Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Blog #12

For some reason, it's incredibly difficult to find the will to write this last blog. But here we go, connections I found between Lawrence Lessig's Remix and the movie RIP! A Remix Manifesto.

One main topic that was covered in Lessig and the movie is "fair use"; it is never discussed for long, but it is definitely touched upon. I liked how the movie cut off the soundtrack to make its point that there is a limit to how much you can get away with when using fair use as an excuse, even if you are using it to make an argument.

The use of Creative Commons is another link I made between the movie and the book, Lessig has been making allusions to them throughout the book, and is pushing for more use of them. RIP! discussed it shortly if I'm not mistaking.

The whole idea of economies can be linked between Lessig and the movie; Lessig speaks of sharing and commercial economies, RIP! speaks of the economy of things versus the economy of ideas. I found it interesting when the movie said something along the lines of "we won't be needing corporations (record companies) anymore"; that was the opposite of Lessig who believes that a balance can be found between the extremes of our society, and that this balance is what will keep us moving forward.

Tuesday, April 05, 2011

Blog #11

The basic distinction I found between the sharing and commercial economy was the use of money in social transactions. Lessig tells us that in a commercial economy people expect to have some exchange of money, as he says, it would be weird if there wasn't. A sharing economy revolves around a certain relationship we have with the individual we deal with; a friend, a lover, a neighbor, are the examples Lessig uses, where money would bring awkwardness into the relationship. The example he discussed of the young man in the plane was very interesting, where a sharing economy can be created between two individuals who don't necessarily have any connections; the young man did not rip DVDs to sell them, rent them, or make any kind of money off of them; he rips them for himself and does not expect money to share them.

The examples Lessig uses were very helpful in making me understand the different ways in which commercial and sharing economies could appear. The small differences between commercial economies Amazon, Netflix, and Google, and the different expectations we have from each website; and the wide range of sharing websites that have appeared on the NET.

Lessig spends a few pages discussing Wikipedia, its creation, and its popularity. I enjoyed his question of "why do people contribute to this community with no compensation for their time?"; the answer being that people share their knowledge, they do so to better the community they are a part of and in exchange will gain knowledge from some other volunteer. His distinction between "me-regarding" and "thee-regarding" sharing economies is important as well; some of the interactions we have are for our own betterment, but in some cases we choose to do things to help out others rather than ourselves.

Much like the Read/Only and Read/Write Communities he discussed earlier in his book, Lessig insists on the fact that the commercial and sharing economies are not to be taken out of context, studied all on their own; the two are complementary of each other, both must be taken into account. I believe this is important for his main argument, we must learn to live with both cultures and both economies, we do not have to choose one or the other, but integrate both in the way we live our lives.