blog 4

Net Smart - Ch 6


"Apply crap detection when you encounter political assertions" this paragraph about politics and the public sphere was pretty helpful to me actually. My main social media site is supposed to be a photography blogging platform, however, many of the users have turned it into a political discussion board. Furthermore, many of the users I follow have opposing political views than the ones of my family (isn't that always the case between generations?). The biggest problem I have when going through my social dashboard is "Who do I believe?" I have a bare-minimum understanding (and interest) in politics, while the blogs I follow are highly involved (I'd go as far as to say obsessed). So I am constantly torn between "well, I was raised believing X, so I feel that is my gut belief, but the majority say Y, so am I wrong?" For me, the paragraph served as a reminder that I cannot take everything at face value, especially when the scale of opinion is tipped so severely in one direction. I have found that, regardless of the topic, the extremist opinion is never right.

"conflicts over intellectual property" this is actually very funny to me. When I think back to how limited the Internet used to be, I wonder how much intellectual property was really out there in the early stages of the 'net that people were already arguing over about it? That issue seems more relevant than ever, especially with the past threats of "Internet censorship." Which, to me, that whole endeavor just seemed like a big waste of time. Like there are so many other topics that need attention. The Internet is like the final frontier for the government. (If that makes sense.)

"Napster" I remember having Napster on my (desktop!) computer. And then Lime Wire and Frost Wire. And when he mentions Apple making it easy to buy music, I am reminded of when songs were 0.99 instead of 1.29. But I guess we have ourselves to blame for that. If we didn't pirate the music (or convert Youtube videos to audio files) music might still cost 99. Or maybe not. The most surreal thing knowing that I lived through this. I saw this change in the industry happen. I was PART of this change. I remember when I found of Lime Wire was illegal- I was only 10 or 12 when i used it - I was terrified that I was going to get caught and go to jail. As if I could conceptualize that a 12 year old couldn't go to jail. And now this period of time is written in a textbook. And in my mind I'm saying, "hey, he's writing about me!"

"criminalized an emerging culture" wow. That is a really powerful assortment of words. Is there where "sampling" in music came from? (Probably not. I'm sure that existed long before the Internet.)

"endanger growth of scientific knowledge...already shaky economics of education" the way he is describing the spread of information here sounds apocalyptic. Like when in 1999, people thought the computers were going to crash because they weren't programmed to reach 2000. I guess at the time, because the threat of "not knowing" where something came from was so new, it sort of was apocalyptic. At the very least, it was an epidemic. And yet today it is so commonplace it is assumed a source is no good until proven otherwise.

I don't have much insight into the paragraph about "free culture" "commonists" and re-balancing the copyright/ profit scale, but I really like all of that.

I didn't know the right to the property has extended to beyond the life of the person. Although I shouldn't be surprised. I learned recently that the rights to "happy birthday" (the song) were finally released- only 70 years after the woman who composed the song had died. 70 years. That's insane.