Who Owns All This Stuff, Anyway?

WHO OWNS ALL THIS STUFF, ANYWAY?

Media corporations can come across as greedy dragons
on their hoards.

Chapter 4 of Convergence Culture deals with how grassroot culture and media industries have spawned modern day popular culture and convergence. Once upon a time, 'in the good ol' days', the two--grassroot culture and media industry--were exclusive of each other; what the grassrooters did and created didn't affect or infringe on what the media industries were doing. Eventually, the media industries realized the benefit of courting the grassrooters; they could reach a larger number of consumers if they blurred the lines between the media they created and controlled and the media that the grassroot singers, artists, and writers created. Of course, the media industries eventually displaced the grassrooters in the production of entertainment and media that most people Americans consumed. 


This chapter, however, is about something much bigger than convergence. It's about ownership, infringement, and greed. Media producers love their consumers, especially their most avid fans, as long as they can control them. This control is sometimes legitimate. I am not against companies protecting their intellectual properties. I am, however, against strong arm tactics, hypocrisy, and greed. I particularly liked the quote from Lawrence Lessig on pages 141-142 where he says that copyright laws have been rewritten so that “on one can do to the Disney Corporation what Walt Disney did to the Brothers Grimm.” It makes me lose all compassion for media corporations when they use their size and deep pockets to persecute and intimidate fans from appropriating their properties on a small scale. Perhaps I'm also biased because I have a personal experience with this.




My sophomore year as an undergraduate I lived in on-campus housing. One day I returned from class to discover that my internet had been disconnected by the campus. I was summoned to a meeting with the director of campus IT. He informed me that my internet had been disconnected because he'd received a letter from the RIAA requesting my name so that they could prosecute me. You see, a week prior to that meeting I used the file-sharing program, Limewire, to download a video clip from a television show. Anyone that's familiar with Limewire and its spiritual clone, Frostwire, knows that in order to achieve good download speeds you have to also upload content. I thought I was smart by uploading only images and video clips and not music. However, the video clip that I uploaded contained music in the background. Because of this, the RIAA wanted to prosecute me. Thankfully, the director of campus IT refused to divulge my information to RIAA and warned me not to make the same mistake again before finally reconnecting my internet access. I was grateful for his leniency but it made me hate the RIAA. They were after me for thousands of dollars for a 2 minute video clip. Was I in the wrong? Yes. Did that warrant an attempt from them to sue me? I didn't think so. I downloaded a video clip and, upon its download completion, it was automatically uploaded to 24 other people. The RIAA would have you believe that I was some massive media pirate who was infringing on their intellectual property. In a word, BULLSHIT.

There is a popular notion in academia that once a text is written and made public, it no longer belongs to the author, but to the audience. In chapter 5 we read about Heather Lawver, a fan of the massively popular Harry Potter novels who started a fan website when she was thirteen. This website became a place for other fans of the series to participate in the fictional world they so loved. These fan-fictions are, in my opinion, absolutely no threat to the original story. They are, instead, a celebration of the story that J.K. Rowling created. And, as James Paul Gee points out on page 186, by being a part of and participating in these affinity spaces, powerful opportunities for learning arise. How can a practice (fan-fiction) that teaches and encourages students to engage texts in a way that traditional learning fails to do possibly be a bad thing?

questions:


1) Do you think that media companies have the right claim ownership of intellectual properties indefinitely?


2) Does Robot Chicken cross the line of allowable appropriation of other's intellectual property?


3) Assume that you are an author of a massively popular book. Would you promote or hinder fan-fiction based on your novel?


photos:


http://dpcrandall.wordpress.com/2009/05/04/c-s-lewis-on-senator-arlen-spector-et-al/
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2008/07/new-riaa-lawsui/
http://j-walkblog.com/old/2003/09/16/index.html