, Sydney Morning Herald, 23 January, viewed 19 May 2014, <http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/legal-anvil-hovers-over-the-unwary-tech-user-20130122-2d51x.html>

Moore, C 2005, ‘Creative Choices: Changes to Australian Copyright Law and the Future of the Public Domain’, Media International Australia, no.114, pp.71-82

DIGC335 - Employers Blunder Through the Brave New World

The World Wide Web is a drastically different digital landscape to that present at its inception, with the Web 2.0 revolution ushering in a new age of utility and co-development that has seen the creation of rich, ever-evolving content, largely superseding the rigid, stagnant, single author webpage of yesteryear (O’Reilly 2005). Evolutions in Internet architecture have allowed users to add and/or modify website content in new participatory forms (Howard 2008, pp.490-491), with Hypertext Markup Language Standard, or HTML, now incorporating a host of previously unimaginable features in its fifth version (W3C 2014). Howard (2008) conceptualises contemporary practices as inherently hybrid on what he describes as the ‘vernacular web’, with non-institutional participatory expressions thriving in a technological space largely produced, funded and maintained by institutions.

It is in this uneasy balance between the institutional and the contrary that I believe many employers have difficulty, with what was once simply a vast resource through which one could collate information becoming increasingly participatory and ubiquitous. As demonstrated by a Bank’s recent mishandling of issues related to social media (Hannan 2011), businesses are struggling to adequately comprehend the diversity of new media, instead attempting to locate employee practices within existing legal frameworks in ways that are detrimental to both parties. Similarly, the choice to dismiss Barminco miners due to breaches of Occupational Health & Safety laws whilst participating in the ‘Harlem Shake’ viral video meme in an effort to boost workplace morale is but one case of an institution’s missed opportunity for free, positive publicity, instead producing an antithetic achievement.

Having spent close to two years under the employ of an institution with an open social media policy, similar to that of Cisco (Earnhardt 2010), I have come to the conclusion that an employee’s workplace motivation is largely unchanged by their choices in media consumption. During my employ, projects were assigned with a deadline and as long as that deadline was met, workplace practices were largely unregulated. Employees used social media or other online material as a mental break, returning to their work refreshed and motivated. Speaking to others in the industry in restrictive workplaces, I found that they too took similar breaks but due to workplace regulation, they simply did so on their own mobile devices.

I believe this is a beneficial strategy for all businesses; choosing to find a balance that results in productivity and only punishing those who abuse it. The idiom of motivation through the carrot and not the stick comes to mind here, with employers offered the opportunity to seemingly reward staff rather than punishing them for accessing content that is realistically a part of everyday life in this digital world.

References:

Note: the Barminco ‘Harlem Shake’ video cannot be properly referenced as the original was taken down during legal proceedings. A number of versions are still available online, and can be found here: <https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=barminco+harlem+shake>

Earnhardt, J 2010, ‘Cisco Social Media Guidelines, Policies and FAQ’, Cisco, 15 June, viewed 5 May 2014, <https://blogs.cisco.com/news/cisco_social_media_guidelines_policies_and_faq/>

Hannan, E 2011, ‘Bank’s Facebook Sacking Threat’, The Australian, 5 February, viewed 5 May 2014, Factiva database

Howard, R G 2008, ‘The Vernacular Web of Participatory Media’, Critical Studies in Media Communication, vol.25, no.5, pp.490-513

O’Reilly, T 2005, ‘What is Web 2.0: Design patterns and business models for the next generation of software’, 9 September, viewed 5 May 2014, <http://www.oreillynet.com/lpt/a/6228>

W3C 2014, ‘HTML5’, W3C, 29 April, viewed 5 May 2014, <http://www.w3.org/TR/html5/>

DIGC335 - MOOC: Maybe Optimism is Overly Confident

The exponential technological advancement that has characterised the past century has seen educational institutions change dramatically, with the contemporary classroom crammed full of gadgetry that largely, in my opinion, is yet to entirely justify its implementation. Massive open online courses, or MOOCs, attempt to break free of traditional teaching techniques by removing the classroom entirely, providing a non-linear learning experience that harnesses the wealth of information available via the internet. Cormier (2010) concisely characterises MOOCs in the video below, so there is no need to comment on it’s content other than to note the obvious technological optimism that I believe is both the driver for the widespread utilisation of MOOCs and the reason they will not be as revolutionary as some believe.

Countless courses are available online through a number of providers, ranging from start-ups such as OpenClass (Pearson 2012) to respected institutions like M.I.T. (Goldberg 2001) and Harvard (Ho et al 2014). The noble notion of disseminating knowledge as broadly as possibly resonated with academics at M.I.T. when MOOCs were first theorized (Goldberg 2001), but more than 10 years on, the first year of Harvard and M.I.T.s open online courses doesn’t seem to be as ‘massive’ as planned. While 841,687 individual registrations across 16 subjects is indeed massive, this number dwarves the 43,196 total certifications that resulted (Ho et al 2014, pp.14), and this has been offered FOR FREE by two of the most respected academic institutions in the world!

Ho et al’s (2014, pp.2) report into this project’s first year points out that a large number of non-certified registrants accessed substantial amounts of course content, and I think this is the key area where MOOCs have missed their mark, but have the potential to be a valuable resource nonetheless. Nathan highlighted the research habits of the digital generation in his seminar presentation, noting that the average dwell time on W3 Schools is a measly 6-minutes, suggesting that participants seek specific information and participate only until it is found.

I believe that those seeking information independently do not wish to have their hand held through the research process, rather using their skills to quickly find the information they seek in a particular resource, and then leave. I would argue that for this reason, the intensive environment created by physical contact in traditional education (Goldberg 2001) is the only way to nurture completion in those who are anything but 100% self-motivated. I can envisage MOOCs becoming a valuable supplementary resource or an educational avenue for those without access to more traditional forms, but believe that the overload of information presented (ironically demonstrated by The Chronicle of Higher Education 2014) will continue to be off-putting and hinder growth in completion rates.

References:

Cormier, D 2010, What is a Mooc, online video, 8 December, University of Prince Edward Island, viewed 15 April 2014, <http://youtu.be/eW3gMGqcZQc>

Goldberg, C 2001, ‘Auditing Classes at M.I.T., on the Web and Free’, The New York Times, April 4, viewed 16 April 2014, <http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/04/us/auditing-classes-at-mit-on-the-web-and-free.html?src=pm>

Ho, AD, Reich, J, Nesterko, S, Seaton, DT, Mullaney, T, Waldo, J & Chuang, I 2014, ‘HarvardX and MITx: The First Year of Open Online Courses’, HarvardX Research Committee at Harvard University and the Office of Digital Learning at MIT, viewed 16 April 2014, <http://ssrn.com/abstract=2381263>

JoinOpenClass 2012, OpenClass 2012, online video, 9 November, Pearson Learning Solutions, viewed 14 April 2014, <http://youtu.be/S5sgoo9uWJ0>

What You Need To Know About MOOCs 2014, The Chronicle of Higher Education, viewed 16 April 2014, <http://chronicle.com/article/What-You-Need-to-Know-About/133475/>

DIGC335 - Character Creation and Inextricable Identity in the 'Real World'

As an individual who has spent large portions of his life probing and participating in varied virtual realms, I found myself acutely affected by Dibbell’s (1998) account of an aggravated sexual assault that took place in the world of LambdaMOO. I found the author’s interrogation of the ill-conceived divide between the virtual and the real, exampled by an examination of “netsex”, particularly pertinent to our tutorial discussions, resonating with my own notions of online identity.

During my years as a resident of Azeroth within the World of Warcraft (WoW), I was a socially active participant of a prominent guild. Within this guild, there were many I counted as close friends, and yet I knew nothing more about them than what was shared with me through a scrolling chat feed next to their chosen username. For me this wasn’t an issue, as the sincerity and authenticity of these users, combined with actions of “identity-in-practice” (Larsen 2008, pp.15), allowed me to form friendships just as real as those formed in a physical environment. Dibbell (1998) described my participation perfectly when stating that experiences within a virtual world are “neither exactly real nor exactly make-believe, but nonetheless profoundly, compellingly, and emotionally true.”

Of course role-playing games (RPGs) have a fantasy element, but I found that within WoW at least, those who wished to assume a false facade would do so within dedicated role-playing realms, with chat on my server closer to that of an IRC room. I encountered the odd “faker” (Larsen, pp.8-10), but these were easy to spot and ignore, especially with ever decreasing anonymity online (Fahey, 2010).

I believe that regardless of the realm we occupy our identity is a constant, and is inevitably imprinted in any form of character we create. The emotional anguish suffered by ‘exu’ as a virtual victim (Dibbell 1998) illustrates this inextricable identification, proving that our emotional engagement with virtual worlds may have deeper ties than we care to admit.

References:

Dibbell, J 1998, ‘A Rape In Cyberspace’, Julian Dibbell (DOT COM), weblog post, viewed 30 March 2014, <http://www.juliandibbell.com/articles/a-rape-in-cyberspace/>

Fahey, M 2010, ‘Blizzard's Real Name Forum Policy Has Fans In An Uproar’, Kotaku, weblog post, viewed 31 March 2014, <http://kotaku.com/5581209/blizzards-real-name-forum-policy-has-fans-in-an-uproar/>

Larsen, M C 2008, ‘Understanding Social Networking: On Young People’s Construction and Co-construction of Identity Online’, Department of Communication and Psychology, Aalborg University, Denmark

DIGC335 - If This is the Future, Where Are All the Cyborgs?

When first encountering 'Johnny Mnemonic' (Gibson 1988), my first  reaction was one of disbelief, stemming from my utter enjoyment of a prescribed course reading. Guns, cyborgs and ­­­futuristic technology in a post-industrial, ‘cyberpunk’ dystopia? Yes please! I pleasurably perused the ‘.pdf’ in an addictive manner easily mistakable for leisure, and for this incredibly engaging e-reading I must thank Graham.

While enjoyable, this was still an academic exercise and I found myself resonating with a number of tropes unique to ‘cyperpunk’ culture that were later defined for me in Tomas’ (2000) examination of ‘technicity’ in the Gibson canon. I found myself fixated on a central notion of Gibson’s (1988) work, and particularly focussed on it in Tomas’ (2000, p.176); the idea of the ‘technophilic body’, involving “aesthetic and functional transformations directed to the human body's surface and functional organic structure.” This fascinates me because I would love to see it become a reality but at the same time, I do not believe that it will.

During our class discussions of the ‘memex’ (Bush 1945) and subsequent discussions about technological prophecy, I’ve begun to formulate my own position on the matter. Using past technological advancement as a base, it is easy for those looking forward to become swept up in endless possibility, formulating a future that while feasible, becomes increasingly implausible as technology continues to advance. Forms of bodily modification, whether they be Bush’s (1945) notions of mind control or realisations of the ‘technophilic’ body (Gibson 1988, Tomas 2000), are indeed feasible with even current technology, but it seems that the consumerist nature of our society largely governs the direction of technological advancement, and, in my opinion, there is very little demand for such direct integration of technology.

Medical marvels such as the cochlear implant prove that we have the technology to begin realising the dreams of visionaries such as Bush or Gibson, yet I see no public outcry demanding further exploration of this avenue in ways closer to Tomas’ ‘technophilic body’ (2000, p.176). This could possibly be explained by cultural acceptance and the morality of modifying what it is to be human, but even if this were the case, there are many who act outside of common morality, and I believe we would be well on our way to ‘technicity’ by now if this were all that stood in the way. Of course I could simply be speaking from the pessimistic side of the prophetic coin and am open to debate on what the future may hold, while remaining quietly hopeful that I am wrong.

References:

Bush, V 1945, ‘As We May Think’, Atlantic Monthly, vol.176, no.1, pp.101-108

Gibson, W 1988, ‘Johnny Mnemonic’, Burning Chrome, Grafton, London, pp. 14-36

Tomas, D 2000, ‘The technophilic body: on technicity in William Gibson's cyborg culture’, in Bell, D and Kennedy, B (eds.), The Cybercultures Reader, Routledge, London, pp. 175-189

Delete or Debate: The Slippery Slope of Censorship

The moderation of online conversation is an issue that walks an extremely fine line, with the ability to effectively censor offensive or inappropriate material but also cause offense through obscuring such material. I find myself often leaning towards the latter as an individual diametrically opposed to censorship in all forms, but particularly online. I thoroughly enjoyed Couldry’s (2009) exploration of ‘voice’ and the idea that it is imperative that the varying voices of individuals not only be broadcast, but also heard. This is my key objection to anything but the most basic forms of moderation online; I believe that everyone has a right to have their say and that harsher forms of moderation compulsorily enforce subjective views on what is offensive or inappropriate.

I frequent a number of automotive forums, have played video games online since I was young and am an active user of numerous social networking sites and through this experience I have been made acutely aware of both the need for moderators and the ways in which their power can be abused. While basic editing or removal of posts that are intended to cause controversy can keep conversation on track, the ability to perform such actions can easily be abused. This is where the point I made during this weeks tutorial is based; that I believe in allowing users to self-moderate through an open forum where individuals can make their point and rebut others. If something is deemed offensive don’t remove it, allow those who are offended to articulate what it is that offends them and debate the validity of the material. Of course whenever someone tries to raise a view such as this, extreme examples such as child pornography are used to dismiss it but one has to remember how slippery the censorship slope can be.

References:

Couldry, N 2009, ‘Rethinking the politics of voice’, Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, vol.23, no.4, pp.579-582

Awareness Mode: Enabled, Equality: Disabled

As with a number of topics BCM310 has brought to my attention throughout this semester, the social exclusion of disabled individuals was one that I had not considered in depth other than always seeking to be fair, inclusive and unpatronising towards such individuals in my daily life. Goggin and Newell (2007) made me question how apparent advancements in society’s acceptance and understanding of disabilities have not brought about greater accessibility or the proliferation of ‘inclusive technology’ despite the rapid technological advancements we see elsewhere. Being shown clips of sign language interpreters being cropped out of media broadcasts in the lecture further enraged me and now like when someone makes you aware of the fact that you are breathing and blinking subconsciously (gotcha!), I can’t stop myself from thinking about it and considering an endless list of examples of things that I take for granted but from which those with disabilities are thoughtlessly excluded. Making matters worse is the fact that technology is readily available to level the playing field in a number of these examples but isn’t implemented because it isn’t profitable or because the issue is easily swept aside in favour of one that affects us able-bodied folk.

Similar to last week, tutorial discussion quickly evolved to the broader issues at play; to the topic of how the disabled function in society in general, focusing on unpacking the social awkwardness that stems from trying to be accepting of an individual’s differences but ultimately doing the exact opposite. Similar to a point I raised on the topic of racism, I believe that this social awkwardness stems from issues attached to disability and not disability itself and that the only way that we as a society can move past it is by making such trivial things as your appearance or impairments non-issues. Living inside every disabled body is a unique individual and that is all that should matter in a society that so proudly boasts progress and acceptance.

References:

Goggin, G and Newell, C 2007, ‘The Business of Digital Disability’, The Information Society: An International Journal, Vol.23, No.3, 159-168