Monday, December 04, 2006

The DMCA (Group 3)

News article on newly released DMCA exceptions (Wes Philips)

What I found most intriguing about the exceptions listed to the DMCA by the Librarian of Congress in this article was the framing of the rhetoric about the protection of these copyrights. Some of the wording seems extremely old-fashioned, particularly considering that it is part of a "digital millennium" piece of legislation. The wording is also extremely non-sensical in many ways, to me, almost as though it was purposely written somewhat loosely because they weren't share where the line should be drawn.. Some of these exceptions I read over at least three or four times, and I'm still not entirely sure what they actually are referring to. As a borderline "tech-savvy" JMC student at UW, you'd think that legislation should certainly be written in a way that could actually be understood.. But maybe that's too much to expect from Congress.

Digital land grab (Henry Jenkins)

The Jenkins article raises some points that I think are definitely worth discussing with his argument, beginning somewhat strangely with the obscure fact that Lewis Carroll texts are in the top three most referenced in the English language. I think it is very important to realize that, in many ways, the media landscape is so different from what there was in 1930 that it's kind of difficult for me to see a legitimate comparison between the times. Blogs, web-editing tools and the trend of customization have meant that people have been able to play a very active role within their culture. Unofficial sites for musicians, athletes and other celebrities still run rampant, as well as blogs devoted to movies and television series, such as one of my personal favorites from this summer, Blogging Project Runway. The blog owners have been in close contact with many prominent figures from the show, and if the Bravo producers had some sort of problem with it -- and its loads of inside information and screen captures -- they'd have shut it down long ago... there is even a quote on the site from a Bravo suit stating his praise of the venture.

That said, the BPR people did feel the need to place a disclaimer on the page, stating that they are not affiliated with the Bravo Network, and I wonder if this was at the request of Bravo. I think we are somewhat limited in our abilities to respond to our current culture. There clearly needs to be a line drawn between 'cultural salutes' that aim to profit vs. those that aim to simply build awareness or inform, and this is a difficult distinction to be made. In order for a motive to remain for the original content producers, there need to be some protections put in place. I'm not sure that our administration has put the right people in the position of deciding where that distinction should be made, but perhaps it will just be a matter of fleshing out some of the quirks of our new media landscape before the balance can be found more appropriately.

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