Between Kate Puzey and ACTA: The Middle Road for You and I

Two recent posts on BoingBoing are worthy of publicizing and demonstrate the need for more sophisticated and nuanced analysis about so-called "social media" and "social change". They also demonstrate a sad, yet in no way surprising, set of contrasts: two examples of American power, one with a graceful open spirit and the other with a closed, myopic one. Xeni Jardin memorializes the incredible life of Kate Puzey, a murdered Peace Corp activist in Benin, who also kept a blog and photo gallery of her experiences (link). The other by Cory Doctorow documents the ludicrous The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) and the corporate supporters behind this super-secret copyright treaty, which the Obama administration has claimed is a matter of "national security."

In the middle are the rest of us, who must decide how we want to impact the world, both using social media tools, but also recognizing the hype, the herd mentality, the obvious idea that social changes requires more than becoming a "fan" or some forms of online action.

As we move forward in this conversation, we should be careful not to set up simplistic us/them divisions or fall back on the tired cliches of corporations=corruption. The massive gap between these poles --- let's not simplify the challenge as an noble individual versus evil corporation, as there's a whole network of institutions behind Puzey's Peace Corp mission and there are so people within the corporate world who support innovation and change --- represents the awesome, complex challenge facing all of us. Each of us must negotiate this middle space.

We need more subtle forms of conversation and listening, ones with substance worthy of examining complex issues of networks, communication, individuals, institutions and power. We need new tools and institutions, social media and not, that truly empower global citizens.

But now it's time to get back to the job search.

Memo to Hollywood: Stop Dividing Up the World and Enclosing the Commons.

Why Not Join a True Global Commons, Ecology Movement?

In a series of Hollywood pictures and videos, particularly the opening night of the HollyShorts Film Festival -- the surreal, celebrity flows of light, sounds and images were revealed to me. I saw the incredible hunger that exists for more and more celebrity images.

I've been exploring the sounds and spaces of LA in different locales, public and private, ranging from the downtown Disney Hall to the streets of Hollywood to our pubic parks, all seen and heard from a fresh angle, all contributed to this emerging digital commons. Thanks to Josh Kun and the larger sound studies school, I began this exploration.

The beautiful Egyptian Theatre's courtyard, its natural light, or darkness, was so overwhelmed and inundated by the streams of flashes that, if a photo was taken without a flash (as I did), then the actresses, actors and other human bodies, shapes, and figures appear fragmented and distorted. Check out my photo-stream for examples. Of course, the flashes eventually move on, but traces remain in the images that zoom around the world.

I actually love this effect and would totally check out TMZ or MTV with some behind-the-scene DIY photos. The Cubist, cool effect got me thinking about how innovation can and should exist in mainstream Hollywood.

It is human nature to want to share memories, to pass along images, to recommend sounds from one friend to another. Entrenched industries are always scared when technologies give consumers new, disruptive tools through which to use established products and services. As we saw when the Writer's Guild of America embraced social media, there is no reason that the studio media world cannot co-exist with the Access to Knowledge/Free Culture camps. I discovered the existence of these networks in my Set Top Cop seminar with Cory Doctorow. One label used is the "Access to Knowledge" (A2K) movement.

We are about to enter the next stage of technological, "social media" innovation and digital media convergence. The press may call this the "Web 3.0" phase or the "social web." We should all step back, listen and look at our digital and public spaces? Do we finally want to take back some control over our own tools?

Final message to Hollywood powers that be: we are not your enemy; we simply want cool, interactive tools, ones we have control over. We want to be able to share content with our friends.

That's not too much to ask, is it?

FANS OF THE LA LIBRARY AND BEYOND

Cory Doctorow, a co-editor over at BoingBoing, recently covered the American Library Association conference panel that he participated on, "Privacy: Is it time for a revolutiond." Cory's talk is an inspiring call to the librarians, and through the WWW, a worldwide digital audience to wake up, support libraries and create effective ways to ensure consumer privacy and consumer freedoms in a digital age (link).

Cory and I have a history; he has been one of the most influential people in my life. In his visiting Fulbright graduate Set Top Cop seminar, I spent a full semester learning from Cory about global struggles to protect the emerging "digital commons" and ensure Access to Knowledge. Some people have called this movement a new "Knowledge Ecology." So in a deja-vu to that fall almost two years ago when I had serious insomnia, I happened to be online and was the first person to comment on Cory's above post,

White papers are important and panels are excellent (it be nice if they were publicized beyond the converted however), but what about planting one's feet on the ground, like, maybe LA Public Library might want to make a Facebook group, before walled gardens and basic groups on FB req. an "advertising", ur, I mean, posting sur-charge.

Another BB reader called me out and challenged me to start a FB group myself.

I have spent a lot of time over the last two months thinking and writing about the future of the Internet. Are all these new, funky, interactive, digital media tools at their core just a social networked means for marketeers to promote brands, discuss what we should call these things amongst our own echo-chamber, Silicon Valleyed worlds and how to organize them? If there is something really called a digital commons, what are the norms - the lessons learned - around participation in such a "commons" and "unpublishing" those who allegedly violate these unclear standards? Finally, if there is a new digital commons (as I believe there is), then must all content distributed via the WWW be "free" or will we ever enable a "rich" digital culture so that creators are compensated for work spread online?

But a certain point, one needs to shut up, stop commenting, conversing, marketing, and blabbering and take action. So our little Facebook library group has been birthed. It's not the start of anything special; but public spaces are needed; the issues are complex; we should all have a little more humility, and fun, while we challenge Walled Gardens. Our group will be a little place to discuss these things, hopefully pushing FB to embrace more open standards. These walls exist in our Vegas-like, faux-urban Grove shopping malls, in our data-mined, over-commercialized, sorry-but-u-cant-control-yr-own Facebook profile or, most importantly, in our own over-networked minds, so often satiated with the latest consumer appendage for which we had no need.

So simply put, if you believe that children deserve to play, that public spaces should be open (and that we need more of them!) and that libraries are the perfect model and their computers should not be restricted by DRM, then join our FB group. If you want to be a part of a growing A2K, digital commons movement, then figure out some way to pitch in. Joining our group is a very small start.

Which Way will USC go?

USC as a university faces a core, defining choice: do we as a community cherish the free exchange of ideas or are we willing to further compromise the same? Universities like USC are at a cross-roads. What is more important - student/teacher intellectual
growth and academic exploration or a corporate Intellectual Property rights logic?

So far, the admininistration has sided on the wrong side - show up Tuesday night and tell them to switch over (see below Free Culture blog link for information. The event is free and open to the public).

See my opinion published in today's Daily Trojan to see what's at stake (link).

Special Panel - "Intellectual Property Rights and The Modern University: How to Move Forward"

The USC Free Culture group is hosting a high-profile panel Tueday, March 27th, 5:00 p.m (info below). A new human rights "Knowledge Ecology" movement has been developing over the last decade. It's high time that it tips over. For background information on this movement, check out this USC Free Culture blogpost. Societies worldwide have reached a breaking point given the dislocating effects of globalization and the harm done by a specific, American-bred, late 20th Century corporate logic. This harmful logic has infected multiple networks (film, TV, publishing, real estate, medicine) and reveals itself in how one-sided most American's view of Intellectual property. This myopia is not surprising given the stragic, propaganda campaign led by the studio film, television, and music corporate lobbies.

Join us as we begin to re-orient the conversation.

Over the last decade, copyright emerged as weapon for the Recording Industry
Association of American (RIAA) to shut down Napster, alienate a whole generation of music lovers, and most recently, force universities to police their own students. Our distinguished panel will consider the following questions:

How should universities respond?

How do film schools balance students’ desire to mash-up/remix films with the institutional desire to protect copyright?

How is the growing media reform movement addressing these changes?

What: "Intellectual Property Rights & the Modern University: How to Move Forward in the 21st Century"

When: March 27, 2007, 5-6 pm. (Free Admission)

Where: USC’s Taper Hall, Rm 301
3501 Trousdale Parkway
Los Angeles, CA 90089

Who: Moderator: Geoffrey Cowan - Dean of the USC Annenberg School for Communication
Panelists: David A. Abel - President, CEO, ABL, Inc. Publisher/Managing Editor The Planning Report and Metro Investment Report. Chairman, New Schools/ Better Neighborhoods
Lincoln Bandlow: Partner, Fox, Spillane & Shaeffer and Visiting Professor at the Annenberg School of Journalism
Larry Gross - Director, USC Annenberg School of Communication
Michael Renov - Associate Dean, USC School of Cinematic Arts and Professor of Critical Studies
Jen Urban - Director, USC Intellectual Property Clinic and Clinical Associate Professor, USC Gould School of Law