Saturday, October 2, 2010

WEEK 6 TUTESPARK
WHO OWNS ONLINE CONTENT?




Who owns the content you put on the internet on various sites?

As was talked about in the lecture the onset of web 2.0 has seen the average user become more active in producing a wide range of online content, including photo's, video, audio and text.

If we look at this question in the sense of the everyday world we can easily point to many different laws and regulations. These laws and regulations exist to protect the creator's rights to ownership and how they wish to profit from their creations. For example one such law that protects people who create creative media is, Copyright. Which basically means that whenever you write a poem or story or even a paper, or a drawing or other artwork, you automatically own the copyright to it. Copyright is a form of protection given to the authors or creators of "original works of authorship," including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic and other intellectual works. But then how does this differ from the rights, laws and regulations pertaining to online content? Are the rules the same or as soon as that information passes into the realms of cyberspace does that information then become available to anyone?

The laws of the web or internet are to most people very confusing because your talking about laws that govern material from around the world not just your respective country. But according to an article by Vitaly Friedman in Smashing Magazine online, titled, "Copyright Explained: I May Copy It, Right?, is that the same rules that apply to created content in the 'real' world also apply in the 'cyber' world. You are allowed to use other people's content under the proviso of 'fair use' or only use portions available under the law.

Some sites when you sign up may have a prerequisite in their terms and conditions that stipulate that all content on their site are the property and responsibility of the original owners. Also any content you upload original or not must adhere to their regulations, laws such as these come from YouTube and Google. But as like everything involving technology, laws and regulations are always changing.

REFERENCE LIST
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CULTURE JAMMING PROJECT

As part of the culture jamming theme we have been discussing lately in lectures and tutorials, we were assigned to a group to create our own culture jam. It was hoped that our culture jam would get the attention of mainstream audiences and the media, but hopefully not get us (or maybe more importantly the university) in any major legal trouble.

Our group discussed many different ideas for a relevant culture jam that would hopefully get noticed. After a much discussion we decided to focus on events around and pertaining to the Gold Coast. We found out that the tickets for the Big Day Out 2011 were coming out in a couple of weeks, so we decided to use the Big Day Out as our culture jam. Our plan was to see if we could get people to believe that the Big Day Out was being cancelled because of the ongoing construction of the new Gold Coast hospital.

In order to make this somewhat believable we decided we had to make up a character that could pose as an official from the Big Day Out. Our group created a Gold Coast businessman named Alfred Baxter who we claimed was the founder and CEO of the Big Day Out event. The group members and I gave him an official Facebook and Twitter pages to make him plausible as an Big Day Out official. We also edited the official Big Day Out wikipedia page to include Alfred Baxter as a co-founder and CEO of Big Day Out, as well as inserted a paragraph explaing the possible cancellation of the event. Much to our amusement and at times frustration, we noticed everytime we would post some new information onto the wikipedia page it would get replaced after a few minutes with the original information.

Our overall goal of disturbing the Big Day Out with fake cancellation notices because of the new Gold Coast hospital was a bust. But we did manage to ruffle the feathers of a few people with our culture jam. After some early posts as the fake Alfred Baxter onto the official Big Day Out facebook page proclaiming the possibility of the event we were shot down by real Big Day Out people. Who announced to everyone listed on the page that we were not to be trusted and weren't really part of the Big Day Out. After some more posts we managed to get a few people to get concerned about the possible cancellation. So on some parts we were successful and on others we weren't as successfull.
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WEEK 6 LECTURE
MEDIA, NEW MEDIA, SOCIAL MEDIA

The internet has had a rollercoaster like existence from it's very beginning. Starting off as only an academic tool, to the burgeoning beast it is today. Entrepreneurs have lived and died by riding the pioneering internet wave prior to the dot.com crash and also now into the new internet era of Web 2.0.

The term Web 2.0 essentially doesn't mean anything for example there wasn't some amazing new internet that was suddenly created. It more refers to the idea that the now mundane "read only" web is now a thing of the past. While proclaiming the resurrection of the internet as a new "read/write" web. This idea was pioneered by Tim O'Rielly and his friends to get the tech community feeling good about itself again. So they came up with the notion, that the web mattered again. (Paul Graham, 2005) To put simply a definition for web 2.0 as stated on the exforsys.com website is that Web 2.0 is a system in which online users become participants rather than mere viewers.

An article also on the exforsys.com website titled "Advantages and Disadvantages of Web 2.0" states that with the growing use of web 2.0 as a technology information can flow freely and people can express their ideas without fear of repression. Web 2.0 would than effectively make the internet a true democratic system, or a digital democracy, but then this also leads into the disadvantages of the web 2.0 technology. One of the disadvantages is "dependence", for example if you become heavily reliant on the internet for your information what are you going to do when your connection goes down, how will you access the information you have become dependent on. Also while many services are offered for free, they won't be secure, and could easily become the targets for hackers and viruses.

This leads into the ambiguous question of ownership of online content such as music, movies, pictures and articles. With the onset of web 2.0 and it's main directive being the user being the participant rather than the viewer we have seen the astronimical rise of new social networking technolgies (Facebook, Twitter). These sites which allow users to talk and exchange ideas and opinions in their own personal virtual communities, have produced a very big two edged sword for companies looking to do business on the web. On side they have a great way to promote and distribute their content online to a very large audience more quickly and efficiently than before. But on the other side they leave themselves open to the advent of people coming in and being able to easily take your content for free. New laws are being created and debated all the time about who actually has the "rights" in intellectual property exchange and excessability of free online content. One could argue that in this current climate, that the progress of technology has become autonomous and beyond the direct control of any individual or government. A good example of this is with the social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, that have grown at such exponential rates over the last few years and have so many users that now governments are trying to come up with rules and/or laws to regulate the use of these sites. I think the court cases we see involving online content infringements will continue until we see the online law start growing as fast as the new technologies.

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Saturday, August 28, 2010

WEEK 5 - TUTESPARK

CULTURE JAMMING

A form of political and social activism which, by means of fake adverts, hoax news stories, pastiches of company logos and product labels, computer hacking, etc., draws attention to and at the same time subverts the power of the media, governments, and large corporations to control and distort the information that they give to the public in order to promote consumerism, militarism, etc.

THE FIRST CULTURE JAM

The term culture jamming was coined by the college band Negativland back in 1994. The phrase comes from the idea of radio jamming, that public frequencies can be pirated and subverted for independant communication, or to dusrupt dominant frequencies. Even though Negativland coined the term culture jamming can be traced back a long way. One particular influential European group called the Situationists and was led by Guy Debord. Their main argument was based on the idea that in the past humans dealt with life and the consumer market directly. They argued that this spontaneous way of life was slowly deteriorating as a direct result of the new "modern" way of life. Situationalists saw everything from television to radio as a threat. But other historians point to the Dada movement or even the Orson Welle's "War of the World's" broadcast in the 30's as possible earlier examples of cultural jamming.

MOST INFLUENTIAL CULTURE JAM

The most influential culture jam is open to interpretation because what may have been influential to one person may not be to another. But in saying that one influential culture jam provided to us in the tutorial for that week was the music video made on Wall street by Rage Against the Machine and Micheal Moore. They promoted a free concert to be held in the middle of America's and possible the worlds economic heart, Wall street. This concert closed down the stock market for one of the few times in history and cost alot of people alot of money. But since this was deemed a cop-out if used I will state another. It may not necessarily be the most influential but it is one of the most famous, the Orson Welle's "War of the World's" broadcast which aired in 1938. The airing of this broadcast caused widespread panic among listener's who really thought their was an alien invasion going on outside.

Orson Welle's War of the World's Broadcast (Part 1)

MOST DAMAGING CULTURE JAM

If a culture jam is to be truly successful it must be damaging to the target and undamaging to everything else. After much searching I couldn't find a culture jam of sinificant impact to be labelled damaging. The only thing I could think of was the tutorial culture jam we were talking about and how to some that would have definitely been seen as damaging as the concert held be Rage Against the Machine shut down the stock market and cost some people alot of money.

REFERENCE LIST

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WEEK 5 LECTURE - CONSUMPTION & PRODUCTION

This week's lecture taught us how we are for the most part consumers of content and that we consume this content through a variety of outlets or screens. The lecture showed us how the content we previously 'consumed' was a outlet of major studio's and media companies and how it has changed to become more user based. With the onset of citizen journalism and Mojo or Mobile journalists (such as freelance reporters). It is with these new content providers that the way we recieve and view information has dramatically changed. For example in the past we would have had to wait for the latest news to appear in our newspapers or tv screens, but with the onset of these two professions (especially citizen journalism) we are seeing the people take the place of the reporter. We also see official news footage swapped with user taken video that is often uploaded to the internet, which allows users to get up-to-the-date news coverage as the event is taking place.

We are also seeing a change in the way we view movies especially over the internet. With the emergence of fan-films, mash-ups, re-genres & re-cuts, internet short film and mobile content production. These things allow the user to add their personal touch to their favourite movies.

As we look to the future of these concepts a good way to end things is how this weeks lecture finished by stating, the dramatic contemporary shift to internet-based media distribution makes video portable and more social. Devices like mobile phones and portable media players make it possible to have our media follow us wherever we’d like.

REFERENCE LIST

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WEEK 4 LECTURE - BIG SCREEN TO SMALL

In the week 4 lecture we explored the history of the cinema from the point of view of the cinema patron. We started off in France where cinema was born on December 28, 1895 and went all the way to today, where cinema is undergoing a technoligical reimagining.

In my limited experience with the cinema, which solely is based on what type of movies are out at the moment rather than the technological or art side of things. In the same respect as the exponential growth of computers, it is hard to believe the growth in the cinema I have seen in my life time. Moving from movies shot on normal film to films shot entirely using state of the art computer generated technology. For example films such as Tron, Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Toy Story all these films show the progression of computer generated technology in recent films. Whether this obsession with technology is a good or bad thing for movies is probably grounded in personal opinion.

A good example is the fact everyone was surprised when Avatar James Cameron's hugely successful 3D epic about blue aliens lost out to the Hurt Locker for Best Picture at the 2010 academy awards. The film that basically broke every box office record imaginable was supposed to be a shoo-in for the Best Film award. But if you strip away the impressive ground breaking technology (that the script apparently had to wait 15 years for) is the movie still as good as previously thought. With it's basis solely in the love the environment theme, we have seen the core story millions of times before. One could also ask if Avatar would have knocked off Titanic (another James Cameron movie) to become the highest grossing picture of all time without the special effects.

Another trend in hollywood at the moment is re-releasing old classic films with the film and sound being upgraded to digital quality. Does this new technology make these classic films any better movies, the short answer is no. As an article on the website TG Daily states, 'Technology is no substitute for a great story and script, proper characterizations, skilled direction and cinematography'.

REFERENCE LIST

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Friday, August 27, 2010

WEEK 4 - TUTORIAL
  1. Where and when did usable online video start?
    This was a hard question to research because it comes down to the interpretation of the word usable in relation to videos. I am taking 'usable' in this sense to mean video that can be shared, downloaded, search and viewed by any public user. According to website dembot.com there were remnants of online video scattered around the internet in the early part of this decade but there wasn't a substantial enough audience for the concept at that time. It wasn't untill 2004 that online video really launched itself, coinciding with the 2004 US Presidential elections. It started with Jib-Jab which made funny flash animations, with slow internet connections watching these would be slow, but as connections got faster so did the enjoyment of watching these videos. This particular medium had it's absolute breakthrough moment in 2005, with two events, one being the Asian tsunami and everyone filming videos of it and wanting to get online to watch them and second being the first video posted onto the online video giant of youtube.
    http://dembot.com/post/310798115/a-decade-in-history-of-online-video

  2. What recent innovations are being used to lure us in the movies? What are they luring us from?
    At the moment there is a major tug of war going on between the cinemas and tv as well as the internet. In the good ol' days when you wanted to watch that latest blockbuster release you happily drove down to your local cinema and paid your hard earn money for a ticket and had two hours of entertainment. But today pay-tv and the internet are stomping all over cinemas turf, by allowing users to watch those same blokbusters at home at any time they want and at alot cheaper price. Why take all the time to drive down to the cinema to sit with people you don't know and pay extravagant prices on the ticket and food and drink. When you can just as easily turn on your computer and download the same movie and watch it in the comfort of your own home and at your own pace. But cinemas are fighting back, by introducing new and innovative experiences to bring the customer back. Such as louder surround sound, bigger screens, better viewing environments (Gold Class), Filming in HD (High Defintion) and using 3D technology.

  3. Are short films still being made? Why? Who Pays for them to be made?
    Short films are still being made and are more popular than ever a perfect example of this is the Tropfest Short Film Festival it's the largest in the world and each year gets thousand of submissions for it's short film competition. As to the question of why are short films still being made, the answer is they are an excellent showcase for aspiring directors, cinematographers and commercial directors. The costs of making and producing short films is usually picked up by the maker themselves and is another reason why short film making is achieving a renaissance today because the equipment needed is cheaper than ever today.

  4. What does 'viral' mean in the tv/movie arena? Give examples
    A video that spreads quickly via the Internet. It is often a short clip on a video sharing site such as YouTube that people reference in blogs, e-mails and instant messages.
    Some examples or viral videos
    - The evolution of Dance
    - Dancing Baby
    - Dick in a Box

  5. Shows made exclusively for the internet provide a unique way of watching entertainment, but at the same time provide both good and bad viewing experiences. Some examples of the good experiences would be that there are no annoying advertisements popping up throughout the show, you can watch the show whenever you want, as well as being able to watch it multiple times. Some bad examples are that the production budgets are much smaller than normal shows, their also not as freely available as normal shows either (i.e having to be on the internet to watch them) also their much shorter time wise compared to normal shows. Here is an example I found of an online tv show only available on the internet called 'The Guild' about a bunch of online gamers.


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