Watch: Good Copy, Bad Copy (Johnson, Christensen, Moltke 2007)
Read: Pouwelse, J., P. Garbacki, D. Epema, and H. Sips. "Pirates and Samaritans: A decade of measurements on peer
production and their implications for net neutrality and copyright." Telecommunications Policy 32 (December 2008): 701-712.
My last non-fiction week screens a documentary that takes a close look at fan-created media, sampling and copyright issues around the world. The film interviews Girl Talk who was introduced during week 8 and also DJ Danger Mouse who is another “king” of copyright infringement. What I felt was really valuable in this film was the way they relate the copyright issue to the international scene. Seeing that people in Sweden, Russia and Brazil feel the same about copyright law problems really reinforces the problems that are associated with copy-limiting cultural products. The Pouwelse article is very powerful since it recognizes the creative potential of the Internet and uses p2p file sharing as a springboard into talking about net neutrality and copyright law and how this will lead to “peer production.” They recognize that a pirate version of almost any copyright material is available freely on the Internet and this will soon lead to unenforceability of the existing laws. In the conclusion of the article Pouwelse proposes a new model, possibly a decade away, where millions of users self-organize into a content creating and consuming mass. Pouwelse calls these users prosumers as they are both active producers and consumers.