Copyright

Let's face it, most of us have downloaded songs for free off illegal music programs right? Doesn't this alone give us a clear example of the general disregard for the laws of copyright in today's society? If the tables were turned however, and we were the ones spending hours upon hours creating and producing masterpieces for little or no credit, only to have people replicate them and perhaps add a techno beat over top and then call it their own...I wonder how much we would neglect copyright! 

The music industry is suffering from this disregard that people seem to have for the copyright laws and it is of popular belief that the cause is the downloading of music for free which is taking away from record sales.

Perhaps the whole problem with the looming downfall of the music industry in regards to copyright lies in the music, like Michael "Blue" Williams, manager of the band OutKast, says. He speaks in an interview about the music industry and its decreasing number of records being sold, "everyone's blaming it on downloading. In my opinion it's not downloading that's killing us, it's [that] we stopped putting out quality music. We stopped giving the public something to believe in." In some ways I guess this is true. I still occasionally buy CDs if I know that every song on them will be a great song. To me an album like that is worth the $30 you pay at the CD store for the quality and the actual physicality of the CD itself (to be able to flick through the lyrics booklet and look at pictures of the band etc). I might even buy it at the itunes store just for the convenience! 

iTunes has been trying to counteract this problem by putting out each song as a single in its iTunes store. SO instead of having to buy a whole album when you just want a few of the songs, you can pick and choose what you want to get! I think its a pretty good solution to the problem of quality of music, however price still remains a problem. I think that the whole limewire craze has gone too far to now convince people to pay for music after all this time. I'll readily admit that I often hop onto limewire and download a few songs, I feel a little bit bad that I am contributing to the downfall of the music industry, just not enough to spend my money! 

All in all, if everyone thinks like this, copyright is bound to lose out, which is a shame for creative artists but is looking inevitable at this point. If we could compromise and find a way to acknowledge artists and make sure they are compensated for their work while having cheap, easy access to their creative materials then maybe there is a way to save these industries who rely on the consumption of artists' products.

See you in class!

MMORPG, virtual worlds and augmented reality

Hey everyone!

So.. I've had a bit of a break from these blogs over the holidays so apologies for being a bit slack!

When we discussed augmented reality I must admit I was a little dumbfounded by how much of a phenomenon virtual worlds are! People getting rich by selling property!? People actually BUYING property to begin with! MMORPGs and augmented reality games I can kind of see the appeal in since they have game elements and goals (although as Byron points out, there could be complications regarding augmented realities these days with bomb scares etc), but the concept of virtual worlds like 'second life' I still find hard to grasp. It seems from a lot of your other blogs about this week's topic, that others of you find it a bit hard to come to terms with too. I guess we live in such a social environment (being students in dunedin) that its hard to imagine actually having to log on to a virtual space to interact with other people. I'm sure if we grow older and lose touch with old friends/ have limited time to go out and meet people/ don't have the courage to step out of our comfort zones and head to a speed dating session/ grow so fat that we can't physically leave our own homes (touch wood), we too might embrace the convenience of having potential relationships and friendships just a click away! 

Hardey's reading about internet dating outlines the effectiveness of the internet as a tool for dating, in comparison to older methods like newspapers, but I feel (at this point in time) that when we replace things like spontaneity and fun risks with highly informed, researched planning, we lose some of the fun there is in forming relationships. Not only is somw of the magic gone but as Sophie pointed out, there is a danger of being exposed to scammers. This doesn't even have to be a risk for dating services alone! Scammers could strike in any online space, whether it be on something like second life, msn or any other chatroom where people are forming relationships with strangers who seem to be trustworthy. Anyone can invent an online self which differs greatly from their offline self (isn't that what the internet is all about!?) so we really don't know who we can and cannot trust initially.

Just another thing about augmented reality before I leave you! I found an awesome video of a demo from the company 'Total Immersions' which specialises in augmented reality technologies. The demonstrator (one of the co-founders of the company) talks about how the augmented reality technology works and how it is used by car companies like nissan and BMW for a range of things including design simulation to visualise new prototypes by changing shapes and colours and are subsequently saving almost ten million euros on each project! This alone shows how augmented reality is helping to change the world in regards to the economy and production costs. No doubt augmented reality is going to take over the world one day! Its pretty exciting stuff!

Cya later!

Blogs

Finally something that I can say I've been involved in! At first, I must admit, I thought doing these blogs was going to be a bit of a hassle but now that I'm getting into it a bit it just feels like I'm sharing my thoughts much like writing an online diary..!
While blogs have had a relatively short life so far (arising in 1999), I would have assumed that they'd actually been around for a much shorter time. Maybe this is because blogs (and personal websites like facebook, myspace and bebo) seem to have boomed in the past few years. These days you can even pick up an NW magazine and find the likes of Lindsay Lohan posing with a 'celebrity blogger' who has named himself Perez Hilton! He is literally famous for simply having his own blog... guys, there's hope for all of us now! The 'Own Your Identity' blog that Erika made a link to on her page is really interesting and I recommend reading it if you haven't already done so! It talks about how blogs and personal web-pages are taking over the domain that mobile phones used to occupy, i.e. "facebook is the new cellphone..." If you think about it its so true!
We use these sites and blogs as a way of communicating and keeping in touch with friends and family for a number of reasons. Firstly its cheaper to post a message on a friend's bebo site than send a text message or make a phonecall! In addition to this, a blog is a much more variable medium, letting us post photos, videos, links and so on.
There is such a variety out there in regards to the types of blogs on the internet. From all the political and news blogs to the blogs written by bored teenagers wanting to share the details of their day at school. The content differs as well as the audiences which differ in both type and size. Some blogs are gaining such audiences that theres a possibility that the role of traditional news media may soon change. While Boa makes a good point in saying that the 6 o clock news is easy to watch while multi-tasking, (I admit that I also glance at the news in between my sizzling and simmering) blogs are accessible at any time and are often more up to date. Once again the idea of the prosumer comes up here- anyone can comment on blogs and share opinions or other facts which I consider a great kind of freedom in a way. Its a cool thing to be able to disagree with or commend bloggers for their ideas!

Anyway its off to bed for me!

Night guys

Trouble watching video?

If you're having trouble viewing the video I put a link to, you can paste it into your browser and it should work. Not sure what I did wrong! sorry!

Authority, Web 2.0 and the evil Wikipedia

This week's lectures brought up a few things (out of the many) I didn't know about the Internet. I had never actually heard of Web 1.0 or 2.0 until the wednesday's class! What is of interest to me about the difference between these two are the ideas about there being a "dying distinction" between producers and consumers. For me, the fact that they are merging into one marks an advance in our society as we are able to have input, whether it be facts or opinions, as well as being able to take away knowledge. The only doubts I have about this integration is regarding question of reliability. I guess this is where I should bring Wikipedia up...

As much as I love trawling through Wikipedia as a form of procrastination, I have been told over and over and over again NEVER to reference it in any academic assignment. And I can understand why. Just the other day as an experiment I added myself to the list of Unicol's notable former residents, along with Marc Ellis and Anton Oliver. Needless to say it was changed after just 24 hours, the fact that it was that easy makes me question the reliability in a big way! The experiment in this week's reading was interesting though. The fact that it concluded that "experts rated the articles as more credible than the non-experts" was an interesting outcome. Although, as it said at the end (and because I'm really keen to use some of the knowledge I've been picking up in my stats paper), the sample size in the experiment was small, and this, among other reasons, would suggest that results could not be completely representative of the population of Wikipedia users...


"So what then is the use of an encyclopedia which might be unreliable? For some it is of no use, for others, it's a good starting point." <===== I AGREE!


As for Web 3.0, although I have no idea what the Internet will progress into, a video I found on youtube gives some ideas about where the Internet and technology is heading in the future(visit it here) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fUHtc37MC8&feature=related. Some of it makes alot of sense, like the combining of organisations like Google and Amazon to for "Googlezon" which leads to the personalizing of the Internet,(a sort of tailoring of information for each individual user). The video also talks about the combining of materials from users demographics, interests, previous purchases, essentially our "lives", to form news that is "more relevant than ever before". Although these progressions may not be happening this year as in the video, (which I emphasise, is fictitious!) I have a feeling they are not too far away at all!

See ya!