I read a lot of film blogs, and it’s sort of fascinating to me to see how frequently bloggers and reviewers break film embargoes (and how often footage and trailers leak). I can’t imagine how studios keep tabs on the absolute proliferation of bloggers and websites who engage in this behavior, or how it’s really remedied.

It’s proven fairly difficult so far to find the reasoning behind embargoes, although there’s quite a bit of speculation stating that the reason for enforcing them is to prevent negative reviews from coming out prior to a film’s release. Thus far, the only mechanism of control I have seen is for punishing critics or bloggers who break an embargo — in the form of studios not inviting the individual back for future screenings.

This is by far the most informative article thus far: http://www.mcnblogs.com/mcindie/archives/2007/07/what_it_means_m.html, which compares the embargo system to a caste system in that national critics usually get to see films before regional critics, while alternative papers with a high readership will get invited to screenings before freelancers or bloggers who have a small readership.

Leaked footage and trailers could be removed with DMCA takedown notices , but embargoes present a sort of interesting dynamic of studios controlling information with no incredibly forceful tool in place.

As a general curiosity: does anyone know more about studio embargoes? Most of my attempts at finding information pull up opinion pieces that are just slightly less fascinated and confused than I am.

Copyright Document Leaks

Nothing screams “control of information” to me like copyright law, and this leaked document has some serious implications for the future of copyright.

It was funny, though, when I first saw the link to the document — I wondered if it was a hoax or an overreaction, and of course it may just be a draft. Even so, there are some ideas that may seem appealing to a copyright holder but appear downright Draconian to everyday users — especially considering that being a layperson, it’s pretty difficult to manage a thorough understanding of copyright law.

The idea of cutting off Internet access to accused copyright infringers is one that seems particularly harsh and ludicrous — how do you enforce that? Do you install something on a person’s computer to block their Internet access? Do all ISPs have to share a blacklist? … This one just seems like an impossible idea.

Anonymous Blogger on the Verge of Being Unmasked

I think this article brings up a lot of questions and issues surrounding information and control, especially with regard to anonymity and the Internet. I like the anonymity the Internet affords — I don’t know if other people hate it when they are purchasing something and people ask what it’s for (this tends to happen a lot at craft stores, in my experience), but I really do — a lot of times I just want to buy my jump rings and go home without discussing what I’m going to do with them. The Internet means I can just order them and skip the human interaction altogether. Or that I could look up information I potentially don’t want anyone to know I’m looking for, or that I could seek advice about a problematic situation at work rather than having to go to a manager, or any number of other things.

But some of the anonymity afforded by the Internet makes me question whether certain things should be controlled and if/how it would be possible to control.

This particular blogger may have their identity revealed as they used information to encourage the harassment of a couple not only online, but offline, reporting sightings of the couple to the site. In this case, a lawsuit resulted. But I wonder about smaller-scale examples; websites like People of Walmart or Look at this F-ing Hipster (each contain strong language; be forewarned), where photographs of people are posted without their knowledge or consent. If you discover a photograph of yourself on a site like this, how do you go about getting it taken down? Can you? How can you possibly control that sort of content?

Since we had a test this week and not so many readings, I had some free time. So I read a recent Lawrence Lessig essay that appeared in the latest issue of the New Republic, “Against Transparency.”

Lessig was writing about the idea that transparency in all aspects of life and government may not be such a good thing. This is what caught my attention in the first place, because of course transparency sounds like a good thing – we all want an honest government, want to know how processes are carried out, so of course making as much information as possible available to the public — transparent — seems like a good idea. Lessig made a pretty convincing argument the other way, though.

The specific example he used was the “Punch-Clock Campaign,” something I’d never heard of prior to reading the essay. Basically, the Sunlight Foundation collected pledges from 92 Congressional candidates to get members of Congress to post their daily calendars on the Internet. Lessig barely has to make an argument here, just noting that there are “too many legitimate reasons why someone might not want his or her ‘daily official work schedule’ available to anyone with an Internet connection.” The Internet is supposed to mean equal access for all, and this means that such a calendar would be available to political extremists who may want to know a politician’s location for reasons more insidious than simple curiosity.

Lessig points to Archon Fung, a professor of public policy, and argues that more information does not necessarily produce markets that are more efficient. And that’s where aspects of this course really clicked for me: “Whether and how new information is used to further public objectives depends upon its incorporation into complex chains of comprehension, action, and response.”

Complex chains of comprehension, action and response — or: a system! It’s amazing how applicable systems theory actually is once you wrestle with it for a while.

In group project news, Jamie and I have narrowed our focus somewhat to prison libraries specifically, and tensions with the ALA guidelines and the mission of correctional institutions.

I keep drawing system maps in my head, and have only this class to blame (well, probably 501 as well). In a separate class, there is a problematic group that has me drawing little breakdown lightning bolts everywhere in the organizational structure. I had a dream about them. I fear for my brains.

Also, every management article from now forward should be illustrated by Edward Gorey, because it will make everyone feel better.

The culture and control article was especially adept at saying some things I have never been able to articulate — the idea of institutions punishing mistakes over valuing innovation and positive behavior is one that resonated with some past experiences.

I spent a lot of time the past few days trying to create audio clips for a presentation on audio mash-ups in one of my classes (519/688: Copyright & Intellectual Property), and that was an interesting exercise in understanding certain types of technological control — the free audio editor I use (Audacity) will work only with mp3s, and outputs a horrific screeching noise if you attempt to work with an mp4. It’s still picky about editing pre-existing mp3s, but if I import songs from a USB turntable directly into the program, it has no qualms about editing.

I found that video controls were less strict (in a conversion sense, not editing), although the legality of one download method I ran across is questionable. That was a surprise, considering how often I hear concerns about television and movie piracy. The mash-ups did have me thinking a lot about information and control, though — especially when one case forced a rapper to pull his album from stores due to use of an unlicensed sample. I have a difficult time imagining how that sort of thing would actually be orchestrated and properly enforced, particularly in the current digital music climate — pulling an album in the 1980s seems a bit more straightforward.

One other thing I learned this week: It is almost impossible to find an mp3 file of 2 Live Crew’s “Pretty Woman.”

Reading about systems is a little strange, only because I’m so used to them being inherent in different organizations — from larger structures like libraries and classes to smaller things like my own file cabinet. Speaking of organizations, the Ackoff reading made me pause with the assertion that “an organization consists of elements that have and can exercise their own wills.”

It makes sense, but my impulse was immediately to argue — I work at a library, in which there are definitely elements that have and can exercise their own wills, but often do not due to the larger system that encompasses them. The argument isn’t that the elements do exercise their own wills, just that they can, and that they have a common purpose.

Boulding’s article was entertaining — to quote, “One wonders sometimes if science will not grind to a stop in an assemblage of walled-in hermits, each mumbling to himself words in a private language that only he can understand.” And the skeleton metaphor in his conclusion was helpful, if a little overextended. He makes a good point about the “unwilligness of science [...] to shut the door on problems and subject matters which do not fit easily into simple mechanical schemes.” I think this is something I’ve been struggling with as well — when things don’t fit neatly into a map or system, it’s more difficult for me and my ultra-linear brain to try and arrange them into a pattern that makes sense.

In this course I’m finding that I tend to apply the concepts to much smaller-scale scenarios than things like e-Choupal and Indian women – e.g., when the sentence “control is exercised when sending a message,” is presented, I immediately think of group work at SI. Everyone has run into a problematic group member at some point, it seems, and speaking or writing to those group members is always a laborious process — what to say; how to say it; and whether anything should be said at all. Or: how to encode, what to encode, and whether to transmit the message.

Transmitting the message so that it is received as intended seems to be where this comparison runs into an issue, though — there’s not much one can do to force specific readings or interpretations of the message.

e-Choupal is a good example of a company working with a community to improve its conditions, but I don’t think one can extract from an individual example that “companies with extra cash is a good thing.” While it’s true that some companies may invest in providing micro-finance and computer access, looking to other major corporations (Wal-Mart, Nike, etc.) doesn’t paint a particularly glowing portrait of well-off companies or suggest that all companies with extra cash lead to investment in communities and thus to the empowerment of women.

“Virtuous circle” is an interesting phrase and one that had never occurred to me — “vicious circle,” of course, but never its opposite.

Thinking about topics for the group project, I’m leaning toward doing something with collection policies in various library settings. Especially in light of Banned Books Week, it’s been on my mind a lot. Living in Idaho, I got to see a lot of uproar over books in the library system — when a parent left their child unattended in the Nampa Public Library, the child managed to pull “The Joy of Gay Sex” off the shelf, much to the parent’s chagrin. The Idaho Values Alliance sprang up to rally against the library’s inclusion of “pornographic materials.” The Nampa Public Library declined to remove the book and instead moved it to a higher shelf, but it’s one of those issues that I wonder about a lot — how public collections are controlled and what forces exert control over them. (The Idaho Values Alliance is not particularly powerful, as far as I know.)

The idea of separating out the meaning from transmission of messages is a difficult one for me to wrap my head around — when Nick talked about encoding in the video lecture, my mind immediately went to code-switching in language — the idea that people affect variant registers of speech in order to be better accepted and understood among different social groups. I’ve noticed this in myself and my boyfriend in particular when we visit our families in Idaho — though normally both of us speak clearly and properly, visiting Idaho will cause both of us to drop the “g” from “ing” words — going, reading, etc. More abbreviations sneak in. It’s not as an extreme an example as adoption of slang (for example, the adoption of ebonics), but it’s definitely what came to mind.

To take meaning out of that interaction, however, is something I have trouble doing — messages get transmitted, but I have trouble seeing how the “accurate and efficient reception of information” can actually be called efficient if the message is something that can’t be understood.

The word “cybernetics” makes my mind immediately go to William Gibson, cyberpunk, and the world of Neuromancer — the brain/computer interface; a system that expands and folds in on itself simultaneously; artificial intelligence, etc. I’m really fascinated by artificial intelligence and robotics, though I have little technical understanding of them.

Just for fun, this is one of the more interesting/disturbing examples of AI/robotics I have seen: a video!

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And now that I have done the rest of the readings, I have to agree with Jamie that ITC is doing something phenomenal, but like her, I can see the devil’s advocate side — in particular when Dr Hammond states that they’d like to become the “Wal-Mart of India.” That’s a little disheartening to read, but it’s hard to put ITC in a comparable position to Wal-Mart when one notes their dedication to transparent policies and practices.

Reading about the women’s groups was especially interesting — it seemed almost too strange a coincidence to see that one of the women’s associations that is forming around women’s concerns has to do with men’s drinking. It definitely echoed our last class discussion. The factor that interested me most was that groups set up from the outside are not as successful as those that arise from within the villages — it implies to me that these women are more likely to participate in a group where they feel that they truly have some control, rather than a group that may have the appearance of trying to control them.

The “Day in the Life of a Village Kiosk Operator” gave me great appreciation for Rosy and reminded me just how much power information can give — Rosy’s information sharing empowers the rest of her community to better their lives whether it is through diploma-seeking courses, learning to read, or healing a sick animal.

Women having access to more information via the Internet puts them in touch worldwide community that they can draw from for advice, support, information, and anything else they might need or want.