I know that Lanier has his axe to grind and that is all well and good. We all do. I even agree with most of what he has to say. It is dangerous to frame any discussion in regard to regulating the Internet purely in terms of black and white. This is especially true when we are talking about battles between corporate interests. Several of the companies that oppose SOPA have less than stellar track records when it comes to supporting an open Internet community. In their continued attempt to enact a form of modern day enclosure on the content their users create they often end up working against the very ideals that first allowed them to grow and prosper. He and I have no disagreement in this regard, whatsoever.

Since we agree that much of the opposition to SOPA comes from companies with specific economic goals, I have to admit I was surprised by the direction his piece took. Lanier’s assumption that the argument against SOPA is somehow about the maintenance or worship of “free” content is completely off the mark. In fact, I would say just the opposite. Opposition to SOPA is about making sure that content creators, of any size, can continue to reach users. For some, this is merely about switching corporate gatekeepers where “new media” behemoths take the place of “old media” behemoths. For others, it is about preserving a creator’s ability to openly share content free from any gatekeepers without the fear of costly lawsuits that would essentially eliminate any chance they would have to share their work.

Google and Facebook do not oppose SOPA because they are the “good guys.” They oppose SOPA because it’s costly. That’s it. They may blanket us in the pretty rhetoric of openness and freedom but, ultimately, they’re talking about the bottom line. In all honesty, they probably could survive a post-SOPA world albeit in much different capacity. They have the financial strength to create licensing agreements with the MPAA and RIAA. The rest of us don’t have that luxury.

The Internet is bigger than Google or Facebook. It is bigger than any single company and, personally, I hope it always remains that way. In this case, the profits of these powerful companies align with the best interests of the Internet community and that works in everyone’s favor. We already know that this won’t be the case forever, though. Indeed, that is why I am heartened by the very thing that seemed to scare Lanier: the backlash against companies that supported SOPA. I am ardent supporter of free speech, but free speech involves responsibility. I believe organizations and people have a right to choose where they spend their money. If a company supports practices that I disagree with, I have the right to not patronize that company. I also have the right to share that disagreement with others. Is this behavior the beginning form of some sort of orthodoxy? Perhaps, it is. Is it any different than refusing to sign up for a website because you disagree with it polices? Not so much.

Lanier is right in arguing that there needs to be an aggressive look at models of payment for content beyond advertising. Information isn’t free even for those sites that provide content without cost. That’s one of the reasons why Wikipedia spends so much time asking for donations. I agree that we do sometimes get caught up in the “everything must be free” mentality and that there is still a long way to go in providing solid solutions to content creators of all sizes. Blaming “free” content, however, does nothing but play into the hands of those who support measures like SOPA. This not about an Internet without rules where content is merely a pointless commodity to be traded on the nearest torrent site. This is about an Internet where practical and sane content protections do not displace or harm a growing, vibrant, and increasingly important creative community that continues to push our boundaries and the possibilities of what technology and art can do regardless of their size of their pocketbooks or their lobbying firms.

Go here [ https://blacklist.eff.org/ ] to take action!

I don’t think I really need to add much here, except to say that I wish I lived in Massachusetts. I really hope she wins. Voices of reason in our government are a rare thing.

This is the first thing I have seen on Facebook (which I peruse in a
read-only fashion) that actually bears a reposting.

Posted via email from Snippets of Text and Hubris

There is a problem, though. Iowa City is a unique place and in most small to mid-sized towns the arts are too often easily discarded. Bemidji, a town in North Central Minnesota, is smaller than Iowa City; although, after including some of the smaller surrounding towns that size differential begins to diminish somewhat. It has a college, Bemidji State University that serves about 6,500 students in a variety of degree programs including a BFA in Creative Writing and degrees in the Visual Arts, Art History, and Theater [nbcite title="Bemidji State University" year="2010" month="11" publisher="Minnesota State Colleges and Universities" url="http://www.mnscu.edu/campuses/profiles/bemidjistate.html" monthacc="02" dayacc="04" yearacc="2011" type="website" ].

Like everywhere else, times are not good in Minnesota. The budget shortfall is coming close to $6.2 billion and this means cuts to the Universities. There is logic here, I am sure. It’s not a good logic, but I am sure there is some. Student loans are already exceedingly onerous and many people now have to decide whether education is worth the cost. Cutting funding, well, that’s just the icing on the cake and it smacks of cutting your nose off to spite your face. Growth isn’t going to happen if your population isn’t educated well enough to actually find and create new jobs. But hey, who am I to question the mindset of the “powers that be?”

The BSU president, admittedly, is facing some tough choices. He has a $5 million deficit to deal with, thanks to the Minnesota legislature, and he wants his university to survive. So he developed a plan to focus on the majors that drove (and this is a word I am rapidly coming to despise) employability. What does this mean? It means a complete removal of the Art History and Theater major. It means trimming back on English and the Visual Arts. It means adding funding and faculty to the Business and Mass Communication majors. Yeah, you read that right. It means adding to those majors while cutting many others. I understand the president has difficult choices to make. I just hope that he listens to those who have concerns and rethinks a few of his decisions.

If you read the article on the Bemidji Pioneer (linked below), you will see that this isn’t just a BSU issue. Professor Parson’s comments on the issue seem especially cogent. This is an issue with how the relative importance of these programs is determined statewide [nbcite author="Anne Williams" title="‘Honk if you love the arts’: Theater, art supporters protest outside BSU’s Deputy Hall" year="2011" month="02" day="01" publisher="Bemidji Pioneer" url="http://www.bemidjipioneer.com/event/article/id/100025605/" monthacc="02" dayacc="04" yearacc="2011" type="website" ] and, I would argue, on a national level, as well. After all, we’ve seen similar cuts in Albany, NY [nbcite author="Margot Adler" title="Cuts To University's Humanities Program Draw Outcry" year="2010" month="11" day="15" publisher="National Public Radio" url="http://www.npr.org/2010/11/15/131336270/cuts-to-university-s-humanities-program-draw-outcry" monthacc="02" dayacc="04" yearacc="2011" type="website" ] and elsewhere. Do a search for “university cuts arts and theater” and it’s easy to see that BSU is not alone. This is a problem, everywhere.

I’m not going to go into the whole spiel on how much money the arts actually bring in to a community. I’m not going to rant on the benefits and strength of a having a background in the arts. I’ll save all that for another time. What I am going to say is that the loss of culture does not begin in the big cities. It begins in the small towns across this country. If you ever wondered why ignorance seems so prevalent in certain areas, look to cultural decline. Look to a lack of funding for the Arts and you will find a culture in stagnation, unwilling to adapt and change because it doesn’t know how.

It was never taught.

[nbcite print="apa" ]

The real question is, do we direct technology, or do we let ourselves be directed by it and those who have mastered it? “Choose the former,” writes Rushkoff, “and you gain access to the control panel of civilization. Choose the latter, and it could be the last real choice you get to make.”

Rushkoff’s book is available in e-book, paperback or in an e-book/paperback bundle from OR Books. It will be released on September 29th.

Posted via email from Snippets of Text and Hubris

Explore , challenge, create, do whatever you can to make something. Take the
space back or, at the very least, make your small section of it interesting.

As for the rest, maybe people will find something that grabs their fancy.
This isn’t about saving the world. I know I stopped wanting to do that years
ago. Now, I am interested in helping those I can. As for the world, well,
I’m just hoping it holds up until we actually learn a bit more.

Posted via email from Snippets of Text and Hubris

As the article notes a rolling stone gathers no moss to which I would add
that it is also a horrible basis for a foundation. The author does mourn the
loss but even acknowledges that his view is in the minority.
Content…substance…those things really don’t seem to matter anymore.

I’m not really sure where to go with this. In fact, I’m not sure where it
puts any of us. I feel sometimes that we have been given an incredible tool.
We have an architecture that should inspire us to create and build and write
and instead we scribble across it like diseased apes who are still trapped
in their own little caves. I read posts and comments by people talking about
this technology and that technology will change things and yet all I see is
a hell of a lot of rehashing of things that already were. Wow, you can make
a gadget that allows me to read formatted text, that is exactly what I need
but only if I can play videos games on it that, for all intents and
purposes, are identical to the ones I played 20 years ago. This supposed to
impress me? Or I am just supposed to say, “OOOOo…shiny…” and buy more
crap?

Now I am told the era of the PC is coming to an end. People don’t need
computers anymore. The truth is, most of them never did, and that is a
tragedy. Most of them only needed a modified television and a smartphone
provides them with just that. They can log on to Facebook and read the feed,
wander around and gaze at the pretty colors while being sold every product
imaginable and then settle in for some good old media delivered, just as
always was, straight from those who know exactly what you need to see. After
all why does a Gamma or a Delta need more than that? We should all smile and
be happy. Take another soma and forget all about this.

I think I may be needing another hit myself. Links:
Facebook Profile Pages Becoming Irrelevant [ReadWriteWeb]:
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/facebook_profile_pages_becoming_irrelev

Posted via email from Snippets of Text and Hubris

This is my last comment on this for now.

Really.. (I hope)

I just finished reading Ryan Singel’s commentary on the Google-Verizon deal. Apparently, Google is an evil sell-out now. This is amusing because this has to make the assumption that Google was not an evil sell-out before which is, of course, ludicrous. Google is a large corporation and it has sold out numerous times in a variety of ways. So let’s start with this little tidbit of cold hard truth: there are no good guys and bad guys when it comes to corporations. Every one of them wants as much of your money as they can get. They just have different ways of getting it.

Now I know that those poor companies like Netflix and Hulu may be in trouble. Wait a minute here, isn’t 30% of Hulu owned by NBC Universal, a company in which Comcast will soon have a 51% stake? Isn’t Hulu already charging a monthly fee and still showing ads to its users? Yep, I mourn for Hulu. Now, Netflix, I use. I like the service, I like the content and so far that pleases me. I pay for it and I don’t watch ads (well except for those films which are ads but that’s not the point here). It’s a win-win. Let’s be honest here, though. I am not going to cry if Netflix goes away. I think that’s what really got to me in Singel’s article. You want me to feel bad because other companies are being screwed. Why? That’s how it works. You know who I worry about? I worry about the user who wants to share data with other users. I worry about shared traffic being forced to a slow crawl. I don’t care if I can’t watch Toy Story 3D streaming to my TV screen. Talk about missing the boat here.

I care about educational access for users in other countries where telecoms have no plans to implement anything near decent bandwidth because the investment supposedly isn’t worth it. I care about equal access and not being forced to go to Youtube or some telecom site to share data. I care about accessing and protecting my own systems and cloud-based platforms that protect the user not make them fodder for the next marketing scheme. I also believe in owning the hardware and software that I buy. One area where I do agree with Singel is on cell phones and the idiocy of telecom crippling. Of course, that problem only exists because we buy it. I want to see an end to telecom sponsored phones. It’ an idea bred from that 70’s bullshit where you essentially rented your phone from Ma Bell. There is a solution, though. Start paying full price or stop buying (I know, scary concept isn’t it?).

I know it’s not popular to say but this framework is a positive step. As I said yesterday, it’s positive not because it’s a good idea but because it is something we can look at and think about in real terms. It also reminds us that corporations aren’t on the side of the people. They never are.  I like Google’s products. I use a lot of them and I respect the incredible talent they have working for them. I don’t want them making government policy, though. As for Verizon, AT&T, and pretty every other telecom out there, I want them kept as far away as possible from being able to influence government policy. Is Google a sellout? Sure, but not because of this. They’re doing the best they can to protect their business. That is all you can expect from them. Stop making the corporation your hero and start focusing on pushing real policy. Yeah, it’s an uphill battle we may (and probably will) lose because they have bought a lot of the people we elected.

That just means we have to fight even harder. So donate, get active, join the EFF or another organization that is focused on this topic. Contact your representative, and start looking at technological projects that exist to help and promote connectivity and open access. Support them with time, skill, and money if you can. That’s how these fights are won. You can’t look up and say, “Google will save us.” They can’t and they won’t. That duty is up to the people. It’s up to us.

Links:

Singel’s article [Wired.com – Epicenter]:  http://bit.ly/ad9aUq

EFF’s balanced and productive review of the Framework [eff.org]: http://bit.ly/biR9a8

EFF: http://www.eff.org/

Posted via email from Snippets of Text and Hubris

I loved that song as a kid. I really did.

In Mainstream Advertising Media

In 2010, Target started running advertisements featuring the title track “Free to Be You and Me.” Rather than narratively espousing the original meanings and values of the song (its nods to the 60s/70s feminist/new age/non-consumerist era), the ads depicted school children ‘free’ to make important post modern consumerist decisions in life–namely which clothing and colors to wear to school–as the tune played on in the background.

Links:
Wikipedia: Free to Be You and Me