It's Frymaster again.

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Thanks. 

I'm back from my errand, and dinner is over. They group has broken up into several tables to discuss specific topics. After 20 minutes, Robert Leaver of New Commons shuffled them around to create new groupings. In a few minutes, they'll report back with their nuggets, and the storytellers will comment on the findings.

The Topics

1. Digital music and copyright issues
2. The role of the Internet in politics and democracy (in the year of the first YouTube debates)
   
3. Social networks (Is it just a generational thing?) 
4. Changing business models in the digital world
5. Social production, remixing of the culture, and the opportunity for individuals to be a producer
6. The downsides of the digital world (misinformation, wrong information)
7. Youth in the virtual world and the pressures inherent in it

BTW, I've posted many of the photos to my Picasa Web page.

The Nuggets

Table 2 - Ken Payne: Says they abandoned democracy, leaving only a few stragglers. Is politics involvement or is politics making a choice in an election cycle? Question ran through both sections of the table. Internet is changing democracy by facilitating donations from many small donors. Internet impact highly dependent on the type of government, ie, US v China.

Table 3 - Becky Ramos: Conversation more interesting than notes. Every generation has its own favorite way of communicating, but social networks do cross generations. Allows easier connection but also easier disconnection, withdrawing from socializing. You gain some things, but you lose some things.

Table 4 - Wanda Miglis: Remote access, particularly in health. "New" first efficiencies then processes. Internet is ever reaching to customer base. Governance just being affected. Connectivity and capacity is the muscle behind the Internet. Ubiquity lets it affect and connect everywhere.

Table 6 - ???: Much further ahead in understanding upsides than downsides. More important to emphasize importance of critical thinking to find good information. Easy to create a lot of information, but proving the veracity exceeds the benefit of the data themselves. 

Table 5 + Security - ???: Security issues impede freedom of education. Even thought there's lots of information, but the security is so difficult it slows us down. Should be social, not legal, guidelines.  Social Production - DRM vs Creative Commons. Dec of Indepencence is remix of borrowed ideas and concepts.

Table 7 - ???: Issue of teen suicide from adult's fraud. Early digital footprint starts at birth - infant pictures. No expiration date on those photos. People will do anything to be noticed online. The table was, in general, scared. Digital property laws don't always fit the circumstances.

Table 1 - Tyler: Primary revenue source has always been and will continue to be live performances, excepting the slim minority of recording stars. Profit model still works. Unauthorized copying and distribution is nothing new, cassettes in the 70s/80s. Increase in distribution is a positive for most artist, a negative for a very few.

Well, that's all 7 tables. You'll have to wait for a wrap-up to see what the storytellers said. I've got to go on Daddy duty.

Thanks for letting me sit in. Cheers everyone.

Opening remarks from Michael Frazier, CFO for Providence College, speaking highly of PC IT Director Becky Ramos. Deserved praise.

Also from George Loftus on OSHEAN's past year, and the charitable actions they have taken. Focusing on OSHEAN Currents, the newsletter, and thanking Alison and Nimota for putting the evening together. Now introducing the OSHEAN Board of Directors. Chair of the Board happens to be Becky Ramos who thanks PC Events staff and the Sodexo staff.

George Loftus introducing the speakers now.

 

Heidi Wachs 

 

Paul Jones 

Steve McDonald

Open Panel Discussion: I did my best to indicate individual speakers, but it's not perfect.

DMCA Copyright

SM: If you operate as an ISP, you must register an agent to free yourself from liability when others on your network are violating copyright. That is the incentive to join the protocol. They then pass along requests to take down questionable or illegal material. Legally, there is no requirement to respond to "take down" notices. RIAA claims are false, there is no requirement. 

PJ: runs a fans-taping-bands website, but is dragged down by many false claims of ownership. MPAA searching for films of Arnold S when he's running for Gov of CA. Finds Junior on one of PJs servers: Linux Distribution. They spend 1.5 days to download and search the server to find the file.

Pre-1976, you had to publish and register to copyright. Post-1976, simply write your material down and it is copyrighted. "Copyright happens." No central registry, and they last for 70 post-mortem. There's almost no way to know if anything is copyrighted anymore. 

GL: Why do MPAA/RIAA focus on college campuses?

HW: On campus, RIAA is really aggressive. MPAA sends notices, but not like the RIAA. Now lobbying in DC to pass "onerous legislation." On campus, for years, they've been sending notices. Past two months they got really aggressive. Claim to have upgraded search tools. But really, the way identify notices is to find "close matches that are in a shared folder." Georgetown went from 20-30 per month to 50 per day.

SM: Colleges targetted because students are top consumers. Very few suits are against students, most are against the institutions.

PJ: Follow the money. Don't sue the doctor, sue the doctor's insurance company. State institutions are inherently free from copyright law as a matter of federal/state jurisdiction. 

Growing Up Online

What is the effect of technology on higher learning for these digital natives.

PJ:  Noticed the social networks, so we took a look. Facebook was tops: 98% of undergrads were on Facebook, 12% of grads, 5% of professors. At that point it required university ID to join. Wanted to see how fast incoming freshman would join FB. 80% of each orientation group joined FB immediately after orientation. 

SM: Many calls from student affairs, "What's the Law." The issue: students are drinking, we have to stop it. Not FB's problem. FB is, in fact, a window on the student population. Microwave analogy: microwave is a good addition, but it doesn't replace the stove. Same as Internet, we're still learning how it works in real life.

GL: Internet formed the greatest generational gap since Rock 'n Roll. Quoting Nova.

HW: I'm on every network because someone sent me an invitation.

PJ: Different people choose different places to perform their identity. On Friendster, there were Fakesters like Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed, the corner bar, etc. FF started by Bay Area techies and Burning Man using their Playa names. 

GL: Who has an organization has a presence on Facebook?

Social Production

PJ: This is where copyright gets confusing. So much is now remixes. Also with kids. Jr High would send audio files instead of phone calls, so his son created a remix using the voice. And then it got onto the intercom. Then the principal wrote and thanked them. Principal was in her public role and therefore not protected.

SM: Copyright laws in England. Had to have the right to make copies, it was censorship.

HW: There are lawyers trying to help the good guys win. American University. Pamphlet for documentary filmmakers, also one for user generated content.  Peter Jasai.

GL: The milk of innovation does not come from cash cows.

Business Models

SM: Radiohead pay-what-you-want album.  Made $10 million in one week.  May become irrelevant. Can make files unusable, as well as license agreements.

PJ: License agreements are unreadable and therefore have no standing. Only human/machine/lawyer readable license is creative commons. US copyright law written in opposition to British law. Limited period of time to grant monopolistic rights to creators. "Limited period of time" then was 15 years. Now it's life plus 70 years.

HW: Mickey Mouse was about to fall into public domain, so Congress changed the law.

SM: Doesn't matter what incentive you give Walt Disney, he's not creating anything else. Copyright prevents anybody from doing to Disney what Disney did to the Brothers Grimm.

PJ: What we need to do in this flat world is to make our laws the same as everybody else's.

I've got to run, but I'll be back after dinner. 

The theme for CF08 is "The Digital Citizen - Rights, Responsibilities and Impacts." The program centers on three storytellers, each bringing a unique perspective on the Digital Citizen. 

First up is Heidi Wachs, Director of IT Policy and Privacy Officer for Georgetown University. She's also a member of the EDUCAUSE Network Policy Council, having served as the organization's Government Affairs Officer before joining Georgetown. EDUCAUSE seeks to promote the intelligent use of technology in higher education, giving her important insights for this highly-focused group.

Next, we'll have Paul Jones founder of ibiblio.org, home to one of the largest collection of collections on the Internet. The conservancy of freely available information includes software, music, literature, art, history, science, politics and cultural studies. He is also a long-standing and long-haired member of the Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists. 'Nuff said.

Finally, RISD's General Counsel and Internet Law professor Steven McDonald will discuss the tangled cluster of legal issues swirling around the Internet. McDonald is also a member of EDUCAUSE.

Somebody is setting up a video camera and struggling to get the audio feed. Assuming success, they'll be uploading the session next Monday. Uh, oh. The room is starting to fill up. I better run to the bar and get ready to blog my little fingers off. 

Well, sort of. This is John Speck, aka The Frymaster, acting as guest live blogger for the OSHEAN Community Forum 2008. I work with Providence think tank New Commons advising them and their clients on all things web 2.0. One of those clients is OSHEAN. There were some issues getting me author's credentials, so we used the age-old work around: use someone else's account. If you ever read strange stories posted late at night about the goings on in Pawtucket, you'll know where to look. 

We're here in the Slavin Center at Providence College, expecting about 70 or so members of the OSHEAN community. Michelle Gonzalez from New Commons just took this photo. Look for more as the evening progresses. It's 4 PM, and cocktails are being served. My regular readers knows what that means for me. Cheers for now.

 

 

Heidi Wachs, one of our Storytellers for the Community Forum this year has sent me  a link to

Roger Cohen's  Op-ed piece in the New York Times (5/26) entitled The Obama Connection . 

As Heidi says; "This seems to be on point for the portion of the discussion where we address being a Digital Citizen in an election year, and how the Internet has impacted the electoral process."

 

On Monday night I watched the PBS Frontline airing of "Growing Up On Line". It's a documentary that features several high school students and their parents from a NJ suburban town. I think this show did a great job of exploring the way the two generations look at a "life on-line".  I found there were many of the normal generational struggles, and few that really changed due to the technology.

My favorite quote (and I am paraphrasing) was from a phycologist (who was very fair and balanced) who said: "The Internet has caused the greatest generation gap since the birth of rock and roll."  I started thinking that the parents in this show, who were very upset about the influence technology has on their kids, were likely the very same parents who stared unblinkingly at Elvisi Presley gyrating his hips on the Ed Sullivan show, while their parents looked on aghast.  I am confident that today's adolescents will survive this new era just as we did.

 If you want to check out some of the responses from folks (and yes people can send in their responses because we have this thing called the Internet) or to watch the show, visit the PBS web site. 

 Hey, also check our dana boyd who is an "expert" on the film.  We have been trying to get dana to talk at a Community Forum for two years. 

 

One of our Storytellers for the Community Forum, Steven McDonald of RISD has pointed us to a great blog entry by William Patry, currently the Senior Copyright Counsel for Google, Inc. regarding important issues regarding the ways in which corporate copyright holders wish to change the way copyright law is handled in the U.S. Patry makes a great argument for why the methods of the RIAA and others could significantly change the way we purchase and own intellectual property in the future, and will in fact delegate great (legislative) power to these private corporations.

The entire blog entry can be found at : http://williampatry.blogspot.com/2008/05/anti-piracy-scam-canada-insulted-again.html

A brief excerpt to whet your appetite follows:

What governments need to understand is how enacting what U.S. corporations are demanding of them will work in practice. In ordinary legislation, a bill is drafted, its provisions are laid bare, and can be debated. The effect the provision can have may be debated, but ultimately the legislature makes a policy decision, and a law is passed. Those who are affected by the provision can read it (or have their lawyers read it) and determine how to shape their conduct to comply with the provisions' mandates. Those mandates cannot be expanded or changed except by another act of the legislature. DRMs and TMPs work very differently. Chapter 12 of title 17 delegates law-making power to the private sector. It is the private sector - to be specific, U.S. corporate interests -- that will determine, on a rolling, ever changing basis what conduct will be permitted; this includes what playback devices (e.g., DVD players, CD players, music and video enabled phones) can come to market and what functionalities they will have or not have; it also includes what uses we can make of lawfully acquired works: you buy a lawfully made DVD in England, sorry you can't play it in Canada; you purchased a download of a song, sorry you can listen to it only three times, or only on this device; you buy an eBook; sorry, you "bought" it only for two weeks, and only for play on a specific device (e.g., Kindle). None of this requires legislative approval: all of it -- and much much worse -- can be controlled through the rights granted in chapter 12 because those rights are rights to control access, broadly speaking and without being tied to acts that would otherwise violate the exclusive rights granted by copyright. Once chapter 12 is implemented into domestic law, it is U.S. corporate copyright interests that will shape what consumer goods can be used in your country and how citizens of your country will be able to access and use lawfully acquired copies of works. No legislature that is amending its copyright law should do so without understanding the momentous delegation of power they are handing to U.S. corporate interests.

- George Loftus

 

I saw this posting on the CNet Asia site and thought it would be good fodder for our discussion about some of the problems with being a Digital Citizen.  

How would we handle false information spread so quickly on a college campus today?  

 

Cheers -- George 

 

 

Understanding Tech Issues with Reliable Vision of Innovation

by Jerry Liao, Philippines

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Abusing Technology - China Earthquake Aftermath

May 15, 2008 20:32 I have been saying that technology is amoral - it is not good nor bad, its neutral. What makes it bad or good is how it's being used by human beings. Use technology to educate or benefit other people, make procedures faster and more efficient is putting technology into good use. Using technology to ruin someones reputation, spreading gossips and false news is an example of how one can use technology in a bad way.

The 7.9 magnitude earthquake in China really shocked me. Pictures and videos showing people trapped in rubble is a sad sight to see. I can only offer my prayers that more survivors will be found and to those who lost their love ones may find strength, wisdom and peace.

What angered me was how some people can find this incident an opportunity to spread false information using technology. Hours after the incident, news that an earthquake with the same magnitude will hit the Philippines spread via text message.

It's only but natural that people get worried after receiving this kind of information. So what's the next step? People who received the message will try to confirm the news by texting a friend and the friend will again text another friend for confirmation. In a short time, the message was received by tens of thousands of mobile phone users that prompted government officials to come out on TV to refute the news.

This is one incident that no matter how you look at it, I can't find a single reason to smile or to be happy. I just hope that people will be more sensitive next time. Do not make fun of an unfortuunate incident like the China earthquake.

State Arts Council looks to social networking sites to help communicate with the public

Social networking sites like Facebook, YouTube, MySpace and Twitter have grown to become a popular way for millions of people to communicate via the Internet. And now they are another way for state government to communicate with its citizens.

The Rhode Island State Council on the Arts (RISCA) has established a presence on each of these social networking sites, as a way to communicate more effectively with a broad segment of the Rhode Island community.

"We found that a significant number of artists have Facebook or MySpace pages, and keep track of what's going on via the Internet," explained Randall Rosenbaum, Executive Director of the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts. "It only made sense for us to develop a presence on these sites, and use them as one of a number of ways we communicate with people about our programs and services."

The State Arts Council uses Facebook, for example, to share information about upcoming events and to showcase links from other Rhode Island Facebook users. The Arts Council's YouTube site features video from a recent conversation between U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and National Endowment for the Arts Chairman Dana Gioia.

MySpace, according to Rosenbaum, will grow into a place for online "conversations" about important issues. A new listing seeks comment from Arts Council grant recipients about the impact RISCA grants have had on their careers.

"We did a search on MySpace and found a number of artists who report having received one or more RISCA grants," said Rosenbaum. "So we thought this was a good opportunity to talk to our grantees in a different sort of way."

Twitter is what is known as a "microblog", designed to provide its members with quick updates containing one or two lines of information. The State Arts Council uses Twitter as an outlet for information from its popular weblog (http://www.arts.ri.gov/blog), which allows this fast-breaking arts information to be communicated to users via the web and smartphones.

The State Arts Council's Facebook site can be found at http://www.arts.ri.gov/facebook. On YouTube, RISCA can be found at http://www.youtube.com/risca1967. The RISCA MySpace page is at http://groups.myspace.com/risca. And the RISCA Twitter page is at http://twitter.com/risca1967.

The Rhode Island State Council on the Arts is a state agency, supported by appropriations from the Rhode Island General Assembly and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency. RISCA provides grants, technical assistance and staff support to arts organizations and artists, schools, community centers, social service organizations and local governments to bring the arts into the lives of Rhode Islanders. For more information on RISCA and its programs, please visit www.arts.ri.gov.

Related links

• RISCA Facebook page
• RISCA YouTube page
• RISCA MySpace page
• RISCA Twitter page

Department or agency: Rhode Island State Council on the Arts

Online: http://www.arts.ri.gov/