The reading for this week is “Who Controls Digital Culture? By Mark Poster, he discusses multiple issues of control in our technologically enhanced digital culture. In this reading, Poster addresses controlling information and its hazards, the politics of control, or politics as control, fixed vs. variable cultural objects, copyright law, authors, artists, creators, innovators, peer-to-peer networks, the music industry, and lastly the politics of digital music. Furthermore, in today’s society, many things such as books, movies and music are made accessible online and are accessible for free, through peer-to-peer networks and online programs which allows users to reformat music and videos on YouTube for free. This brings up the main point of the reading, which is, who really controls the digital culture in today’s society.
Poster discusses how everything has become commodified, meaning, that culture is now an industry to sell and promote. In this cultural industry, corporations face issues concerning the control of “production, reproduction and distribution of texts, sounds and images” (1). He also explains that because technology has become quite advanced, how much more advanced can technology become and what affects will they further have on control are questions to be asked. Complex information machines, provides us with the ability to interact online, communicate, search, produce, and to download through the Internet. When Poster uses the Matrix analogy on information machines, he explains that although we have the ability to turn off our machines, many of us don’t because we are so attached to the capabilities these information machines offer us. We may be the ones who control these machines in terms of its usage, but in a w...
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...r-to-peer networks will diminish the amount of music in circulation” (2). However, I don’t believe that this will be the case, like the video show in class on copyright, I don’t think the peer to peer file sharing will cause less music to be made, but it helps to spread music more, which also aids the music industries who use work of art by people they find through peer-to-peer networks, which contradicts their need to control the flow of information in terms of the capitalist view for profit. I also believe that just as many people will continue to buy music as others download from peer-to-peer networks. Furthermore, peer-to-peer networks allows creativity to flourish rather than consumption, and it combines production and consumption, dissolving the line between them. Overall, I liked this reading and I found it very informative and I learned a great deal from it.
People all around agree that technology is changing how we think, but is it changing us for the better? Clive Thompson definitely thinks so and this book is his collection of why that is. As an avid fiction reader I wasn’t sure this book would captivate me, but the 352 pages seemingly flew past me. The book is a whirlwind of interesting ideas, captivating people, and fascinating thoughts on how technology is changing how we work and think.
An “analyst” was quoted in the case (in 2002) as saying that “people will pay for music on the Internet, eventually.” This person was skeptical of the willingness of consumers to pay for
When it comes to the definition of technology in their articles, both Carr and Cascio have similarities and differences. Both authors are debating about the use of technology in today’s society. Both of their articles touch base on the ideals of “what technology is” in their perspectives. Carr believes that technology is making us want the quick path to information or common knowledge and says the Internet is “a machine designed for the efficient and automated collection, transmission, and manipulation of information”. Cascio also believes th...
In the past 100 years, the world has completely turned around. The technological and computer revolutions have completely changed the way the world works. Henry Ford revolutionized factorial production through the creation of the assembly line. It increased efficiency and a basic standard of conformity among products, therefore making the company a lot more successful. The rest of the industry creating a nation-wide revolution based on efficiency adopted this new innovation. Following the innovation of the assembly line, a new era of development came into existence. In the 1970’s, computers were first introduced. Although they were as large as a room and could only play tic tac toe, they were the start of the technological revolution that made our society what it is today. Hundreds, if not thousands, of new inventions were thought of each year, creating new jobs and a new way of life. Records and files previously kept in file cabinets are now all computerized. Every person’s life is computerized: identification, police reports, one’s house and work. Almost every person has a computer, whether it is used for fun, school, Internet connection, graphic arts, or music. Computers have revolutionized our lives, whether that is a good or bad thing is the question. Do we create and control the computers, or have our own inventions taken such a hold on our lives, that they now control us? Aldous Huxley uses Henry Ford as the basis for an omni powerful leader who enforces the new values of efficiency through a totalitarian and mind-controlling government; subsequently, Huxley creates Brave New World to warn us of the effect that technology will have on our lives in the future.
The exposition of my text was my vision of Earth in the distant future, where computer development has increased dramatically, to the extent where it controls humans. I exploited
From the article, it shows many things in the world which are changed. Some changes are easy for us to see and understand, some of them are not. The digital revolution makes a free world in the internet, and it also gives us a new future. We are going to the future, and it is necessary for us to touch those new things. Many new things come up with the internet, such as, social media, webcast, and vision real, etc. We cannot refuse to use the new technology which are more and more popular, so we have to accept them and try to use them in the best way. The world change faster and faster. In early, the computer was remembered that a large machine which placed in specialized rooms needed to use skilled operators with a limited market, but now the computer is smaller, faster, and easier, and I can even hold my laptop to everywhere. In conclusion, People have to accept the changes in order to make the world better. The real challenge for people is to find a way that to create a system with many components that can work together and change, such as, tradition and advance. The world already had the digital revolution, and the world need digital
...ant annual decline in the sales of music albums. Music companies are facing heavy loss in revenue as more and more people are developing the habit of downloading music for free. This loss affects in cutting down the salaries of artists. After spending enormous amount of time to produce a good music, artists could not get sufficient income and this forms a deep wound within the heart of artists. Consequently, some artists or musicians lose their confidence in creating better music due to the sales of their albums are not promising. Many artists are forced to leave this profession as their creativity is not appreciated by the public. Therefore, Music piracy not only affects the music companies and artists, but it also brings negative effects to all of us as well. Therefore, everyone should stand against music piracy so that this negative trend will end in one day.
2.What should peer-to-peer (P2P) networks do to grow their business? P2P providers should look for new ways to legalize file-sharing. P2P companies should convince the music industry by presenting feasible solutions that economically can benefit the music industry, like charging users fees to access files. Placing a system to assist file-sharing users to open retail accounts, whereas retailers allow other P2P fans to download songs for small fees, then a percentage of this money is handed in to copyright owners. Applying a filtering system to prevent sharing the music that is a subject to copyright law. Offering the music labels flat fees to get music licences.
... issue of file-sharing, and the decline in music sales due to people downloading free music. Besides using vague information and few statistics, she is also making many assumptions about the facts that she is stating in this article. When she is making too many assumptions, I am not entirely persuaded to steer clear from downloading music for free. Therefore, this is why I do not think this article is effective.
In The Matrix, technology dominates society. The push to automate and link the world is a perpetual theme of modern society. As technology rapidly advances, implementation of computer-driven robotic devices and software programming has inundated the world and changed human perspective. There is a cost to pay when redefining the population with AI technology. This cost is identified in Barlett and Byer’s, “Back To The Future: The Humanistic Matrix” “The Matrix metaphorizes our willingness to fantasize that the ‘freedom’ rhetoric of e-capitalism accurately reflects our
This peer-to-peer file sharing, or P2P, was an automated way to copy copyrighted material (Tyson). The creation and increased usage of Napster resulted in a crisis for the industry because neither the record labels nor the artists were getting any money in return. Although Napster lost in lawsuits against them for breaking copyright laws, labels weren’t able to stop this type of piracy and sure enough, new similar software platforms were created. Some P2P file sharing sites that are popular now include BitTorrent, uTorrent, and The Pirate Bay. P2P sharing changed the way the music could be shared and the traditional business model was no longer dominant in the music industry because of
Remember Napster, the first peer-to-peer file sharing service found in 1999 that raised a ruckus in the music industry? Through Napster, web users copied digital recordings that thousands of other users could copy for free, ultimately creating “a copying frenzy” (Rose, 2000). The birth of digital file sharing created uproar in the music industry as the opportunities for piracy escalated (Freedman, 2003). Contrary, this forced the music industry to retaliate; causing monumental changes in the way music was created, formatted, distributed and consumed. Digital technologies and the Internet transformed the traditional structure of activities in the music industry’s supply chain that followed content creation, production, promotion, distribution and consumption into a digital, interactive, multifaceted and collaborative model in which content creation, engagement and distribution between content
The "pervasive, invasive information infrastructure...is as much a part of our lives as religion was for medieval surfs" (Tetzeli 1994, p. 60). But is it too much? We've all seen the mind-numbing statistics about the exponential growth of information and of technological means of distributing and accessing it. However, some people question whether the problem really is one of overload. One source of the problem is actually the multiplicity of communication channels. Unlike earlier eras, such as when printing presses replaced manuscript copying, new technologies are not replacing older ones but are adding to the host of media choices (Davidson 1996). With these multiple channels the information flow is now simultaneous and multidirectional. However, most traditional information management practices are too linear and specific: they were pipes developed for a stream, not an ocean (Alesandrini 1992). The sheer quantity of information and the speed with which it can be acquired give an illusion of accomplishment (Uline 1996).
The music industry started in the mid 18th century with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Through the decades there has been a great increase in this industry; however, the revenues for this industry have declined by half in the last 10 years. This has been caused by music piracy, which “is the copying and distributing of copies of a piece of music for which the composer, recording artist, or copyright-holding record company did not give consent” . After 1980’s, when the Internet was released to public, people started to develop programs and websites in which they could share music, videos, and information with...
Production companies took a bold step forward by uploading their content online. People now are not obliged to buy a full album to listen to one song, for a minimal fee you can buy the track you want, the same goes for movies and electronic publications. The downloaded files though will be digitally protected so that only the person who downloads them can use them, and he can’t share them at home or with friends. Even with this step from production companies, a large portion of people who download music still do it for free. Moreover hackers came up with new ways to remove the digital copyrights so the same as before one downloads music and distributes them around.