Film

Temporary storage devices

Is it a cat? Or maybe its a rabbit. Childrens chalk drawings outdoors always interest me. In part its the excitement of drawing outdoors. In part its the sheer size of the drawing material. And then its the wonderful part that the drawing is only there fore a short moment. If you dont look now – it gone.

Yesterday at the seminar in Stockholm Lars Ilshammar spoke about information protectionism and the dangers of trusting storage devices. Microfilm has a life expectancy of less than 100 years (and is cost intesive). Most paper we use today will crumble to dust within 80 years due to the residual chemicals. Digital storage devices have a life expectancy of about 25 years (but probably much less). In addition to this digital storage devices require that we save and maintain both hardware and software and the means with which to maintain both.

As Lars put it – its a major problem and also a business opportunity for the company who manages to save everyones digital photo albums…

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Bah, lazy hypocrites!

Its soon time for me to lecture on plagiarism again. I give this lecture every year to groups of students who are about to write their thesis. The idea is both to help them understand the boundaries between quote, citation, paraphrase & plagiarism and to get them to start thinking about the nature of property in relation to intellectual goods.

Giving this lecture today is aided by the current discussion on copyright and file sharing. In my IT & ethics course I regularly attempt to discuss the problem of file sharing and ask my students what they believe is the moral position of the person who illegally downloads music or films. Usually among my students 80-90% of those who download music do not consider there actions to be morally wrong and nor do they consider themselves to be stealing. The most often used legitimisation of their actions:
1. that they are not depriving anyone of use.
2. the entertainment industry is rich enough.
3. they would not buy that which they download and therefore there is no loss to the industry.

Considering these points it is interesting to attempt to raise awareness about plagiarism. In one way it is pretty easy: if you get caught you will be punished and it is humiliating. But this is not a good starting point since the stress is on not getting caught as opposed to building awareness.

Attempting to discuss student plagiarism is made more difficult recently when two professors have been accused (correctly) of plagiarising others work in their books. One is a professor at the University College of BorÃ¥s who has been sloppy when quoting others his/her own defence other are harsher and call it plagiarism (DN 29/4 â?? 2006)

The second is a professor at the University of Göteborg who has stolen other peopleâ??s works and included them in his work. The excuses for this theft was that the book was written under a very short deadline and the works from which he borrowed material are included in the bibliography.

We would never accept these excuses from our own students then why would these professors even think that the excuses would work for them?

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So where the bloody hell are you?

In an attempt to grab attention the Australian Tourism has created a typical beautiful tourist add but with a twist. The tagline at the end is â??So where the bloody hell are you?â?? (referring to the tourists I guess!) The original ad can be seen here or here.

The tagline has sparked some debate. In Japan it simply does not work so it was changed to the more polite â??So why donâ??t you come?â?? (The Age). The television ad was banned in the UK for the use of â??bloodyâ??, in Canada for the line â??weâ??ve bought you a beerâ?? (Wikipedia).

The media company (Downwind Media) made a parody of the film which has caused lawyers for Tourism Australia (TA) to threatened legal action over the use of the music used in the parody (the music is similar but tune and tempo are different), TA claim that the offending tune still infringed on their copyright regardless of the musical differences. TA demanded the parody be removed from Downwind Media’s website.

See the spoof on You Tube.

The parody of the tourist advert is a legitimate form of cultural remix. It is particularly relevant since the ad sells Australian cultural icons/stereotypes. Therefore there is a great deal of legitimacy in providing alternative images of that which is sold. As in many cases such as these we can see that the supression has only increased the longevity of the spoof.

The main idea of the spoof is to juxtapose the “traditional” tourist images of tourism & Australia (e.g. outback, hospitality, kangaroos, pubs, watersports, nightlife, aborigines and beaches)

with the more negative images of Australia: violence, racism, drugs, immigration detention centers, dingos, human rights violations.

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Public Domain Comic

Law books are traditionally text heavy with little or no pictures. Very rarely including humor or light entertainment. Therefore it is great to see what law professors can do when they want to change this!

The Center for the Public Domain have created a cool comic explaining copyright and the public domain. It takes the form of classic horror comics and describes the adventures (or misadventures) of the hero Akiko, the documentary film maker. I thought it was geat! So go look at “Tales from the Public Domain: Bound by Law” by Aoki, Boyle & Jenkins

Read it online or download it here.

Posted on by mklang

21 days

Sunday. A bright full moon outside in a clear black sky. Today I re-worked the case study on property in virtual worlds and have added 1219 new words to the thesis production. Writing on property made me think about the Seagulls in Finding Nemo “Mine, Mine, Mine, Mine…”

Seagulls in Finding Nemo

The recommended reading of today is from the entry on Property from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

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Gästblogga

Henrik & jag gästbloggade på centerpartisten Johan Linander med rubriken Disney, upphovsrätt & dig.

Här är texten:

Disneys framgång bygger, i grunden, på en uråldrig tradition. Man tar en berättelse som de flesta har hört talas om, man omvandlar den (i Disneys fall till tecknad film) och sprider den till andra. Se bara på Askungen, Robin Hood, Törnrosa och Peter Pan. Genom deras återberättande har Disneys ikoner blivit en del av oss.

När en okänd svensk tecknare, Charlie Christenssen, ville göra detsamma tog han Disneys ikon och förvandlade honom till Arne Anka. Christenssen tolkade, bearbetade och spred en ny anka. Disney agerade snabbt och brutalt för att försvara deras Anka. Hade Christenssen inte orkat så hade Arne försvunnit som så många andra före honom. För att veta hur Christenssen lyckades rekommenderar vi att ni köper samlingsvolymen om Arne Anka, alternativt kan ni höra av er till oss, så berättar vi.

SÃ¥dana problem har länge varit nÃ¥gon annans problem. Större delen av befolkningen har inte möjlighet att skapa nÃ¥got som kan reta storföretag som Disney. Men som alla ni som läser detta vet â?? tekniken förändrar och skapar möjligheter. Vi och vÃ¥ra barn har nu möjlighet att ta det som finns omkring oss, tolka det och sprida det till en ringa kostnad. Vi kan som aldrig förr vara delaktiga i att tolka vÃ¥r egen samtid. Men nu när vi har möjligt att vara med rent tekniskt och ekonomiskt â?? har vi det rent juridiskt? Christenssen â??besegradeâ?? Disney, men kommer du att orka ta risken, ta striden?

Disney visar oss mycket. De lär våra barn och underhåller oss. Men bakom allt detta finns ett stort problem med vår upphovsrätt. Det handlar om att det inte finns någon möjlighet för den som vill ta en del av sin samtid och kommentera den. I striden mellan Kalle & Arne stod rätten att teckna en anka. Tack vare teknologi finns fler människor som kan skapa och sprida.

Borde inte lagen omfatta möjligheter för alla att kommentera sin egen samtid?

Mathias Klang är bitr. forskare på Göteborgs Universitet samt
projektledare för Creative Commons Sverige.

Henrik Sandklef är programmerare samt styrelsemedlem för Free Software Foundation Europe.

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IP & The Film Industry

The 27th G̦teborg Film Festival (27 January Р6 February) in collaboration with the School of Business, Economics and Law at G̦teborg University presents a seminar on Intellectual Property Film Industry in the Digital Age

Time: 28 January 10.00-15.30
Place: Volvosalen, School of Business, Economics and Law.

10.00 How downloading movies from the Internet affects the film industry.
Felix Oberholzer-Gee, Associate Professor in the Strategy Unit at Harvard Business School.
11.00 Does information really want to be free?
Anne Hiaring, Adjunct Professor of Intellectual Property at Golden Gate University, San Francisco.
Lunch
13.00 Commentaries:
Aske Dam, media advisor
Charlotte Lilliestierna Ehrén, lawyer
Jonas Birgersson, IT-pioneer

14.00-15-30 Panel discussion.

Update There seminar is open to all and at no cost.

Posted on by mklang

A Night in Casablanca

A brilliant tale found on the Chilling Effects Website. It contains exotic environments, legal threats, mad claims and of course the Marx Brothers. Does reality get better than this?

While preparing to film a movie entitled A Night in Casablanca, the Marx brothers received a letter from Warner Bros. threatening legal action if they did not change the filmâ??s title. Warner Bros. deemed the filmâ??s title too similar to their own Casablanca, released almost five years earlier in 1942, with Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman. In response Groucho Marx dispatched the following letter to the studioâ??s legal department:

Dear Warner Brothers,

Apparently there is more than one way of conquering a city and holding it as your own. For example, up to the time that we contemplated making this picture, I had no idea that the city of Casablanca belonged exclusively to Warner Brothers. However, it was only a few days after our announcement appeared that we received your long, ominous legal document warning us not to use the name Casablanca.

It seems that in 1471, Ferdinand Balboa Warner, your great-great-grandfather, while looking for a shortcut to the city of Burbank, had stumbled on the shores of Africa and, raising his alpenstock (which he later turned in for a hundred shares of common), named it Casablanca.

I just donâ??t understand your attitude. Even if you plan on releasing your picture, I am sure that the average movie fan could learn in time to distinguish between Ingrid Bergman and Harpo. I donâ??t know whether I could, but I certainly would like to try.

…I have a hunch that his attempt to prevent us from using the title is the brainchild of some ferret-faced shyster, serving a brief apprenticeship in your legal department. I know the type wellâ??hot out of law school, hungry for success, and too ambitious to follow the natural laws of promotion. This bar sinister probably needled your attorneys, most of whom are fine fellows with curly black hair, double-breasted suits, etc., into attempting to enjoin us. Well, he wonâ??t get away with it! Weâ??ll fight him to the highest court! No pasty-faced legal adventurer is going to cause bad blood between the Warners and the Marxes. We are all brothers under the skin, and weâ??ll remain friends till the last reel of â??A Night in Casablancaâ?? goes tumbling over the spool.

Sincerely,

Groucho Marx

Unamused, Warner Bros. requested that the Marx Brothers at least outline the premise of their film. Groucho responded with an utterly ridiculous storyline, and, sure enough, received another stern letter requesting clarification. He obliged and went on to describe a plot even more preposterous than the first, claiming that he, Groucho, would be playing â??Bordello, the sweetheart of Humphrey Bogart.â?? No doubt exasperated, Warner Bros. did not respond. A Night in Casablanca was released in 1946.

I must use this story (the full Marx letter is here) in one of my lectures.

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Disruptive Technology

Is it a sign of senility or hubris that I occasionally post pieces of my thesis work in this blog? No idea. But here is a piece on disruptive technology.

While in many cases a disruptive technology can be seen as a technology that replaces the incumbent technology one must not forget that this replacement also displaces the social organisation around the displaced technology. Therefore printing presses replaced the scriptoria and also change the role of the scribe. Railways replaced canals and also changed the way in which the social organisation around the canals functioned. Therefore railroads did not only make an impact on the barge pilot but also on the bargeman, lock keeper, canal owners, canal-side innkeepers, barge builders, waterway engineers and the horse trade (most barges were horse drawn). This process is not only one of historical interest. Examples of disruptive technologies are all around us. It is, in fact, a continual process. Digital cameras are replacing photographic film, flash drives replace floppy disks, DVD players replace VHS players. Each change brings has social and economic effects to a larger of smaller degree.

Actually I wanted to use something else but after looking around I could not find a good work on the social history of writing and writing implements. Not languages but a social history of putting text on paper. This feels like a book I would like to read. Instead I found Henry Petroski’s book The Pencil: A History of Design and Circumstance which was not as good as I hoped it would be. I thought it would be a social history but it turned out to be more of a vague technical history which makes brief stops at erratic points in the development of the pencil. But to be fair I have only read a third of the book – so I still might change my mind.

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Fair Use

The Center for Social Media has produced interesting material on Fair Use:

Documentary Filmmakers’ Statement of Best Practices in Fair Use

Peter Jaszi – â??Yes, You Can!â?? â??Where You Donâ??t Even Need â??Fair Useâ?? a guide offers to what falls into the category of free use.

Peter Jaszi – Fair Use: An Essential Feature of Copyright hearing testimony by explains the legal significance of the doctrine of fair use, for creators, consumers and commerce.

Peter Hirtle – How to Find Out What is in the Public Domain explains when copyrighted material falls into the public domain.

Pat Aufderheide and Peter Jaszi – Untold Stories: Creative Consequences of the Rights Clearance Culture for Documentary Filmmakers – 2004 study shows how rights clearance problems hobbled creativity in documentary filmmaking.

Or watch the 7 minute video summarizing the results of the study Stories Untold: (43 Mb, streaming)

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