http://pennystocks.la/battle-of-internet-giants/
Go to this link to see the accumulation of profit in real time!
Go to this link to see the accumulation of profit in real time!
I should be grateful I suppose, that I now know, how much I don’t know about the restriction of access to information on the Internet. But instead, I feel more of an enlightened embarrassment. How is it that I have avoided thinking deeply about the issues around the freedom of information, especially as an educator and an avid information consumer?
It’s been over a decade that I have known about the concerns investigative journalists and academics like University of Ottawa’s Professor of Internet Law Michael Geist have been bringing (or have been attempting to bring) to our attention, regarding the the good and the bad about Copyright revision. Bill C-11 seems like an invention made a generation ago (which makes sense since it was first read in October of 2002) but strangely the issues the Bill addressed did not seem to move me to action. I remember being contemplative and concerned, but then simply complacent as it seemed that people “who knew how to speak to the issue” were doing so and that revisions were being enacted.
On the other hand, I have long sensed that corporate practices were wielding more corruption than a society could bear, but after watching and listening to Lawerence Lessig’s TedTalks, his lecture on Aaron’s Story, the documentary The Internet’s Own Boy and RIP: A Remix Manifesto I realized that the battle born between freedom and greed was even more prevalent than I had thought. Had I become immune to recognizing the gravity of the situation, much like the proverbial boiling frog?
Despite the many hours I have spent over this last week trying to process all that I have heard and read, I am still somewhat perplexed about the restrictions that our corporate influenced governments are seemingly continuing to place on freedom of information, or more pertinently, the freedom to use other people’s ideas in the creation of something new. Are these legal revisions still being created to serve corporate interests above the interests of the people? In many cases it would seem so. Particularly poignant in this vein for me was Gregg Gillis (aka Girl Talk and the main character in the RIP documentary) describing his day job as a Bio-medical Engineer, where so much of his work is Patent protected (3:55 - 5:35 in Part 7) and where the cure for Cancer could be a step away but unavailable due to a part of an idea being Copyrighted and not being released. It is abundantly clear that the notion of Copyright is outdated for the world that most of us want to live in though I fear it will take more than the Mashup artists to help the Corporate Elite realize that the business models of the past, do not necessarily serve the desired future of a more collective society.
So where are we at in 2015? Are the Internet Giants going to help or hinder the movement toward free pubic access to information and ideas? I cannot say with certainty where Canada and the US are, let alone where any country in the world is, in terms of Copyright Law, but I sense that the creation and use of the Creative Commons is the correct way to move forward. As I move forward, trying to increase my understanding of how the digital world should evolve, how I can be an agent of change while bearing the burdens of a battle still not quite understood, I will keep the Remix Manifesto close to remind me that:
It’s been over a decade that I have known about the concerns investigative journalists and academics like University of Ottawa’s Professor of Internet Law Michael Geist have been bringing (or have been attempting to bring) to our attention, regarding the the good and the bad about Copyright revision. Bill C-11 seems like an invention made a generation ago (which makes sense since it was first read in October of 2002) but strangely the issues the Bill addressed did not seem to move me to action. I remember being contemplative and concerned, but then simply complacent as it seemed that people “who knew how to speak to the issue” were doing so and that revisions were being enacted.
On the other hand, I have long sensed that corporate practices were wielding more corruption than a society could bear, but after watching and listening to Lawerence Lessig’s TedTalks, his lecture on Aaron’s Story, the documentary The Internet’s Own Boy and RIP: A Remix Manifesto I realized that the battle born between freedom and greed was even more prevalent than I had thought. Had I become immune to recognizing the gravity of the situation, much like the proverbial boiling frog?
Despite the many hours I have spent over this last week trying to process all that I have heard and read, I am still somewhat perplexed about the restrictions that our corporate influenced governments are seemingly continuing to place on freedom of information, or more pertinently, the freedom to use other people’s ideas in the creation of something new. Are these legal revisions still being created to serve corporate interests above the interests of the people? In many cases it would seem so. Particularly poignant in this vein for me was Gregg Gillis (aka Girl Talk and the main character in the RIP documentary) describing his day job as a Bio-medical Engineer, where so much of his work is Patent protected (3:55 - 5:35 in Part 7) and where the cure for Cancer could be a step away but unavailable due to a part of an idea being Copyrighted and not being released. It is abundantly clear that the notion of Copyright is outdated for the world that most of us want to live in though I fear it will take more than the Mashup artists to help the Corporate Elite realize that the business models of the past, do not necessarily serve the desired future of a more collective society.
So where are we at in 2015? Are the Internet Giants going to help or hinder the movement toward free pubic access to information and ideas? I cannot say with certainty where Canada and the US are, let alone where any country in the world is, in terms of Copyright Law, but I sense that the creation and use of the Creative Commons is the correct way to move forward. As I move forward, trying to increase my understanding of how the digital world should evolve, how I can be an agent of change while bearing the burdens of a battle still not quite understood, I will keep the Remix Manifesto close to remind me that:
- Culture always builds on the past
- The past always tries to control the future
- Our future is becoming less free
- To build free societies, you must limit the control of the past.