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It occurs to me that it's difficult, these days, on this here internet.

Writing a personal blog is difficult because we strive to avoid triteness, to draw on our field of interests to generate unique ideas and opinions. Then we're slightly crushed when these opinions have invariably been already posed by more focused websites with a deeper pool of research and specialization. We feel forced to revert back to the everyday specifics of our lives, which lack widespread relevance but at least we can be sure that they're our stories, that they're not already out there somewhere in the cyber-beyond. Somehow, in the infinite freedoms of this enormous public sphere, we have become more conservative and careful of our thought output. Timid before an overwhelming abundance of information, we often revert to the safety of what we know instead of bravely and blindly poking forth into the nuances of the world, perhaps making mistakes, but at least trying to engage. Is there shame in amateurism? The best we can do is shoulder onwards, trying to figure out our role in this wide open place where there is no precedent.

Sharing and remixing mass culture is difficult because there seems to be a hefty divide between the creatives who embrace media and the suits who legislate it. Every day I read about scary new advances in Digital Rights Management, which serves to cripple and severely limit our personal access to music and film. In the interests of preserving industry, groups like the RIAA and MPAA are acting like bulls in the china shop: rushing this way and that to bottle their precious commodity which has somehow escaped onto the internet, throwing up walls in a desperate attempt to recapture control of their 'property.' Consumers, the lifeblood of popular culture, are ironically trampled with blind lawsuits in the process. Disillusioned, the public looks for other places to spend their dollars, the media control lobbyists use the subsequent drop in profit as motivation to attack piracy and the dismantling cycle continues.

It wouldn't be so bad if these legislators had a hand in creating the intellectual property they so avidly pursue absolute power over, because then I might be sympathetic, but they didn't. They run the business, not the culture. Many of their creative clients vehemently oppose their tactics, and the upper echelons of the culture industry must be scared as fuck because, the way things are going, the rigid management of our society's art will quickly become very unprofitable.

We are living in a wonderful age where the multi-million dollar fluffy blockbuster will slowly become extinct, where indie film makers will begin to seriously challenge the industry with $100 000 and a good idea (which are in relatively short supply in Hollywood these days). The citizenry is beginning to catch on to the amazing concept that we can actually create and consume our own culture. The popularity of public domain sites like YouTube.com have already begun to demonstrate that we are willing to circumvent the networks to enjoy ourselves. The explosion of private blogging on every topic imaginable shows that we are fully prepared to research, write and selectively consume knowledge of the world - and not necessarily from transnationally established sources. Sure, we create senseless garbage as often as not, but it blows my mind how lucky humanity is right now to have so much opportunity to explore, to share, to learn from each other.

And so, given this incredible paradigm shift in progress, it seems almost criminal to engage dirty weapons like intellectual property law and copyright to stint it. Now I know profitability ensures growth, that money encourages creation, and these bitches need to get paid. But how come the management gets paid too? They didn't do shit, other than leverage their connections to negotiate the crazy web of bureaucratic handshaking that, to me, seem to actively prevent new culture from emerging. This system is expendable. It's getting that way.

It is this bureaucracy that tightens the noose of the law to preserve its own life, that spawns tragic propaganda like Captain Copyright in a vain attempt to convince the public that regulation is more important than the content it protects. Captain Copyright helpfully suggests that that teachers instruct their students to draft up permission request forms and copyright pages. Oh, and if there's time, they can write a story worth copyrighting too. Incidentally, the hilariously lame and unoriginal Captain Copyright superhero may be, himself, a violation because Marvel Comics is attempting to claim copyright over the term "superhero," and perhaps all muscular men in spandex suits as well.

Yes, my friends, we live in an exciting, lightning-paced and often absurd section of the great civilization timeline, and it's grand in scale and ludicrously hard to encompass. While I have left gaping holes throughout, I am still enthused and feel genuinely grateful, in a strange twist of passion, to have been given a chance to respond to the world with my own overdramatic words. You can find a goddamn copyright news blog if you want better information: that is your amazingly simple and lucky prerogative. Just don't ever take this liberty for granted. The internet is fucking awesome.

And that's today's dip in a deep, deep pool.

[copyright] [public sphere] [internet culture] [media control]

Posted by Chris at 09:44 AM >> Commentations (2)