TO BORROW OR NOT TO BORROW: that is the question

We are a generation of borrowers: whether it be trawling through 3rd- hand clothing at vintage stores, re-using a stale joke we've heard in passing throughout the day and claimed as our own, a catchy quote we've read through a blogging forum, or changing the lyrics of one of our favourite songs to suit our current situations: we love to borrow. So, if it's okay for us to re-use clothing, jokes and quotes; is it acceptable for amateur artists to re-use pre-existing lyrics, and files and be rewarded for this as if it were there own?

Intellectual Property is an issue that often has double standards, as we don't appreciate our own content being copied, however we too often copy others. No artist wants to create pure musical genius and have it put onto YouTube only to be manipulated and reproduced to the point that when typing in the song name our search results consist of a small boy miming the song, with more views than the original film clip. I believe that YouTube has completely blurred the lines of copyright laws- I mean yes, they do remove a video if it breaches some of the copyright legislation, but what about the other 17 million videos that just fall out of the legislation, however are still using someone elses original content. 

On a positive note, online intellectual property sharing does have the ability to recreate the image of an artist and their music. One example includes late 2009- Chris Brown (R&B artist) had been receiving multitudes of negative publicity from the media after assaulting girlfriend of the time and fellow artist, Rihanna. After a young American couple decided to dance down the aisle to Chris Brown's 'Forever' (2008) and share the footage on YouTube the song reached number 1 in the U.S charts over 18 months after it had previously been released.

I believe that as the internet continues to take up more and more of our time per day, and we rely on it for most of our media and file sharing, the term copyright is only going to slip more and more into the distance. Once YouTube or music blogs have a hold of something, they become everyone's work not just the artists'.

iWork, iPlay, iWork, iChat, iCan'tEscape

Flashback to 2004, 5.45pm: my father; a white- collar worker walks in the door, briefcase in hand after a long and stressful day of work, he walks to his bedroom, places his briefcase in his cupboard, resumes to the loungeroom, sits himself on the lounge, flicks through the channels on television, and speaks not a single word of his day at work.

Flashforward to 2008, 6.45pm: my father, still the same white- collar worker walks in the door, laptop case in hand after a long and stressful day of work, he walks to his office, places his laptop on his desk, apologises for being late home from work as he was kept in the office checking emails, and continues to check his emails throughout the course of the evening.

 It seems that 'working the nine to five grind' is no longer an option for many people within the workplace today thanks to the apparent convenience of the internet. Three years ago- my father, among many white- collar workers saw the internet as a new opportunity to keep on top of emails and office tasks in the convenience of their own homes after work. Though today, it seems that the initial convenience is more of a never- ending working day, with constant alerts from Outlook Express, Intranet, text messages from colleagues and follow- up phone calls from prospective clients.


The concept of 'presence bleed', as discussed by Gregg, is the idea that subordinates are now able to take work out of the office. Gregg states that, "These are employees for whom the boundaries between labour and leisure, work and home have blurred to the extent that it has become difficult to describe what actually counts as work" (Gregg). Ted discussed in this weeks lecture that we live in a world where there is an ongoing flow of information that we can't actually turn off at 5pm like we used to. It is interesting to think that a technology where convenience was the initial basis of its' appeal now may be creating more work than its worth.


If we are currently challenged by the balance between work and play, a conundrum termed 'weisure' (the line dividing work and leisure time as titled by CNN), what could this technologically driven world be like by say 2013, when most of us will graduate from our degrees? Will it be acceptable to take work calls on weekends? Or to hang out in our offices after hours writing reports for clients? Or should we all aspire to sleep over night in our office cubicle, just incase that important email comes through...




Gregg, M. 'Function Creep: Communication technologies and anticipatory labour in the information workplace'.

I ASK YOU OF THE PAST, TO LEAVE US ALONE

We are a generation of technical brilliance. There is no software mountain we cannot climb, no river of information streams we cannot cross, no tornado of website crashing we cannot withstand. We are invincible. But in this world of technological turbulence, our bodies do not exist. We are all nodes in the cycle that is cyberspace, but we have no real identity- we are everyone and we are noone.





  Barlow's 'A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace' explores the ever- growing idealogy that we are creating a world "where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity" (Barlow, 1996). Our governments of a generation passed our own are "immigrants" to our world. They are working for industries that will soon suffer obsolescence as we merge into this technological revolution.

It seems that now the intangible is of more value than the tangible world. Because the intangible can exist in any time, or any place without being touched or tampered with. "Information, relationships, copyright, entertainment, securities, and derivatives" (Kelly) have merged together to create a new economy of networking and sharing of information, of greater importance than any agreement or regulation put in place by governments.

Are we slaves to technology, or is this highly technical economy the result of our own creation?

WHAT WE DO WITH THE INTERNET

Tuesday, 2nd of August 8:02am I arise from my slumber with a checklist of things to do, these include: check my updates on Twitter, verify that I've won my bid on Ebay, check my SOLS mail, email my father who lives 6 hours away and do my readings for DIGC202. I complete all of the previously mentioned tasks, get myself ready for university for the day and walk to the bus. All without a single moment of human contact with another, though I don't for one moment feel alone. I mean after all, I've emailed my dad. I've gotten contact from a lecturer and I've received a notification from an Ebay bidder- but I havn't taken part in a single real- life conversation or encounter.

It seems that with the growth in popularity of online presence, we no longer visit friends- we Skype, we don't make trips to see our bank clerk- we use e-banking and we don't even need to physically interact with others in order to play a game- we log onto an online gaming site.

Sterling's article states that we use the internet for four reasons: "mail, discussion groups, long-distance

computing, and file transfers" (Sterling, 1993). However it seems as though we rely on the internet for so much more than this, thus blurring the lines between reality and life online. An example bought up within this week's tutorial was the World of Warcraft Funeral Raid. The main itopic of concern bought upon by this raid is the fact that no person would ever do this at a real funeral, so is it acceptable for an individual to raid a funeral online, under an alias? There are many ethical implications which need to be considered, including the fact that the funeral, though online was for a girl who had just died in real life. It is difficult to draw the line of right and wrong in this instance, and many others.
Falder's article 'The Nature of Networks' explains that for networking to take place, it must consist of both a node and a flow. With the World of Warcraft Raid in mind, there would have been no online raid without human activity taking place.

And so the debate continues into whether what we say and do online should impact on the person we are in reality, whether or not creating an 'alias' is really a justification for saying or doing things out-of-character or unethical online?