On October 12, 1998, the U.S. Congress passed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, ending many months of turbulent negotiations regarding its provisions. Two weeks later, on October 28th, President Clinton signed the Act into law.
The Act is designed to implement the treaties signed in December 1996 at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Geneva conference, but also contains additional provisions addressing related matters.
As was the case with the 'No Electronic Theft' Act (1997), the bill was originally supported by the software and entertainment industries, and opposed by scientists, librarians, and academics.
Highlights Generally:
• Makes it a crime to circumvent anti-piracy measures built into most commercial software.
• Outlaws the manufacture, sale, or distribution of code-cracking devices used to illegally copy software.
• Does permit the cracking of copyright protection devices, however, to conduct encryption research, assess product interoperability, and test computer security systems.
• Provides exemptions from anti-circumvention provisions for nonprofit libraries, archives, and educational institutions under certain circumstances.
• In general, limits Internet service providers from copyright infringement liability for simply transmitting information over the Internet.
• Service providers, however, are expected to remove material from users' web sites that appears to constitute copyright infringement.
• Limits liability of nonprofit institutions of higher education -- when they serve as online service providers and under certain circumstances -- for copyright infringement by faculty members or graduate students.
• Requires that "webcasters" pay licensing fees to record companies.
• Requires that the Register of Copyrights, after consultation with relevant parties, submit to Congress recommendations regarding how to promote distance education through digital technologies while "maintaining an appropriate balance between the rights of copyright owners and the needs of users."
• States explicitly that "[n]othing in this section shall affect rights, remedies, limitations, or defenses to copyright infringement, including fair use..."
Friday, March 19, 2010
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Saturday, March 13, 2010
My Project-Information Sharing
Information Sharing in the Information Age
INTRODUCTION
In 1999, Darcy DiNucci wrote of a concept she coined as “Web 2.0” in her article “Fragmented Future”[1]. Speaking of a future where information accessed via the internet would be accessible from almost everywhere, predicting that the large quantity of portable devices that had already begun to merge with the information networks of the day would eventually have the capacity to easily integrate into a web-centric environment. In this way, she had focused primarily on the aesthetic aspects of web design and information organization, and did not make any overt attempt to predict the impact this could (and eventually would) have on a worldwide community of internet users. Although this was the first recorded usage of the term, it wouldn’t gain widespread acceptance as an emerging phenomena for several more years.
The term “Web 2.0” is more commonly known through it’s use by Tim O’Reilly, open-source movement guru, and founder of O’Reilly Media. First hosting their Web 2.0 conference in 2004, O’Reilly Media helped to garner widespread attention to evolutive changes in information sharing paradigms and user-centric design methodologies that had in fact simply built upon what O’Reilly himself described as “Web 1.0” while speaking at the opening ceremony of the October 2004 Web 2.0 convention [2]. Two years later, in the wake of the massive international user-generated information wave, Time Magazine published their yearly declaration, “ Person of the Year: You.”[3] Time cited the near-monumental amount of user-created content that had begun to built a new web; one of participation and collaboration. A world of information available to anyone, intended for everyone. The arrival of the true Information Age.
INFORMATION
In this, the so-called Information Age, we find ourselves in an electronic world with few borders. In recorded history, we have never found ourselves in such close proximity than we are at this very moment. Information of every imaginable sort; the resources for a decent education are available to any with the ability to read and operate a computer[4]. But we have linked not simply information, but through social-networking sites and media-sharing networks, we have connected our very lives to one another. Web 2.0 principals have led the way to a new internet, with ease of access coupled with more to access. In a world plagued by the disease of instant gratification, the new internet aims to please even the most casual of users.
One of the most promising examples of Web 2.0 concepts being applied practically and with great success is the appearance of the ‘Wiki’. Originating from a Hawaiian word for “Fast”, a ‘Wiki’ is a website that allows for easy editing of content by multiple users utilizing pages that are interlinked, allowing for a large amount of information to be presented in a “perpetual beta” state of development.[5] The information can be revised constantly, or as long as new users have information to share or revisions to suggest. The most successful of these is arguably Wikipedia, an open-source encyclopedia that allows for user creation and revision of content. As of 2010, Wikipedia has over 14 million articles (3.2 million of which are in English)[6], also offering additional resources such as free education materials, a dictionary and thesaurus, entire textbooks and novels, and an impressive media library. All of this free to the public.
But this is not without setbacks. Wikipedia has been plagued by acts of website vandalism; this perhaps is the price that must be paid for the true user-generated experience, where the user can decide what information is present on the page. Many accounts of essential information being removed and false information being inserted had caused suspect in the public eye when attempting to validate anything read in the free encyclopedia. After audits of non-wikipedia member contributions, it was discovered that several major corporations, including Microsoft[7], had offered cash for favorable Wikipedia edits. Other instances included US Government IP addresses connected to the editing of government and policy-related articles, providing a pro-government bias. In April, 2008, the US Department of Justice IP range was blocked from Wikipedia access after editors discovered that several DoJ computers were used to edit articles to provide a pro-foreign policy spin[8,9].
But Wikipedia isn’t the only example of a user-generated information database, only the most popular example. As information access has expanded, Wikis on specific topics have crept up as well, in areas such as web design, computer gaming, and even object-oriented programming. These resources often allow non-Wiki-based information to be accessed through tagging, which has become popular in the realm of the Blog (web log), and allows for specific keywords to be ‘tagged’ with a hyperlink, allowing the user to travel from one source of information to another with out the constant use of a search engine. The creator(s) of a specific website can still determine WHAT source of information is to be used, however, leading to the strong possibility that factual information could easily be disregarded for sources that the creator(s) find agreeable to their own sensibilities. In its most natural form, the Wiki actually strives to avoid this type of bias by literally crowd-sourcing; operating under the principal that given enough people, enough eyes, the information presented will be of an honest sort.
Another example of the vastly changing information-sharing paradigm is the example of the video and picture-sharing website. Websites such as Flickr and Youtube have garnered so much attention that the latter played a pivotal role in the 2008 presidential election[10]. Youtube users were invited to share their video questions in order to have them answered by candidates at the Youtube Debates. Immediately, questions of censorship and question choices appeared, and it was even discovered that one of the users was actually an advisor to one of the candidates from the other party. This sparked debate as to whether he had been planted intentionally[11,12]. Youtube has routinely banned users from their service for “unacceptable messages”, including anti-government speech, and videos concerning controversial topics such as the September 11th attack on the World Trade Center, and the Federal Reserve Monetary system [13,14]. The argument for Free Speech breaks down in these realms as the material may be provided by the user, but the services are actually rendered through corporate means. The user builds content for the business, allowing the company in question to tap into the public as if they were a virtual resource, at a fraction of normal operating cost.
Youtube, for example, has routinely removed content due to “Violation of Terms of Use” only to later reinstate the same content when there is a public outcry. Youtube itself has been banned in nations such as Pakistan and China[15,16] due to the available content and it’s possible ramifications on the culture of their respective nations. Without the ability to censor the information effectively, in order to allow their citizens access to information that the state approves of, the simpler option has been simply to block access to the site altogether. But the age of information technology has allowed the individual the means to fight back. Online protest has seen some effective remuneration in China, and in Pakistan, the people themselves were able to find ways around the ban[17], though these were fairly few in number. It is also notable that Pakistan reinstated YouTube as an acceptable website, but only after YouTube removed certain videos that had been deemed “offensive” in nature. Freedom of speech does not exist in the world of corporate business.
In the age of information, when we begin to approach a time when our cultural buffers break down, and we watch our newest generation grow into a world that encourages communal thought, and communal existence, the powers of censorship and editorial thought still linger to steer the minds of people throughout the world. To determine what a person sees, thinks, and through the former…what they do. These tools are valuable to our society, and entertaining to the tech-savvy individual, but the question will need to be asked; At what point does this affect us in so drastic a way that it begins to destroy WHO we are as a people? Will individuals identify the fact that what they are shown can be manipulated and censored; that the web is not the personification of free press and free thought any longer?
Bibliography / Sources Cited
[1] DiNucci, D. (1999). “Fragmented Future”. Print 53 (4): 32. http://www.cdinucci.com/Darcy2/articles/Print/Printarticle7.html
[2] O'Reilly, Tim, and John Battelle. 2004. Opening Welcome: State of the Internet Industry. In . San Francisco, CA, October 5.
[3] Grossman, Lev. 2006. “Person of the Year: You”. Time Magazine. December 25.
http://www.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,20061225,00.html
[4] Bruns, Axel “Beyond Difference: Reconfiguring Education for the User-Led Age”. Proceedings ICE 3: Ideas, Cyberspace, Education.
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&lr=&q=cache:_kI7zTJznCgJ:eprints.qut.edu.au/archive/00006622/01/6622.pdf+wikiversity
[5] Jonathan Sidener. “Everyone‘s Encyclopedia” . The San Diego Union-Tribune. http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20041206/news_mz1b6encyclo.html
[6] Wikipedia Statistics.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia
[7] Nancy Gohring (Jan 23, 2007) "Microsoft said to offer payment for Wikipedia edits" IDG News Service. Retrieved on 2008-09-03.
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9008842/Microsoft_said_to_offer_payment_for_Wikipedia_edits
[8] Metz, Cade, "US Department of Justice banned from Wikipedia, The Register, April 29, 2008.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/29/wikipedia_blocked_doj_ip/
[9] "Israeli battles rage on Wikipedia". -UK Telegraph Media Group, May 7th, 2008.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1934857/Israeli-battles-rage-on-Wikipedia.html.
[10] Gough, Paul (2007-07-25). "CNN's YouTube debate draws impressive ratings". Reuters. pp. 1. http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSN2425835220070725
[11] “Black Eye for CNN, Anderson Cooper and Google”. John Gibson, "My Word", FoxNews.com. Last accessed November 20, 2007.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,314004,00.html
[12] http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,313681,00.html CNN Allows Clinton Consultant to Question GOP -Raw Source-
[13] Zeller, Tom Jr. (2006-10-09). “A Slippery Slope in Censorship at Youtube”, New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/09/technology/09link.html?_r=1.
[14] Nimmo, Kurt (2008-12-02). "More Political Censorship at YouTube". InfoWars. http://www.infowars.com/more-political-censorship-at-youtube/.
[15] Sommerville, Quentin. "China 'blocks YouTube video site'". BBC News. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7961069.stm.
[16] "Pakistan blocks YouTube website". BBC. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/7261727.stm.
[17] "Pakistan web users get round YouTube ban". Silicon Republic. http://www.siliconrepublic.com/news/news.nv?storyid=single10381
INTRODUCTION
In 1999, Darcy DiNucci wrote of a concept she coined as “Web 2.0” in her article “Fragmented Future”[1]. Speaking of a future where information accessed via the internet would be accessible from almost everywhere, predicting that the large quantity of portable devices that had already begun to merge with the information networks of the day would eventually have the capacity to easily integrate into a web-centric environment. In this way, she had focused primarily on the aesthetic aspects of web design and information organization, and did not make any overt attempt to predict the impact this could (and eventually would) have on a worldwide community of internet users. Although this was the first recorded usage of the term, it wouldn’t gain widespread acceptance as an emerging phenomena for several more years.
The term “Web 2.0” is more commonly known through it’s use by Tim O’Reilly, open-source movement guru, and founder of O’Reilly Media. First hosting their Web 2.0 conference in 2004, O’Reilly Media helped to garner widespread attention to evolutive changes in information sharing paradigms and user-centric design methodologies that had in fact simply built upon what O’Reilly himself described as “Web 1.0” while speaking at the opening ceremony of the October 2004 Web 2.0 convention [2]. Two years later, in the wake of the massive international user-generated information wave, Time Magazine published their yearly declaration, “ Person of the Year: You.”[3] Time cited the near-monumental amount of user-created content that had begun to built a new web; one of participation and collaboration. A world of information available to anyone, intended for everyone. The arrival of the true Information Age.
INFORMATION
In this, the so-called Information Age, we find ourselves in an electronic world with few borders. In recorded history, we have never found ourselves in such close proximity than we are at this very moment. Information of every imaginable sort; the resources for a decent education are available to any with the ability to read and operate a computer[4]. But we have linked not simply information, but through social-networking sites and media-sharing networks, we have connected our very lives to one another. Web 2.0 principals have led the way to a new internet, with ease of access coupled with more to access. In a world plagued by the disease of instant gratification, the new internet aims to please even the most casual of users.
One of the most promising examples of Web 2.0 concepts being applied practically and with great success is the appearance of the ‘Wiki’. Originating from a Hawaiian word for “Fast”, a ‘Wiki’ is a website that allows for easy editing of content by multiple users utilizing pages that are interlinked, allowing for a large amount of information to be presented in a “perpetual beta” state of development.[5] The information can be revised constantly, or as long as new users have information to share or revisions to suggest. The most successful of these is arguably Wikipedia, an open-source encyclopedia that allows for user creation and revision of content. As of 2010, Wikipedia has over 14 million articles (3.2 million of which are in English)[6], also offering additional resources such as free education materials, a dictionary and thesaurus, entire textbooks and novels, and an impressive media library. All of this free to the public.
But this is not without setbacks. Wikipedia has been plagued by acts of website vandalism; this perhaps is the price that must be paid for the true user-generated experience, where the user can decide what information is present on the page. Many accounts of essential information being removed and false information being inserted had caused suspect in the public eye when attempting to validate anything read in the free encyclopedia. After audits of non-wikipedia member contributions, it was discovered that several major corporations, including Microsoft[7], had offered cash for favorable Wikipedia edits. Other instances included US Government IP addresses connected to the editing of government and policy-related articles, providing a pro-government bias. In April, 2008, the US Department of Justice IP range was blocked from Wikipedia access after editors discovered that several DoJ computers were used to edit articles to provide a pro-foreign policy spin[8,9].
But Wikipedia isn’t the only example of a user-generated information database, only the most popular example. As information access has expanded, Wikis on specific topics have crept up as well, in areas such as web design, computer gaming, and even object-oriented programming. These resources often allow non-Wiki-based information to be accessed through tagging, which has become popular in the realm of the Blog (web log), and allows for specific keywords to be ‘tagged’ with a hyperlink, allowing the user to travel from one source of information to another with out the constant use of a search engine. The creator(s) of a specific website can still determine WHAT source of information is to be used, however, leading to the strong possibility that factual information could easily be disregarded for sources that the creator(s) find agreeable to their own sensibilities. In its most natural form, the Wiki actually strives to avoid this type of bias by literally crowd-sourcing; operating under the principal that given enough people, enough eyes, the information presented will be of an honest sort.
Another example of the vastly changing information-sharing paradigm is the example of the video and picture-sharing website. Websites such as Flickr and Youtube have garnered so much attention that the latter played a pivotal role in the 2008 presidential election[10]. Youtube users were invited to share their video questions in order to have them answered by candidates at the Youtube Debates. Immediately, questions of censorship and question choices appeared, and it was even discovered that one of the users was actually an advisor to one of the candidates from the other party. This sparked debate as to whether he had been planted intentionally[11,12]. Youtube has routinely banned users from their service for “unacceptable messages”, including anti-government speech, and videos concerning controversial topics such as the September 11th attack on the World Trade Center, and the Federal Reserve Monetary system [13,14]. The argument for Free Speech breaks down in these realms as the material may be provided by the user, but the services are actually rendered through corporate means. The user builds content for the business, allowing the company in question to tap into the public as if they were a virtual resource, at a fraction of normal operating cost.
Youtube, for example, has routinely removed content due to “Violation of Terms of Use” only to later reinstate the same content when there is a public outcry. Youtube itself has been banned in nations such as Pakistan and China[15,16] due to the available content and it’s possible ramifications on the culture of their respective nations. Without the ability to censor the information effectively, in order to allow their citizens access to information that the state approves of, the simpler option has been simply to block access to the site altogether. But the age of information technology has allowed the individual the means to fight back. Online protest has seen some effective remuneration in China, and in Pakistan, the people themselves were able to find ways around the ban[17], though these were fairly few in number. It is also notable that Pakistan reinstated YouTube as an acceptable website, but only after YouTube removed certain videos that had been deemed “offensive” in nature. Freedom of speech does not exist in the world of corporate business.
In the age of information, when we begin to approach a time when our cultural buffers break down, and we watch our newest generation grow into a world that encourages communal thought, and communal existence, the powers of censorship and editorial thought still linger to steer the minds of people throughout the world. To determine what a person sees, thinks, and through the former…what they do. These tools are valuable to our society, and entertaining to the tech-savvy individual, but the question will need to be asked; At what point does this affect us in so drastic a way that it begins to destroy WHO we are as a people? Will individuals identify the fact that what they are shown can be manipulated and censored; that the web is not the personification of free press and free thought any longer?
Bibliography / Sources Cited
[1] DiNucci, D. (1999). “Fragmented Future”. Print 53 (4): 32. http://www.cdinucci.com/Darcy2/articles/Print/Printarticle7.html
[2] O'Reilly, Tim, and John Battelle. 2004. Opening Welcome: State of the Internet Industry. In . San Francisco, CA, October 5.
[3] Grossman, Lev. 2006. “Person of the Year: You”. Time Magazine. December 25.
http://www.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,20061225,00.html
[4] Bruns, Axel “Beyond Difference: Reconfiguring Education for the User-Led Age”. Proceedings ICE 3: Ideas, Cyberspace, Education.
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&lr=&q=cache:_kI7zTJznCgJ:eprints.qut.edu.au/archive/00006622/01/6622.pdf+wikiversity
[5] Jonathan Sidener. “Everyone‘s Encyclopedia” . The San Diego Union-Tribune. http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20041206/news_mz1b6encyclo.html
[6] Wikipedia Statistics.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia
[7] Nancy Gohring (Jan 23, 2007) "Microsoft said to offer payment for Wikipedia edits" IDG News Service. Retrieved on 2008-09-03.
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9008842/Microsoft_said_to_offer_payment_for_Wikipedia_edits
[8] Metz, Cade, "US Department of Justice banned from Wikipedia, The Register, April 29, 2008.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/29/wikipedia_blocked_doj_ip/
[9] "Israeli battles rage on Wikipedia". -UK Telegraph Media Group, May 7th, 2008.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1934857/Israeli-battles-rage-on-Wikipedia.html.
[10] Gough, Paul (2007-07-25). "CNN's YouTube debate draws impressive ratings". Reuters. pp. 1. http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSN2425835220070725
[11] “Black Eye for CNN, Anderson Cooper and Google”. John Gibson, "My Word", FoxNews.com. Last accessed November 20, 2007.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,314004,00.html
[12] http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,313681,00.html CNN Allows Clinton Consultant to Question GOP -Raw Source-
[13] Zeller, Tom Jr. (2006-10-09). “A Slippery Slope in Censorship at Youtube”, New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/09/technology/09link.html?_r=1.
[14] Nimmo, Kurt (2008-12-02). "More Political Censorship at YouTube". InfoWars. http://www.infowars.com/more-political-censorship-at-youtube/.
[15] Sommerville, Quentin. "China 'blocks YouTube video site'". BBC News. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7961069.stm.
[16] "Pakistan blocks YouTube website". BBC. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/7261727.stm.
[17] "Pakistan web users get round YouTube ban". Silicon Republic. http://www.siliconrepublic.com/news/news.nv?storyid=single10381
Monday, March 8, 2010
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