Vulnerable to Internet?

The anonymity of the internet has been considered as one of the most problematised issues in online communities. Including online chatting programmes such as MUDs, most online programmes or websites give people the chance to express their multiple identities; by using different usernames, a person can actually show many personas. The problem is that such anonymity of the internet in not only constrained to someone having trouble with which ‘world’ he/she really belongs to and not sure of his/her identity, but often to seriously hurt others’ feelings through abuse use of explicit language. Many internet users are unaware of their ‘online identities’ and think it is ok to backbite someone who do not personally know. It is not just the chatting programmes. The development of Web-based technology has contributed to not just make funs of but to skin alive celebrities through video edits with simple CG. Many internet users post extremely harsh words as comments/replys on websites and blogs and such vituperation has even led several people’s life to death. In South Korea, since July, the government took concerted action to tighten up controls that will make the Internet in Korea less anonymous. Government and large private Web sites are now required to include ways to track all posters on those sites by their national identity number. Despite the emphasis on personal privacy here in some respects, many Web sites here already require users to register with that national ID number, which is checked against Korean government database of names and numbers. But on some sites, comments posted in response to a new topic or a news report can still be posted anonymously. It seems that the adoption of ID verification of internet users has aroused people’ attention to the fact that ‘online identities’ are no longer ‘false identities’.

The Perfect Public Sphere?

As well as this FTVMS paper, I’m also doing FTVMS211, “Watching Television.” Our lecture yesterday was on the public sphere and how TV has changed this. The ideas of T H Marshall were brought up, explain the era we are in today of post-modernity, where television gives us the notion of a right to have our culture diversity appreciated and protected, as television shows diverse identities and invites us to recognise our identities, through choosing what we watch.

This then led to the ides of Jurgen Habermas and the public sphere. To sum it up, the conclusion come to was that current affairs shows, such as Campbell Live and Close-Up have presenters that ‘stand in’ for the public, they are considered representatives of the public sphere, as the shows normally consist of an issue being debated, where the presenter argues a point or questions someone from what is seen as the public perspective. The point being, that can the media be considered a perfect public sphere? One where there is no deliberation, as the media comes to conclusions about issues that are derived from the public.

These theories had not taken into account the internet. As we have recently talked about in class, with all the blogging sites and user controlled news sites; I began to think that the conclusion above is not necessarily true. The media may have seen themselves as a perfect public sphere, but with the way media has changed, to become a very user based phenomenon, the public may even have power over the media and more deliberation is created, creating an even less perfect public sphere that there was before television. In my opinion this is because so many people these days can post blogs and use blogging news websites to gives their thoughts about issues they think are relevant, or to debate issues or even just to rank which issues are most relevant at the time. Therefore taking the power away from the media, which intern destroys this so called perfect public sphere and creates an even less perfect one, with more debate and conflict as to which opinion is correct. One of the conditions for a public sphere to work was that the members share the same norms and values; this does not occur when you have the wide variety of user based content provided through the internet.

So who has the power? And can we really have a true public sphere?

Internet Shopping! Now i don't have to leave my home to fullfill my addiction!

Im no photogropher so i don't have anything useful to contribute on that topic... However! on a very different note (so i can actually contribute something to this blog) i have a new found passion for interent shopping!

It all started one fine day when my mum broke her leg and couldn't drive (and i wasn't in the mood - this is some interesting info! =s) . So, i whipped out my laptop and we did our grocery shopping via the foodtown website! wow! its amazing. Well, for any of you who havn't experienced this fabulousness, all you do is browse the aisles and add things to your shopping basket. When your personal shopper is shopping for you and an item is not available you can request them to find a substitute! Brilliant! Our groceries were delivered to us that same day, and our personal shopper even wrote us a little note on our receipt "Enjoy your day =), hope the substitutes were alright!" All this for a delivery cost of only $7.95! Im so doing it again. The more u spend the less the delivery cost.

And just last week i bought a ring on the internet that came all the way from London.. wow! (probably China but i guess ill never know!)

The joys of the internet! fabulous!

Minnie Singh

Since this conversation is heating up...

Now I know this conversation is really starting to get going regarding the darkroom vs photoshop issue (and the equivalents in all other creative disciplines) so I figured it was about time I had my ten cents. Now, as I have mentioned earlier, I am a fine arts student. I have worked in many fields including photography and graphic design.

Having worked in both a darkroom and on Photoshop, I feel it is necessary to say that realistically, it doesn't matter which method is used to create or edit an image. If you have the skills it will still be obvious to anyone who knows what they're really doing. Sure, any average Joe can go spend a grand on a prosumer digital SLR camera, but that doesn't mean their photos are going to be any better. They could also use Photoshop Elements to remove any red-eye that they don't want, or to create that old looking sepia tone they secretly like. Yes, they are editing a photo, does this make the final product less of a photo? Nope.

Now, if you are proficent at using Photoshop and you know how to do some extreme plastic surgery to yourself, great. It requires a lot of skill to be able to do that. It takes a lot of skill to be able to achieve this in a darkroom situation as well. Photoshop is a darkroom for digital cameras.

If you have the skill, and have spent the time, it will show regardless of whether it was developed in darkroom chemicals or in Photoshop.

In my opinion it doesn't matter whether or not you work digitally in Photoshop, or Final Cut Pro, or Sibelius, or if you work "manually" in a darkroom, cutting film and jamming on a piano. the outcome is still the same, a creative work. What really matters is the intent. if the method suits your intentions, then you've done well. Sometimes it is necessary to use both digital and manual methods of production. Its like scanning negatives into a computer, or writing the music on a PC then recording it from a live performance.

Creativity is creativity. Only the technology has changed. So photo editing may be more accessible now than it was before, but its simply another avenue of creativity open for us to explore.

Blood sweat and tears vs new technology

Over the last few days I too have been considering the argument brought up on Monday that spending 60 hours in a darkroom is more worthwhile than 10 hours on photoshop. I can see how if a person pours their blood sweat and tears into a project the end result will be more satisfying. However it does not necessarily mean that it involved more skill or will be any better than the photoshop creation.

This argument reminded me of one several of my friends were having over the use a a Wacom tablet (now this is amazing technology). To those of you who do not know what this is it is a tool used by graphic design artists. It consists of a pad type thing and a pressure sensitive pen that you plug into the computer.

What you draw then shows up on the computer screen. You can also do all sorts of other crazy shit. As you can probably tell already I don't know the finer points of this device. But basically it allows the artist to create illustrations more quickly and with more detail than simply drawing by hand. I was absolutely blown away by some of the pictures the tablet allowed the user to create. Check out the one below! (There are more at http://ctrlzzzzz.deviantart.com/)

Anyways there was much debate over whether the end result was as legitimate/viable as the 'real' thing. What people do not realise however is that to create images of this quality actually takes years and years of practise as well as a large amount of god given talent.

I have never used photoshop myself but I can imagine there is a similar dynamic between that and traditional photography. I don't think that one is better or has more artistic value than the other because they are two different mediums. You simply cannot compare them. Well thats what I think anyway.

Alan

Photoshop

The introduction of software like Photoshop is really fascinating when you compare to the past when the camera has just been introduced. Various functions can be found in the Photoshop and this software allows us to do all sorts of things to the photos. To compare the images that comes out from Photoshop and photos from the camera, Photoshop allows the desired trait to be put on the photo. It is interesting how in the present time photos could be modified. Photoshop’s function is more than putting make up on one’s face, alteration could be done to photos which functions more than what plastic surgeons can do. The clip I’ve attached is showing modification of the model’s face to come up with the desired look. It is really interesting to see the process of making the ad to go on the billboard. It seems that in the present time, photos aren’t original anymore, modification has become an important part of the process that cannot be missed especially for the commercial industry.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dh54tlEpJrA

-Vivian

Does a free for all mean that we are slowly losing standards??
For years the struggling artist/writer/filmmaker/musician/actress/general art bum has been forced to sell their soul, and often their bodies for a chance at fame through casting, signing, publishing, etc but now the internet has rendered it possible to skip out the middle man so to speak.
So let’s look at the pros. Exposure to the missed talent of today. You can reach the masses from your study; I do it. I am a musician and My Space allows me to spread my music, find gigs, find similar musicians, etc. Check it out if you want, whore it out for me even. (www.myspace.com/charlieannebrown) I have had it for just over two months now, and it has allowed me to get into the circuit for very little money and in a very short amount of time.
However, due to the creative industry’s own saturated nature, it is a common known fact that everyone believes they can write the Pulitzer Prize winning novel, or the Grammy winning song. There is a lot of talent out there, but the truth is that the talent is well hidden in the masses of what I will call sub talent reaching the people. If everyone can post their work online, chances are everyone will. We live in a world of perpetual talkers and blocked ears, thus the internet is that nonstop, nonsensical, non sequitor of a “conversation”. So it has the potential, but because the people will always vote, the rubbish tends to stay out in the rubbish and the gold has a way of being mass playing and rising to the top. If its good, or so bad its good, people will keep listening/reading/watching, and people will always feel free to decide and declare what is rubbish and what is not.

Pirate radio

Lawrence Lessig’s ideas about the relationship between creativity and the laws governing media made me think of pirate radio in the UK. The UK strictly controls (or tries to) the number of radio stations on the airwaves. But in between the strong FM signals of the legal stations, you find hundreds of weaker signals from illegal pirate stations. These stations play cutting-edge new music produced in home studios, and have a strong relationship with the club scene. Music genres such as house, jungle and UK garage (AKA urban) were all nurtured by pirate radio. Some legal stations in London, such as Kiss FM, began their life as pirates. Artists such as Dizzee Rascal got a foot in the door via pirate stations. More and more pirate stations spring up all the time, risking huge fines and confiscation of their radio transmitters by a scary agency called the DTI.

I find it interesting that so much creative output comes from a country with such repressive media laws. The repression itself seems to foment the constant bubbling up of new sounds from the housing estates and suburban back rooms of Britain.

Bouncing the illegal broadcasters off the overcrowded airwaves
http://media.guardian.co.uk/site/story/0,,1711794,00.html

this is one that has stayed one step ahead of the DTI since 1999 (and you can listen to a live stream):
http://freezefm.co.uk/

Guerrilla Art

Roughly one year ago I bought a book that was highly recommended "Banksy: Wall and Piece". Finally getting around to opening it, I was taken aback with pages and pages of urban art with clear political, cultural and ethical annotations.

Banksy is a political graffiti artist who speaks his mind believing that "a wall has always been the best place to publish your work". He erects works of art (and alters works of art) in public places including art galleries and museums- unlawfully, only to be removed by authorities- naturally. His motivation to create is led by the guts to stand up anonymously in a western democracy and call for things no-one else believes in - like peace and justice and freedom. His anonymity has in turn produced a celebrated guerrilla artist.

"The people who truly deface our neighbourhoods are the companies that scrawl giant slogans across buildings and buses trying to make us feel inadequate unless we buy their stuff. They expect to be able to shout their message in your face from every available surface but you're never allowed to answer back. Well, they started the fight and the wall is the weapon of choice to hit them back."

The back cover of the book has this one quote from the Metropolitian Police stating "There's no way you're going to get a quote from us to use on your book cover". This is fitting, as he was a regular problem for the London police. His works were erected, and taken down hours or days later after realisation sets in that the works of art are illegally doctored onto surfaces.

I recommend his artworks to anyone who gets some cynical enjoyment from these pictures, and most can be easily viewed at his website here.

-Hannah

If one does not agree that grafitti is of an artistic nature or has political involvement I highly recommend one watches STYLE WARS the film goes into depth how the grafitti culture of the late seventies in new york was expressing the same socio political issues of the time as hip hop was as well. Also check your bookshops about it is a fascianting subject.

The link for this is "http://www.amazon.com/Style-Wars-Sam-Schacht
/dp/B000A7DVZO/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/
102-6533293-4382533?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=
1187145506&sr=1-1

Subway Art - http://www.amazon.com/Subway-Art-Martha-Cooper/
dp/0805006788/ref=pd_sim_d_3/
102-6533293-4382533?ie=UTF8&qid=
1187145506&sr=1-1 is also a great book.

The Validity Of Art

In the lecture on the Monday some one had brought up how he found that in terms of photography how spending 60 hours in a darkroom is more faithful and worth more in a artistic sense than someone spending 10 hours on a photoshop. I find this statement completely false and also brings up in me many issues such as these in other forms of artisitic expression whether it be film, music or paintintg.

I just find it completely frustrating that people who use technology as a means to create their art subjected to criticisms that "it is not the same" etc. I get frustrated the means of producing your art whilst they are important is not as important as the final product so just Massive Attack or Aphex Twin uses computers and electronics to create their art in their living room does that mean it is of less artistic value than Led Zeppelin recording on a 4 track on a crappy hilltop mansion on top of Scottish hills and Valley? I answer a resounding NO. This is because each of those are striving for the same goal which is to create long lasting art that can make people and more impoortantly themselves feel proud but the only difference the "instruments" that they are using are different. Just because Johhny Greenwood sits in front of a laptop for hours a day doesn't mean he is worse or better than Paul Mccartney sitting in Apple Studios.

This same viewpoint resonates in the film and art worlds. It infuriates me that art historians and other critics have not put both album artwork or grafitti art work has been examples of an actual art form or example of artistic expression. They are to me are as valid and in my opinion more of a profound statement (depending on the grafitti art) than arts from the renaissance. In terms of grafitti art it is more profound as they are expressing issue sof frustration against society and their anger towards the establishment which is what makes the art that they are doing significant in a cultural and historial landscape. This could be said for the music that I was talking about before. People such as Aphex Twin and other long lists of artists who use computers are making a statement about how the same feelings and emotions that one gets from listening to records by sonic youth or led zeppelin are the same or even greater even though they are are using a computer. What is the difference anyway? A guitar is a peice of wood with strings on it and a computer is just a box!! So people please judge the expression of art whether it be art, movie or music based upon their artistic and lets not get caught up if the "instruments" they are using are no "the real thing" or "analaog" enough for our liking.

A Mash Up of a Blog

Seeing as we have been discussing Mash Ups lately in class I have decided that my blog today will be a bit of that exact thing. There are quite a few things I'd like to discuss.

1) Blogs and Online Communities. I started the course hating blogs and online communities having spent over a year trying to detox from them (semi successfully) but tonight I found myself becoming strangely excited that one forum I still post on (the only one really excluding this and my myspace) has been modified and now we can show pictures. I looked at the pictures that some of the other people have used and while I have used a picture of myself, others have either used no picture or they have used a picture of something completely random. I also looked at a couple of the profiles and nobody has information in them. I guess they want to keep their privacy for the same reason many parents don't want their kids getting hooked on online discussion boards etc etc. I wonder if one day there will be internet addicts anonymous, thats if there isn't already of course.

2) In class on Monday there was some discussion surrounding movies and a couple of people said that movies in the 80s and 90s were more "mainstream" and didn't really deal with "larger, more important" issues. I'd like to disagree with this point and raise the point with a few examples such as Outbreak which is a movie that deals with the notion of corruption and deception that the US government is so frequently guilty of, then there is Titanic, a movie based on a true story and even earlier than this would be Casablanca. Other deep movies to come out in recent times would include the philosophical Waking Life.

3) Nostalgia was mentioned in class too, nostalgia for old music, old movies and old technology. There was an article I read earlier this year in Craccum and it may not be the most reliable source of information but the article was about memories and how we mourn for the past. I agree with this. It's not necessarily that the past actually IS better than what we have now, but it is the memory we get attached to. As far as I'm concerned, when it comes to the production of music I prefer when the music is not digitally enhanced as I just find its not real and it tends to feel fake and doesn't have the same emotion. I'd like to say each to their own but I really can't. Music, or any form of artistic expression should be about the emotion that goes on rather than letting some computer do it for you.

That's all for this morning.

Hmmmmm..

I think i'll wait til after tutorial TOMMMMOOORROOOOWWW and THEN i will post a blog post Bloggy.. My head is swimming from too many opinions on opinions..




Toodles Bloggy
xo

Calling all media-savvy Gen Y-ers!

Only two days left to register, but here's an interesting (free to enter) competition for folk who might be interested in pitching a digital media project for a non-profit organisation of their choosing. This is an Auckland-based competition with cash prizes and the opportunity for the winners to implement their proposals. I'm not connected with this competition so can't vouch for it, but it sounds like an interesting project to me: http://www.ymediagroup.org/

Realism in Gaming?

This topic was touched in yesterdays lecture as we talked about how graphics are improving in games and everything these days. I'll start off by sharing a link to the video that I mentioned yesterday showing how improved graphics are making things like characters more realistic.
The character creation shown in this video makes it almost look like your looking at a photo of a person rather than a computer player.
http://www.gamevideos.com/video/id/13855

But like Luke mentioned the fact that the worlds are looking more and more realistic means that the games should feel more realistic. Which leads to a sense of disapointment when you cant. This view is shared by quite a few and I found an article that talks about it in context to Gears of War a game that was released on Xbox 360 earlier in the year. That article is here.
The article brings up the idea that even though these games look real you still need to treat them with a suspended belief. That gamers shouldnt question why you cant do basic things like run up certain hills and should just enjoy the pretty graphics.
The article also links to a blog by David Wong.
He goes on to talk about how games have improved so much visualy since Doom for example yet the AI hasnt changed at all.

This brings up the question what do gamers refer to as realism? Is a world that looks like the real world real? Or is a fake looking world with realistic people in itmore real? And why with all the technolgy and money getting put into games cant we have both?

Digital Aesthetics

This is a film I thought I'd share, since we're talking about digital aesthetics.

This film is the Master's Thesis animation from a postgrad student in the US.



- Kevin.

Microsoft's Photosynth : A new way to share

The collage image in the lecture today from the pictures on the bus reminded me of an interesting photo technology I saw recently and which is a great example of how web 2.0 can facilitate massive online collaboration of users in the construction of online media.

Effectively, the tool will be an image search that creates a 3d representation made up of the thousands of user tagged photos that one can navigate through, in any direction, at will. It really is best seen in motion and interacted with, but it looks like this...

You can't search yet but there are many examples already live.

Our world is ever more recorded and with the increasing prevalence of high end camera phones, as well as the millions of photos already waiting to be tagged online, our surroundings may be digitally archived for future generations to travel through or perhaps today, just visiting a place you've never been to.

The potential it holds is great and will also be useful in many other areas such as one's own digital photos, as many people have gigabytes of images to navigate.

Give it a go!

http://labs.live.com/photosynth/

Admin and Roll Call.

Now calling:

Power_Pod

Moomin

Mr F.

These are the people as of this week I cannot identify. I'm planning on going over this in next week's lecture since I don't seem to be catching people in tutorial.

Also, we have 35/60 students enrolled on the blog, which is excellent, but does beg the question of where the other 25 of you are hiding.

I'll start sending out querying emails from next week to see if I can track down everyone before the holidays.

- Kevin.

UMG to test selling music tracks without DRM

Wired News is reporting that Universal Music Group, in partnership with already-established online music retailers such as Apple's iTunes, will try out selling tracks from their catalogue without any restrictions. Until recently, many of the tracks on iTunes and other similar services would come with Digital Rights Management installed by default, meaning that users would have a hard time finding ways to copy tracks onto portable players and in some cases would find it impossible or very difficult to even listen to the tracks at all.

Removing these restrictions is the first step towards a more open and fair marketplace, and places the consumer at the centre of the mp3 and online music distribution industry, rather than the corporations.

French kid who translated HP 7 faces charges

A 16-year-old French boy has been jailed for copyright infringement after translating the English version of the last Harry Potter book into French and transmitting it via the Internet to fellow fans, the Denver Post reports. The book's publishers, Doubleday, say that what the teenager did was illegal, and he is now facing criminal charges.

The reason why he felt it necessary to "break" the law is that in order to avoid anyone 'spoilering' -- that is, revealing key plot points or the ending -- the book, its publishers decided to not allow translators access to the book until its release date. The problem here is that the translators, who will take three months to fully complete their version of the story, get access to it at the same time as everyone else. Therefore, anyone can do what this kid has done, and if he can do it quicker than the official translators, why stop him? After all, he only released it to a fan site, and anyone who's eager enough to read his (presumably) fairly inept attempt at translating it will surely be the kind of person who will go out and buy the official version upon its release date?

It's kind of like the sort of people who went to the trouble of finding, downloading and reading an early leaked version of the english version -- they're the sort of people who would have queued up on the release date to get their hands on a copy.

The funny thing is that many French readers already know how "Harry Potter et les reliques de la mort" - the book's French title - ends. Le Parisien newspaper revealed it in an article it printed upside down.

Hollywood to make Napster Wars: Part Deux

Looks like Hollywood is set to re-create the Napster Wars of the early 21st century. Cory Doctorow's article in Information Week, "Why Is Hollywood Making A Sequel To The Napster Wars?", examines the industry-initiated downfall of Napster, one of the fasted adopted technologies ever -- 52 million users signed up to download the software over a period of only 18 months. Record companies bought out Napster and its ilk, and eventually tried to bring back services like mp3.com under their own banner of corporate ownership.

Doctorow takes a look at Sony, and asks why "today's Walkman is the iPod" when Sony owns or part-owns some of the largest record companies worldwide -- shouldn't it have been a shoe-in for a corporation like that to dominate a market so clearly wide open to them? He then goes on to look at how the Napster battles of 2001 compare to the YouTube battles of 2006 and 2007; record companies are here replaced by Cable TV networks and film distribution companies all vying for a piece of YouTube's oh-so-valuable revenue.

The main difference in the contemporary version of these legal battles is that YouTube is already making money -- a *lot* of money. Another massive difference is that YouTube -- owned by Google -- actually wants to sit down as a company with all of the copyright and IP owners and work out some sort of financial deal.

Lou Reed's "The Raven" Internet Project

I thought I'd post this as an example of both mashup culture and the ability of Flash to fuse together two different media. An artist called Dario Picciau combined animations he had created with a recording of Edgar Allen Poe's The Raven by actor Willem Dafoe from Lou Reed's 2003 album of the same name. Click the image below to visit the site.

Viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace

Danah Boyd wrote an essay a short while back called "Viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace" in which she puts forward the idea that social networking utilities like Facebook and MySpace attract different kinds of people. In a nutshell, her argument is that "scene kids" and "high-school drop-outs" are attracted to MySpace because of its indie creed and alternative style, whereas straight-A students and the more academically-inclined are attracted to the sleek, clean, intellectual look of Facebook. The reasons for this are explained at length, and I found it quite an interesting read.

Myspace for my Puppy?

Hay people, well this is my first blog ever... for many reasons. Firstly everyone sounds so extremely smart that i didn't feel all that comfortable giving my two bits worth, when i really didn't have much to say and secondly... well yea i didn't have anything to say.

But moving on.....

The other day i was sitting at home and saw a clip on some current affairs programme talking about a website that some young kid put together. How extrememly odd was this website. Its called www.petpalio.com "The first place for pets to meet pals". What is this world turning into? i don't know about you but my chihuahua certainly doesn't know how to keep in touch via email.

Well its this site (go take a look, i feel you will be as confused as me), you make a page for your animal, writing down their interests etc. and then note the qualities that their ideal match would have. You receive updates when perfect matches have been found for your pet.... and a 'PET PAL' is made.... awwwww. Whatever happened to taking your dog for a walk and meeting a fellow puppy in the park?!? Apparently the dude that created this website had the idea that if your dog (or any animal, as you can register your farm animals! =S) had no dog friends to go for walks with then the website is were they can meet that 'special someone'. hmmmm.... i don't know it stil seems kinda strange to me.

anyway. Let me know what you think! hope my first blog wasn't too lame!

Minnie Singh

A few points...

Right so back again... Over the last few days I've been contemplating all the things we've learnt in class so far (yes its taken me this long...) Anyway a few things I've seen in the media lately...

1) With all the media attention around sites such as BEBO, MySpace etc, which is of course almost always negative, I found it interesting that 'Sticky TV', Channel 3 (Kids programming for those ho weren't sure) have their own Blog for kids to go and comment or send fanmail on. So even though the news have been having all these parents that are saying there kids are falling prey to every sicko in this world, a Kids TV Show is promoting online communications?

2) If you ever get the chance to watch ABC technology news online, you will see a range of stories that relate to topics that we have been discussing in class. I would put up a link, but that is beyond my internet mental capacity. A story I saw recently commented on programmes such as Facebook and MySpace adjusting to fit specific social classes. It was discussing points on how each caters to a specific target market, I found this interesting considering both are open to any members of the public to join?!

So theres my little contribution for today! Have a good week everyone...

Lena W

University Students Targeted

The RIAA places pressure on the UN to regulate and force countries to criminalise file sharing. They see no fault in suing the elderly or small children for almost innocent transactions. Likewise it has become a concern for students with recent RIAA action seeing education providers threatened.

RIAA CEO Mitch Bainwol said that his "organization sent out 400 prelitigation settlement letters to students at 13 different schools". It has also sent a mass mailing to college and university presidents across the US asking for their cooperation in the RIAA's ongoing war against file sharing.

This is absolutely absurd!!

Students at Oklahoma State University are fighting back at this ridiculous attempt to control the freedom of expression. 11 "John Doe" students are attempting to quash the subpoena issued to OSU, requesting that it hand over the names of those using IP addresses fingered for file-sharing by the RIAA's investigators. The students argue that RIAA's expert witness made countless errors in claiming "facts without supporting evidence".

But New Zealand has gone against this method of attack and made file sharing, specifically proposing a law making "copying music for personal use" legal. But it only refers to music, and not movies. This proposed law is still more restrictive than that of America, and the personal translation of 'fair use' the people utilise.

It is a positive step towards the music industry relaxing the copyright they hold over new technology, making issues and lawsuits over people simply listening to music.

- Hannah

The end is near!

This is a late first post, so I wanted to start out with something related to issues raised at the beginning of the course. Those two girls in the clip we were shown in class (the two who were taken advantage of by a 'friend') brought to mind an issue uncomfortably close to home...
(dreamy flashback sound)
Everyday I return home from uni to see my sister haunched over the computer, wide eyed like a crack fiend staring dangerously close to the computer screen. She can endure this for massive amounts of time, and asking to use the computer is like tearing a rabid dog away from its kill. The thing that bugs me most about it, is that when I look at what shes doing, its never anything really constructive. She doesnt persue her interests or anything, and always just goes and feeds parasitically off other peoples lives on these blog sites like bebo and myspace etc.

My sister is around the same age as the girls on the video, and seems to be just like them. Im really scared for her. Shes not growing as a person in any way by letting her world revolve around other peoples lives through blogs and msn. Its the reasons why TV can be considered evil but on steroids. Easy, brainless entertainment. Just behind us is a generation of zombies whos lives have been constructed and inspired by the media. Why imagine for yourself when you can watch MTV? why talk when you can text? It really is a technoculture society following close behind us, spoon-fed but spoon-fed garbage. Technology has advanced based on us wanting to make things easier for ourselves, and im worried that our sloth (physically & mentally but really spiritually) will be our end.