This week I need copyright law to protect ideas

I was chatting online today with a college friend of mine who had an idea to build a online social network for a major retail store. This kind of relates to last week's topic of Intellectual Property and other regulatory issues. We had a great speaker, Michael Overing, who left me wanting more information about Internet Law. We'll have to wait though for the fall before we get the full course.

But the reason why this is all interesting to me, is that my friend did not want to pitch her idea to the major retail store because she was afraid that they would steal her idea and not give her any credit. She had come up with what was a very good concept for this social networking site and even backed it up with mock-ups! (And they were really good btw) We chatted back and forth excitedly as I helped her develop concepts for community building blocks that I've experienced through 3helix and learned about in Kim’s Community Building on the Web (CMGT 530). But after all that great brain storming, this idea still remains just an idea with no real plan of action because of the fear that this retail store will steal her idea (and seriously, what a shame!). Somewhat ironic because last week I was all about loosening copyright law to allow for innovation to develop more easily. This week, I need it to extend to protecting ideas. Which, I don't think will happen. We'll probably have to think of some creative way to use the current laws for her idea to come through. I guess this just proves a more general point of these laws not providing proper accommodation.

Although I feel like her idea is a great one and should be implemented right away, I understand her hesitancy. I know of one of my friend's (from last year's cohort) pitching an idea to a HUGE internet conglomerate only to later have his idea "stolen". My friend's boyfriend's cousin (Don't you just love 3 person removed stories? I give this one the benefit of the doubt, though) pitched a huge movie/television/everything company an idea about a certain blue pet from outerspace that would later be adopted as a dog to help a certain little hawaiian girl cope with the trials in her life. The company said they had no use for the character. Yet 2 years later, the movie came out. Makes a person like me very wary about pitching ideas to a big companies. I suppose if you look at the big picture, in the end final products are produced and people in general benefit from these new products. But what about the idea person? Is that right to just cut them out of the picture?

As for my friend’s idea? I’m ready to be all in to help her. But first I need to either do more research or wait to take that Internet Law class. Then we’ll know how to approach this idea and hopefully pitch it. Who knows… if you see a social network developing in the future with a red dot and a circle around it, at least you’ll know where it started from.

I couldn't use my original title for this blog because it was copyrighted

Before this week's readings my stance on intellectual property was that even though paying royalties feels like an unwarranted hassle sometimes, producers of the property should receive recognition and payment for copies of their work. Those lines for me, however, are usually blurred. There are situation where I know it is a clear violation of copyright. And there are times where it’s blurry. But in any case, when someone’s intellectual property is being copied, it should given royalties.

Let’s use some examples. Person 1 has burned their favorite cd for christmas stocking stuffers. They bought cd, bought the blank cds, and used a legal cd burner to make copies. They then distributed the cds to a small limited amount of people and made no money from it. They wanted to share their favorite music. Now people who haven’t paid for those songs have those songs and can enjoy them. Person 2 has a ton of gigs of songs and then distributes those gigs to their friends who transfer those songs to other friends,etc. Person 2 wanted to share music and let’s face it, when people do mass p2p sharing its to save money. Now people who haven’t paid for those songs have those songs and can enjoy them. Both of these people were wrong and I believe both can be prosecuted. Both of these people should have paid royalties for their distribution.

After reading Lessig’s Free Culture (ch. 10), I feel like Person 1 should not have to worry about being prosecuted or paying royalties. Ok, so both people under my argument should be safe, I just feel more inclined to argue for Person 1. Copyright protection in its original purpse did not stifle noncommercial publishing or transformation. It has changed over time to accommodate the changes in technology, but I don’t think it’s maintained a fair balance between producer rights and consumer rights. I honestly don’t think there’s anything wrong with noncommercial publishing or transformation. If you’re not making any money from it, where’s the harm? And if you are making money from it, then you should pay royalties. For example, I watch tv shows on YouTube all the time. I’m rarely availabe to watch the shows at the time they air and I hate watching commercials. Some of these shows are from Viacom. If YouTube is making money off those videos, then they should pay royalties to Viacom. (If that royalty fee trickles down to me I'll probably stop watching, I only watch because it's free)

And what’s the deal with targeting copyright circumvention technologies? I understand the repurcussions of putting out material that has the possibility to lead to copyright infringement, but to prosecute the possibility and not the action? I know that I’m on the consumer end of this and not the producer end, but that really doesn’t make sense to me. I think I’m going to sue the guy driving next to me on the highway that’s going 70 mph because one day he might just hit someone. *shaking my head and throwing my arms up with a perplexed look of confusion on my face* The emergence of techonology, especially Internet techonology has caused copyrighters to freak out. Isn’t techonology supposed to enable people and not hinder them? I mean, in the case of circumventing techonology, doesn’t that just mean the producers now have to make a better product? When you enable technology doesn’t that drive innovation so that better techonologies develop? Isn’t that better for people as a whole?

Whenever new technology emerges, people look at them with glossy eyed feelings thinking ”this is the answer we’ve been looking for” (think CMGT 530 telegraph and initial internet feelings). The Internet, for example, was supposed to be this free utopian world, without regulation from the “real world”. But as in Grimmelmann’s Virtual Borders, web designers are now having conflicting feelings about real world regulation in the online world. The original feeling was that there should be none. But now, as technology and online content and capabilites are changing, some real world regulation isn’t looking so bad. But real world regulation I think is taking it’s time in developing. Which is a good thing, because if it develops too fast, or if opposing sides are not represented well enough, it may turn into another copyright situation. Yes, I think intellectual property is very important but I think the regulation of it needs to be a compromise and not so one-sided. And what I gathered from both these readings is that there needs to be a compromise, a balance, a working relationship between the two factions and arguments.

And the Recap: Before: copyright is good. After: If you’re not making any money, where’s the harm? If you are, pay royalties. Stifling circumvention technologies stifles innovation. Copyright needs more balance to accommodate both consumers and producers.

Adapt or Die

I remember the first time I started blogging. It was spring of 2003 and I started xangaing as a way to communicate feelings which I felt I could not explicitly say out loud. It was a way for me to sort things out, analyze the reasons why, and just plain state what was on my mind. I was such a religious blogger, creating an entry each day (sometimes twice or more a day!) and reading and commenting on other people’s xanga. It was exciting to have such access to people’s thoughts and to also reciprocate my own. Back then, I saw blogging primarily as a online personal diary. And although this new type of communication was exciting to me, I was one of those people that thought blogging was just one dimensional in purpose, fun for now, but eventually its popularity was going to die out. I didn’t see the potential in the content a blog holds. But as I’ve learned, new media/ technology/tools (basically, new anything) displaces older/current media/technology/etc. The “newest” thing doesn’t just die for no reason. It is replaced – if not entirely, but for the most part. So even if I had felt that blogging was a passing phase, I should have acknowledged that there would always be an online application like that present. But the blog is still around today, stronger than ever. It wasn’t replaced, it evolved. It took on newer creative purposes.

Nowadays, blogs have taken on multi-dimesional purposes. People still have online journals, but the topics which they cover are now more diverse, their purpose much more niche. They are more than just personal online journals, they are a way to market, publicize, inform, and brand. It’s mind boggling to think that a seemingly little online tool like a blog is now changing the way businesses do business. And it’s not just the big guys that are benefiting from the blog’s evolvement. Because of the options you now have when setting up your blog, instead of being just a “blog” (write, read, comment) it now can be a fully functioning “website” (domain name forwarding and hosting, ads, tip jars, etc.). Tom mentioned that Blogger has become the “poor man’s website” and the way I see it, it’s actually the “smart (wo)man’s website” in terms of price and up-time reliability when creating a simple website where you don’t have to be an expert designer or developer. Like Cory mentioned, if your hosting a website yourself, and all of a sudden you receive an unexpected huge wave of readers, if your site goes down, your screwed. But if it’s hosted/maintained/supported by a bigger provider, the outcome will most likely be different and more favorable. The way the blog has evolved allows it to stay relevant to the online community. In my opinion, it’s also given everyday users a way to create mainstream websites which primarily in the past you had to hire website producers for.

And the Recap: Blogs adapted to the changing dynamics of the web. They embody the spirit of technology: adapt or die. Pretty cut throat, but oh so true.

Keeping up with technology

The past few weeks have been quite hectic in my work life due to the preparation for the Institute’s annual summit. So I thought this post would be a great opportunity to put together all these thoughts that have been popping, swirling around, generating in my head – they range from various related topics but all have one thing in common. There was an issue or topic that was brought up in class that at some point resurfaced in my everyday when an event or thought made a connection between the two. And as I am very fortunately typing in my hotel room with the lanai door wide open and the ocean slowly rolling against the night’s midnight blue, I will try to pull everything together and wrap it up with a nice bow (try being the operative word).

The summit had a 3 plenary panels today (proceedings link to be posted soon). Its theme was “The DNA of Collaborative Innovation: Collaborative Models for Innovation & Global Health” and the last plenary panel was titled “New Models and Platforms for Collaboration and Co-Creation”. I had the opportunity to catch the tailend of the plenary where Lisa Galarneau from the New Zealand University of Waikato had her presentation on virtual worlds and I made several observations. The age group of the summit participants while older and more mature than mine (think of older PhDs, MDs, etc) were fascinated and taken with the notion of using online technology and communications for collaboration and community purpose. There was a consensus that this was an emerging medium that is and will be quite a factor in current and future research due to its limitless possibilities of distilling information across distance with very little cost compared to traditional venues. Training, collaboration, curriculum development – these all could be be experience and possibly expedited through the use of the internet.

So here comes the “But” part. Among this group of people, the issue of trust is one of the biggest if not biggest. And as an outsider looking in at times, I also see a sort of technology gap between an older and younger generation. The issue of trust was easier to handle with FtF communication versus using CMCs (think CMGT 530) which I think is due to the cues that this group of people have relied on for decades. To change or transition into a new way of communicating takes away years of subconscious self training in filtering cues to decide who they trust or not when deciding to collaborate and innovate. The diffusion of innovation in this case, has researchers thinking “I’ve done things this way for so long and although the notion of using CMCs and virtual collaboration appears to be quite promising, there is an unfamiliarity with it that I just can’t shake off”. I see this all too often. People excited about technology and there are many cases of researchers utilizing new media and technology, but the majority I feel are either scared (and sometimes won’t admit it) or slightly hesitant to fully take advantage of it

And as the web is hurled through new developments at what can seem like the speed of light due the capabilities it now has versus even several years ago, it is traveling so fast, that if you don’t stop and step outside its world, you won’t even notice that it’s leaving people behind. MMOGs, fandom, the whole Microsoft wanting to acquire Yahoo and Google throwing a hissy fit about it – from the point of view of many people, it’s moving too fast for them to efficiently process and integrate this new media into their everyday lives in order to expedite collaboration and innovation.

Technology makes life faster. When I think of this, Gemeinschaft and Gesselschaft communities and the continuum (more CMGT 530) between the two comes to mind. And surprisingly enough, I think more often than not, that possibly the Amish have got it right (Shockingly surprising, isn’t it?). As communities grow, there becomes this need for more a “state-like” community, governed by state enforced laws. And while there is no real “government” in cyberspace right now, the gravitation toward a pull model, this new era of user generated content and media, have taken advantage of the breakthroughs in internet technology, making life, from my point of view, quite fast. The online community is growing at such a fast rate, I feel that on some level, there now is a need for some governing.

On the flight to Hawai’i, as we were nearing Oahu, I looked out onto the Pacific Ocean (yay for window seats), and I felt this calming peace slowly drift down upon me. Mainland life is very quick paced to me, especially LA. The Hawaiian lifestyle I think is more gemeinschaft or at least on the continuum I feel it is closer to gemeinschaft and that there is an internal struggle to keep it that way or move even more towards that way (traditionally it was heavily gemeinschaft – think Hawaii monarchy). I look at the mainland, and in comparison we are more toward gesselscaft and while I see the many benefits and things I love appreciate and about that type of community, life is so fast.

Things are changing quite quickly on the Internet these days, creating shifts in how businesses do business and in the roles that people have played as users of the internet. There are times that I’m like “Yay! Cool! This new *insert new web tool/technology/way of doing things* is grrrreat!” And there are times, where I’m like “Whoa, hold on here, this is a bit much to process at once.” And perhaps that is how researchers and gemeinschafters (ok, I made up that word) view what’s currently going on. The younger generation may be connecting online more and producing content, but there is still value in what people on the sidelines have to contribute. I’m just not quite sure how to fully get them into the game. I think it can be done, though. I’m sitting in bed right, with the lanai door wide open, looking out into the midnight blue, listening to the crashing waves, and typing up my blog. I think it can be done.