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Good artists copy, great artists steal 9/25

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Lessigā€™s words ā€œthe tools of creativity have been democratizedā€ struck a chord. It used to be that ideas were expressed solely from one person to another. Today, the overwhelming amount of UGC is amazing. However, he reminded us that the draconian copyright laws have made us into passive criminals. He captured a sentiment I never truly gave a thought. Youtube contains content that dangerously flirts with copyright infringement. Content made out of passion, and hopefully not motivated by financial gains. Fortunately, fair use guide lines do permit us some leg room. Despite this, many people take more than the inch they’re given. Lessig addressed this extremism and argued against it. Slightly behind him was an image of Andy Warhol, thought provoking. However, all he did was just copy and paste. Nonetheless, he effectively expressed revolutionary ideas.

“Many Hands Make Light Work”

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Woodshed’s epigram adequately describes the mentality of internet business and services alike. People are becoming participants in lieu of mere observers. We are eager to give our two cents, and share our experiences and knowledge with websites such as Wikipedia, in turn providing better service. Businesses are starting to see the immediate advantages of encouraging consumers to input data. The infinite amount of data people provide allow businesses to better serve their customers and adapt to their ever volatile and shifting wants and needs. This is not a new practice, as seen by Dr. Snow’s life-saving success in data analysis and Hammerbacher’s financial success in “Big Data” analysis. With the exponential leaps in technology, the amount of data is becoming overwhelming. An esoteric field will in the years to come become a field employing millions. However, many people are uncomfortable with the idea of others knowing their everyday goings and personal preferences. Any person with a smartphone is passively contributing data to businesses. There is still alot of ambiguity and differing opinions on the matter of “Big Data” analysis.

Zines, pamphlets, blogs, wikis, etc.

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Zines are one of the few opportunities given to each individual to express their own opinions about any subject that they would like to discuss. A source that would be somewhat marked as a zine would be ‘Wikipedia’. Wikipedia is a public site that allows anyone with any knowledge to write, edit and/or discuss a particular subject that they specialize in. Not only is Wikipedia a place for sharing but so are other websites such as, Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, etc. We are all given the permission to write, speak, or listen to whatever we are to choose and nowadays, as Meikle and Young say, ” For many people, the media are no longer just what they watch, listen to or read – the media are now what people do.” It’s a sad time when almost everything about us can be found by a simple Google search engine or even, Facebook. Nothing that we “publish” online can be rightfully ours since it could be on another person’s website….

Meikle & Young

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The piece that Meikle and Young collaboratively wrote makes me wonder back to a few years ago where I was actually one of the few who relied on iTunes so prominently whether it was because I was unaware of other, faster programs and/or because I am not very technologically savvy. Like Edwin Munet, I’d also have to wonder as to why Apple chose not to create two different programs and make them interact with one another. It may have been only me to ask for such a thing since I am so challenged by technology but it just seems to not have peoples best interest in mind. Also, for the sake of us all, it would probably save a lot of time and hassle. Thankfully, I can say that I now use a program that is much quicker to load and doesn’t require as many updates as did iTunes which is called VLC.

Back to the ’90s

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After reading the first chapter, we, the students, are brought back to the ā€™90s where we had no ā€œnetā€ and only had books or words passed down to us as an option to get any information regarding our topic. Luckily, we didnā€™t have to solely base any of our work on the words that were passed down through our forefathers, fore-mothers, etc. As Badke stated, we are fortunate enough to have the ā€œnetā€, we also have to take that not everything found on the internet can be wholly trusted since there are no gatekeepers. For example, most professors donā€™t prefer for their students to use any of the information found on Wikipedia because any of the information on that site could be generated or changed into someone elseā€™s opinions. Therefore, students are urged to use credible sources, such as websites ending in .edu, .org, .gov, .etc.
In chapter 8, Badke gives us pointers when it comes to note taking. Before, I always thought that I would remember where exactly I would remember where I learned upon that information but itā€™s not always the case. However, what he encourages students to do isnā€™t what I do but I, instead, choose to leave a Post-It note on the page so I can find it easily later on. When I do find information relevant to my topic in a short article, I choose to highlight it. Of course, it is vital for us to leave an asterisk or bibliography in the end to give the rightful owner his/her credit for his/her work. Why leave an important piece of information that isnā€™t yours as your own and risk the chance of your professor immediately giving you an ā€˜Fā€™ or worse when all you had to do was cite where you got this information from?