Curating: Google Alerts

When I first started using Google Alerts to curate and manage content, I was focusing on ideas such as the DIY movement and self-learning. I wasn't really sure why I wanted to research these, but there was something drawing me to them. After a couple days of receiving the alerts for content related to these topics, I honestly was overwhelmed by how much is out there relating to these. I'm not exactly sure how this overwhelming feeling led me to the following realization, but they just connected somehow for me. Or I guess you could just say that I decided to focus on a completely different idea. Either way. But anyway, I found that in all of the content that I found, I was drawn to the ones that had to do with defining our humanity. Learning, creating, improving, etc. on our own accord is something that is innately human, but we also need a way to express our newly found experiences. That's where technology comes in. Without the use of the internet, self-directed learning would take a lot more discipline, and the DIY movement would be practically non-existent. So I added a new alert for "humans and technology" and the results are fascinating! I thought I was going to be overwhelmed again by all of the content, but the results are actually quite narrowed. Here are some examples of what I found:

Robot car that drives itself
Robots that can collaborate with humans
Scientists are actually creating a bionic man--completely from technology!
The desire to extend human life through technology
Looking at how dependent on technology humans are
Technology that can be part of our wardrobe (Which actually fits right in with the book I'm reading!)
I think this one is my favorite: Allowing prosthetic limbs to be incorporated into the actual nervous system
and creating a computer that functions like a human brain.

This relationship between humans and technology is fascinating to me! It is remixing our culture, creating something completely new for us to study, as I talked about in my "Changes in the Humanities" post at the beginning of the semester. We want to be human, but we use technology to expand, share, and get new ideas. In this way, technology is just one of the facets of humanity, but I also think that sometimes it goes too far when it seems like it is overtaking humanity. One such example is this video of androids built in Japan (and I actually was legitimately scared a little bit by this!)  But what do you think? Is technology and science going to far? Not far enough?

SoundCloud problems

Melody brought up a good question when she asked me whether I have been able to find some of the smaller provo bands on soundcloud. The answer is that it has been hard. The problem with actively trying to find a smaller band, as opposed to being led to it by recommendation algorithms, is that you are going to be shown a lot of bands and songs with similar names (even the same name). And often times you won't be able to tell that this is the band you are looking for unless you know the names of there specific songs. And finally, some local bands opt out of uploading there music to soundcloud (such as Joshua James). So what are my alternatives to finding these bands?

Well the best one is to go to smaller scale local music venues, where you can see local bands play and talk to people who can give you that information. You can also do a social network search...though i'm not entirely sure how many of these bands continually tag themselves as a provo band. So basically ask friends or other people, whether on Facebook or in person. As Melody pointed out, sharing music on sites like spotify or soundcloud with a small group of friends can be a great way to discover new music. So my answer is that no, I have not been able to find many smaller Provo bands. I will need to pursue other avenues besides SoundCloud searches.

For example Professor Burton told me his son played in a local band called "Eli Whitney" and I remember him saying they had a soundcloud, yet I couldn't find them on there. Now this may be because I misspelled the name of the band. But I tried entering some variation on the name and still couldn't find anything. It seems hard to find a band unless it already has sizable views on soundcloud, though not as hard as youtube. But it is still chaotic and hard to navigate at times. I wish they had a better system of organization and tagging.

Remixing Humanity

I am fascinated by remix culture on multiple levels. The first level is the most well-known level among the majority of people: the remix music industry. The idea of remixing music really expanded in the 90's when DJ's became more and more popular, and then that evolved into things like song mashups. I love song mashups! My roommates and I will make mashups on our own, and we love finding more ideas like this:

Remixing then started to expand into other forms of media, as mentioned in this article. However, remixing also expands into mediums that are outside of digital media. For example, in class, Dr. Burton gave us the example that Milton's "Paradise Lost" was a remix of the Bible and a Homeric Epic, and in this case we see the remixing of different genres. Remixing can also happen across different mediums, as seen in things like audiobooks and the like.

But I want to take the idea of remixing a little bit further. Can remixes happen between people? Cultures? Ideas? Of course it can! It happens all around us, we just need to look for the different combinations that are being mixed together. One of the first things that I thought of was this blog post that I did a while back. At the time, I was talking about how to make a mark on, and influence the digital world. But I realized that the example I used of the virtual choir is also a remix. The people involved are all of different backgrounds, cultures, religions, you name it, but they were all combined to create something new. I also found this interesting video/article about how strangers can be mixed together to create a familiar feeling.

Just in the past week, I have found another layer of remixing that I find fascinating. I realized through my book preview that the topic of the human/technology relationship is in itself an aspect of remix culture. The novel that I am reading is all about how technology is influencing humanity, and it is actually becoming an actual part of humanity. Humans are being remixed. Is this a good thing? How are we supposed to react to this remixing of humanity? Do you even think it is a remix at all? What are your thoughts?

Curating with Diigo

When I was trying to figure out what I wanted to use for this curation project, I decided that I wanted to use a tool that I had never tried out or heard of before, so I chose diigo. I started out by making a profile and wandering around the website a little to try and get a feel for what I was jumping into, but there isn't really that much on the actual diigo.com webpage. So, I next decided to watch the video tutorials. I figure that it would probably be way easier to use this site to its full benefit if I knew what I was doing rather then spending hours trying to figure it out on my own. 

As I've been searching around trying to find articles and websites that talk about my subject (which is still a little all over right now ranging from media, to editing, to web identity), diigo has been really interesting to work with. My favorite feature is being able to highlight and annotate articles and to archive articles. I read tons of stuff online everday and I feel like I am always telling someone, "I read this awesome article today, but I don't remember what it told me only the basic subject, and I don't remember where I found it." Useless, huh? With diigo, I can save articles to my online archive so that I can go back to them later, and with the highlighting feature, I don't even have to read the whole article again to remember what it was all about. Instead, I have some notes and some highlights that I can use to get the gist real fast (cause I already did the work to read it once, it's great that I don't have to read it again!). I really appreciate that all of this carries over to my iPad too since I mostly use my laptop at home and my iPad on campus, so I am swaping between the two a lot throughout the day. 

The next step that I need to take in using diigo is to start finding other people that are using this site that are interested in the same thing as me so that I can start piggybacking off of their research. It would be really useful to see what others are archiving and see how was others have already found can help me figure out what I need to be looking for an how to make my research more refined. 

Curation: SoundCloud

I am currently working on curating a playlist on my SoundCloud composed entirely of Provo bands. So far I have the bigger names on there, but I want to get a bigger sampling of what Provo is producing. Going forward I will expand this list.

But what is SoundCloud?

SoundCloud is a site where anyone can go and listen to the music (or even interviews, etc.) posted there. You can explore music under many different genres, such as rock, electronic, Hip-hop, and Jazz. You can also listen to things under the categories of Story Telling, Technology, Sports, and News. If you want to comment on songs, or like them (done by pushing on a little heart symbol below the song, for the purpose of being able to browse through your "likes" at a later time period for repeat listens) you need to create an account. This is free. Also, bands are not payed to put there music up on SoundCloud, so this is one of those abundance economies. The artist has an option to allow the song to be downloaded for free, to make it unavailable for download, or to make it available for download but for a price. In this way it is more progressive than itunes, in that you can listen to the entire song before deciding whether or not to buy it. In SoundCloud you can create playlists on your account, you can repost songs you like, which will show up on the feeds of the people that are following you (and likewise if you like what someone is posting you can follow them). All this is intended to help people share and discover music. Indeed, not every band out there chooses to post to SoundCloud, but many have done so. Including a lot of Provo Bands. 

So essentially, i will tag my playlist with things such as "Provo Bands, Provo Music, Indie, Alt-rock", and so on. This will allow people who are looking for that type of music to stumble upon my playlist. I have already gotten one follower based off this playlist. 

Curation: Trying out Goodreads

First, just throwing this out there, someone should write something called "curation myths." Internet lists are all over that kind of thing, and that's a catchy title.

Okay now that that's out of the way, let's talk about curation tools. I'm going to be trying out Goodreads as a way of collecting useful books and useful writers for the topic I am going to be studying in depth this semester. I've never used Goodreads for that purpose before. When I have used it, it has been to catalogue my own personal collection of books, and to read reviews from friends. I am excited to use it as a way of looking outwardly instead of inwardly now.

I chose Goodreads over Amazon lists because I just like that Goodreads is not trying to get me spend money. I suppose Goodreads has monetary interests just like everybody else, but on the corporate corruption scale of Whole Foods to Goldman Sachs, they seem to me closer to first end of things, similar to Google maybe, or at least what Google aspires to be. (And apparently Amazon is buying Goodreads anyway?? I guess it's time to bow down to the Man regardless.)

A more relevant feature of this tool is the ability to make separate lists for subtopics, and make shelves. I also like the community of book readers on the site. One time, I even connected with the author of a book I reviewed on Goodreads on Twitter after he found my review.

Some limitations I am keeping in mind: I am worried that Goodreads does not have every book (of course, neither would Amazon or any other source, but the possibility to sell is certainly a motivation to have a robust catalogue). And I am also concerned about the limitation that it only has books, where it may be just as useful for me to find articles and essays, published in magazines instead of on their own.

One final thought about Goodreads: when I first learned about it, it was in another class with Dr. Burton, and I was surprised that nothing equivalent existed for film, which is the medium I prefer the most (hopefully that does not make me lose English major cred to prefer films to books). I wrote a post about that, and was happy that someone who was developing a site for that found my post and commented. His site has since launched, Seen That, as well as another, Letterboxd. I have used and been impressed by both of those, though I prefer Letterboxd so far.

Reclaiming Fair Use -- A Book Preview

I picked up Reclaiming Fair Use: How to Put Balance Back in Copyright from the library this week, to boost my literacy of copyright laws and practices. As someone with some experience and lots of aspiration to create content and share it using digital tools, I want to have a firmer grasp of the stickiness of the issue, and I liked that Patricia Aufderheide and Peter Jaszi's book seems to come at the issue from the perspective of "reclaiming" something rather than digging heels into tradition.

Preview

After spending a few minutes browsing the book, I see that the book's scope is usefully narrow. It does not appear to be a history of copyright law in general, but rather a focused look at the fair use clause of copyright law (clause? is that how to think about it? I'll find out!).

In addition, I seem to have been right about the forward-thinking tone and approach of the book. Some of the most interesting-looking chapters have titles like "Why Fair Use Is So Important," "How to Fair Use," "Pioneering Best Practices," and "The Culture of Fear and Doubt, and How to Leave It."

Early Social Proof

I let my social network know that I'm thinking about these things, and was happy to get a response from a friend who is a freelance writer, and who also works at a content and marketing company. She writes:

I have to research copyright every day for my job. We have to be careful in how we use different companies' logos and taglines, and when we write a new one, we have to make sure it's not already copyrighted or trademarked. It's an interesting world. Not many people know that the "Happy Birthday" song is copyrighted song, which is why restaurants can't sing it and come up with their own ditties, and it's why it is rarely used in films-- because it's very expensive to use... I could geek out about copyrights all day.

I especially loved her last line. Geeking out about copyrights sounds even more fun than it did when I started!

Similar Books
I put the book through an Amazon search to see what other books it might hang out with on the shelf, and I found books with titles like Moral Panics and the Copyright Wars; How to Fix Copyright; The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind; and Free Ride: How Digital Parasites are Destroying the Culture Business, and How the Culture Business Can Fight Back. 

That last one, especially, seems like a provocative "other side of the story" to loud faction who support totally open information and media. I'll make a note to check that one out.

I also found the most common "shelves" that Goodreads users put Reclaiming Fair Use in. I found that to be a helpful way to not only finding other similar books but also understanding how people think about and classify this one.

Formal Reviews
I found several reviews of the book using the university library's database. These reviews come from journalism journals, which is understandable although I was expecting more from law journals, which I also found.

David King, a media librarian, describes the book as "a pep talk and how-to manual on exercising fair-use rights" and points out that the book is more interested in empowering people to use the freedoms the law already allows rather than needing to storm the castle of copyright entirely and rewrite everything.

Scholar Judith Fathallah writes:

Not intended for ‘‘bomb-throwers’’ (in effect, those who seriously question the legitimacy of intellectual private property), nor for ‘‘big copyright holders’’ (Introduction, p. ix), this is a book for citizen users who largely accept the legitimacy of media ownership, or at least believe with the authors that immediate efforts to change the system are unrealistic, seeking rather to exercise and strengthen their rights within it.

Fathallah comes from the UK, which must inform her valuable critiqe of the book, that it swings nationalistic in its perspective. After all, Fair Use is an American law, and does not exist in exactly the same way in other countries.

Informal Reviews
Wow, there is a site called FairUseTube.org: Promoting Fair Use in Online Video -- it is no surprise that theirs was the first review of this book! The review was positive and praised the book's history of copyright and (especially) its emphasis that much can be done within the realm of what laws already exist:

The authors argue that copyright reform advocates were far too quick to concede that fair use is too vague and nebulous a concept to be of any real use to those wishing to put copyrighted content to new and transformative uses. Instead, scholars like Lawrence Lessig and others began advocating either for radical changes to the copyright system that are unlikely to ever happen, or for alternatives to traditional copyright such as Creative Commons.

The user reviews on Goodreads also seem very positive. This appears to be a readable, interesting book to a wide variety of people interested in copyright issues.

Other Sources
Classrooms have used this book -- what a useful thing to know, in case I want to reach out to some of the people who have thought the book through. Occidental College teaches a course with the book (And that course also uses clips from 30 Rock, so they have my affection!). As does American University and the University of Pennsylvania. All these courses seem to be focused about new media, copyright, and history.

I also found videos of interviews with the author, one short one (which has been embed-disabled, but can be found here) and this longer one:

First Impressions
By the time I actually sat down to seriously begin reading the book, I already had a sense of what I might find, which helped me read much more effectively.

I am especially taken by the authors' critical examination of the "culture of fear and doubt" surrounding copyrighted material. There is an inspiring story about a parent posting a video of her child dancing to a popular song. Universal, who owned the music, issued a takedown notice, but the parent went to court and won. Fair use advocates want owners like Universal to stop abusing their hedge around the law that keeps content creators from living within the law, out of fear.

I also thought it was nicely put that we are "becoming a nation of makers and sharers" (though that may have traces of the nationalistic critique). As someone who grew up as that really became possible, I didn't really consider the shift inherent in that reality.

I am relieved and eager to learn from this book so far that one does not need to keep a copyright lawyer in your pocket to understand and use the copyright laws effectively. Here's to empowerment and creative fair use!