"A long time ago in a browser far, far away..."

Remix Paper: Flickr (remixed ;)

2011-10-24T21:05:00.001-07:00

“Flickr is a photo sharing community which provides you with an easy way to post and share photos online, and add meaningful metadata and comments to photos.” This is how the company Flickr describes its website and what it exists to do. As it is available to the entire public around the world to post their own photographs of things they see or make, it is wide open for multiple issues involving copyright law. The fact that people can take photographs of anything and upload them to Flickr’s site begs the question of what should be allowed to be upload without consequences.

There are many ways that the copyright laws can affect both the site, Flickr, and the users who choose to upload their work onto it. Flickr addresses many of these issues within their forum on a thread called “The 7 Deadly Myths of Internet Copyright” posted by the user RuffRiderTx. One of the myths addressed is whether or not the user should register their photographs with the government’s copyright office, or if they are automatically granted a copyright the moment they take the photo. The response to this was that because the user was the individual who took the photograph, that the copyright does belong to them, but registering it will afford the user greater protection against theft if it is published or distributed. Another myth that was addressed was if the copyright notice is not placed on or around the photograph, then it presumed that anyone can use it however they choose to. RuffRiderTx states that in almost all cases, photographs are considered to be copyright whether the notice is or is not placed on it.

There is a page on Flickr’s site where they state what constitutes as copyright infringement. The company says that if a user notices that someone has taken their photograph without asking permission to utilize it first, then they should follow a series of steps to remedy the situation. Flickr suggests that the user contact the other user via FlickrMail and asks them to take the photo off their photostream. If that user does not comply with the request that then the original owner should file a Notice of Infringement with the Yahoo! Copyright Team who will litigate the matter from that point on if so desired.

Flickr also has a page of its own called “What to do” and “What not to do” offering information regarding the submission of photographs as it is seen through copyright laws. Some of these statements include “respecting the copyright of others”, “don’t upload anything that isn’t yours” and that if users do this, they will be sent warnings or even have their accounts modified or canceled. The company also offers “Copyright/IP Policy” links in the footer of their pages stating more information regarding copyright policies. According to Lessig, one of the reforms that he suggests is needed is to “Simplify” the legal jargon involved in stating copyright policy. In his book “Remix”, he states that “But when copyright law purports to regulate everyone with a computer-from kids accessing the Internet to grandmothers who allow their kids to access the Internet-then there is a special obligation to make sure this regulation is clear.” (Lessig, pg. 266). When I was going through Flickr’s site trying to find out more information regarding their copyright policies, I had initially found very basic information stating that I had to follow several hyperlinks to more hyperlinks in order to view the policies. Once I finally found the policies, they were written in such a manner of legal terminology that I could not clearly understand what my rights as a Flickr user were. As a user, I would only be partially aware as to what my rights were in submitting photographs to Flickr’s site. I agree with Lessig in that it would be very beneficial to both Flickr’s users and their own company to offer much simpler definitions of their copyright policies to avoid cases of infringement. The only people who benefit from the complex legal jargon are the lawyers and the users who can afford to hire them versus the users who cannot.

The other reform that Lessig discusses that I believe would benefit Flickr’s users is that of “Deregulating Amateur Creativity.” As a Flickr user, you have the choice of uploading your work under a Creative Commons license, choosing between “Attribution”, “Noncommercial”, “No Derivative Works”, and “Share Alike.” These licenses grant fellow users the permission to share the work of other users and to create a remixed community as they integrate the photos into their own photostreams. Lessig states that "Tools such as the Creative Commons "Noncommercial" license enable an artist to say "take and share my work freely. Let it become part of the sharing economy. But if you want to carry this work over to the commercial economy, you must ask me first. Depending upon the offer, I may or may not say yes." (Lessig, pg. 226). Taking away many of the regulations circling creativity can create a greater sense of community amongst users globally, instead of a constant sense of guarded protection in not allowing others to share in your work. When Caterina Fake, cofounder of Flickr, was asked “Should Flickr compensate the creators of the most popular pictures on its site?”, she said “There are systems of value other than, or in addition to, money, that are very important to people: connecting with other people, creating an online identity, expressing oneself-and, not least, garnering other people’s attention.” Fake also stated that “The culture of generosity is the very backbone of the Internet.” (Lessig, pg. 233). I believe that the more open everyone is to the idea of sharing their works with the world, the more creativity will spring from those creations from other creators. More works will be remixed and produced from those that were initially shared and a domino effect of creativity will occur as a result.

In conclusion, I think that legal jargon that “protects” Flickr users should be simplified so that everyone, not just lawyers, can understand their rights. Flickr users should deregulate amateur creativity by uploading their work using Creative Commons licensing. There are multiple types of licenses allowing users to upload and share their work without the fear of theft and copyright infringement. Copyright law should be reviewed and adjusted to return back to protecting the rights of the creators and artists rather than the capitalist interests of everyone else involved in showcasing their work.

Flickr Remix Screencast Video

2011-10-24T21:00:00.000-07:00

(warning: turn the volume down to about 25% - couldn't get the volume level to equalize in the program)

Remix Paper: Flickr

2011-10-10T16:40:00.000-07:00

In conclusion, I think that copyright law should return to its original theory of protecting the work of the artists themselves and be changed so that commercial interests and lawyers do not get to control the fate of these creations. Their voice should be taken back by the creators and they should have a full understanding of what their rights as creators are and how they should be utilized properly without the need of lawyers being involved.

My early encounters with the internet (revised)

2011-09-22T19:16:00.001-07:00

http://www.appstate.edu/~changkl/firstinternet.htm

Check out the Zoidberg fugliness! Whoop!

2011-09-21T16:45:00.001-07:00

http://www.appstate.edu/~changkl/zoidberg.htm

My early encounters with the internet

2011-09-02T17:20:00.000-07:00

My father bought me my first computer, an Apple IIg, when I was just five years old. It still had a greenish-brown screen and used 8” floppy disks to run the software. I used it solely to play video games such as “Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?” and “Space Invaders”, or to learn how to type using a program called “Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing”. I could only do these types of things with the computer at that time because there was no internet capability available for the Apple IIg back in 1984. It would take a little over a decade before internet access was available for our mainstream use
.

In 1994, I was a freshman in high school and my best friend happened to have a desktop PC that used a dial-up modem to log onto the internet. It was a 28.8k modem connection which seemed to take about an hour to sign in with AOL while it blared what might have been the most annoying sound ever invented at top decibels. If I was lucky enough to log on to the internet without getting booted out at the sign in page, I would end up on a Netscape Navigator browser with limited text and even more limited graphics. This browser was a lot like Vannevar Bush’s “memex” where he described it as “a device in which an individual stores all his books, records, and communications, and which is mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility.”

There was a very minimal amount of sites to surf at that point and time, it seemed as though it was mostly news sites with a few shops online. The online commerce was nothing like it is now. Back then you still had to call their landlines or send them a check to make your purchases since PayPal and online shopping carts were not readily available features. Most of the online stores at that point seemed to be more niche market-oriented, selling harder-to-find and more specialized products too.

It seemed like most of my time was spent in chat rooms via AOL. There were “rooms” designated by certain topics of interest where you could go and chat with other people who supposedly shared that interest. There were even caps as to how many people could be in that room at a certain time. Sometimes if you really wanted to get into a certain room, you would have to wait in line until the number of people dropped so that you could jump into the conversation. The chat rooms started off as public arenas, but you could always turn the conversation into a private instant messaging if so desired. Chatting was an expensive hobby though, back in the early 1990’s, you had to pay per minute of online usage instead of the flat monthly fees we pay now. Our parents had to cap our internet usage, otherwise they would end up with a several hundred monthly phone bill that they were never pleased to receive.

After the novelty of AOL chat rooms and instant messaging wore off, we tried to do things like watch one of the ten videos that were online, but it usually took forever to buffer and we would never get to finish watching anything in full. We spent some time looking up information in encyclopedia-like sites for school research, but that usually took longer to search through than it did to drive to the library and find the information in books, so we didn’t use that resource too often.

A few years down the road, we started using peer-to-peer programs to search music. One of the initial sites we used to use was called KaZaA. We used this program to download individual MP3 songs, because full albums usually took two to three days to finish downloading. We would then have to burn the MP3s onto CDs at that time because we didn’t have portable MP3 devices like we do now to listen to them on.

Looking back on this life-altering technological innovation, I think that the introduction of the internet was more in the pessimistic direction like the views of Hawthorne. When I first started experimenting with the internet, I would spend countless hours locked away in a room glued to the computer, which I normally would have spent socializing with friends or family. I still kept a somewhat active life outside of the internet, pursuing other social activities that did not involve it in any way. The same cannot be said for younger generations though I don’t think. I have found that people under the age of twenty-five find it very difficult to have a social life that does not involve the internet in one manner or the next. Everywhere I go, I see students chatting on Facebook in class on their laptops, or people leaving messages online instead of face-to-face. I think that Nathaniel Hawthorne summed it up best by saying “The effects will be more perceptible on our children, and the generations that shall succeed them, than on ourselves, the mechanism of whose life may remain unchanged, though its spirit be far other than it was”.

Hello

2011-08-28T16:43:00.000-07:00

This is my new blog focusing on Internet Studies.