Recognizing Illegal Websites

As the internet becomes more accessible to people around the world, the opportunities for networking become greater. Users share scholarly articles and YouTube videos with one another instantly. It is no longer necessary to physically "show" a friend a video. All that is needed is to email them or post a link on their Facebook or MySpace page. In addition to sharing, users can download content and store it on their personal hard drive, allowing them to watch it anytime and as many times as they want. Some of the content is expensive so naturally the advanced technology has created some loop-holes that allow some people to obtain this content for free. Illegal music downloading sites and movie viewing sites are appearing to eliminate the sales of DVDs and CDs. Lawrence Lessig notes in his book Remix that "Most in the industry— at least circa 2002— believed that 'piracy' was unavoidable given the 'nature' of digital technologies. Most thus believed the industry faced a choice: drive digital to the periphery and save the industry, or allow it to become mainstream, and watch the industry fail" (40). While Lessig states that Steve Jobs' innovations have saved the industry, these illegal musical downloading websites still receive millions of users a day.

While the ruling on whether or not some of these music websites are legal or not is extremely fuzzy and grey, they are becoming a widely acknowledged tool in the marketing industry. There are a lot of advertisements on these websites because, obviously, so many people access the site everyday. Advertising on these websites definitely comes with risks. According to this recent article, big companies Samsung and Coca-Cola removed their advertisements from a popular music piracy website based in Vietnam. This website, called Zing, has had many multinational companies advertise on their website. The article analyzes the situation by stating that these big corporations' advertisements have added legitimacy to the website and this has upset the artists who feel money is being taken away from them. After Coca-Cola and Samsung were notified of this sentiment, they removed their ads stating they want to respect and support the artists.

While their publicly released statements sound nice, this is obviously a move by these companies to save their reputation. Even though there are millions of users on this website, big companies probably do not want to be associated with websites like Zing. Even though this may be a business savvy move, Lessig's observation about the industry's opinion in 2002 that this may have to just be an accepted way of technology (music sharing) comes full circle. For big businesses like Coca-Cola and Samsung, they are already very established and have enough exposure as it is. For smaller companies looking to thrive in this economy, advertisements on websites like Zing may be the right way to go. The exposure is great and it is showing an acknowledgement that no matter what the laws may be, this technology is becoming the new norm. Lawsuits seem to be either pending or in the process in all of these matters and it is difficult to know what exactly is illegal. The safest thing is to buy CDs or use iTunes. However, as Lessig notes, the culture is always changing and transforming and these new sharing opportunities significantly increase the ways users can obtain many forms of content.

The Good Part about Giving Up Some Privacy

David Brin, the author of The Challenge of an Open Society, argues that people are loosing their privacy because the governments in some cities (e.g. King's Lynn, Great Britain) started to install surveillance cameras on almost every corner with the goal to lower the crime rate. Even though the cameras helped to reduce crime dramatically in those cities many people are against the surveillance by the government because they don't want other people to know what they are doing all day long. The government also started to track cell phones via GPS. While many people claim that they are taken away their privacy, it is actually an efficient way to track criminals and solve crimes.

            
It is somehow understandable that law abiding citizens may not like the circumstance that they are monitored all the time. Even though only the police and government can see the cameras, some people don't want them to know what they are doing all the time. On the other hand, it is a useful way to prevent crime and for this reason I would say that I personally could live with it because the fact that crime would almost disappear would be worth for me to give up some privacy. The same goes with tracking cell phones; many people argue that it is wrong to monitor someone’s phone but the fact that the police was able to solve multiple crimes in the last couple years through this method is reason enough to argue that it is worth it.

In Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, the tracking of a phone helped the police to solve a crime. It was November 28th, 2011 when a man robbed another man. The robber stole one thing, his victim's iPhone. The victim had an app, called "FindMe", installed on his iPhone that made it possible for the police to track the robber and solve the crime. This is a perfect example that tracking a mobile phone can be an advantage rather than an evil for good behaving citizens.

         

           

             

It is understandable that people do not like the fact that they get watched 24/7 but while they complain about loosing their privacy if the police monitor them in the city or if they track their mobile phones, it is actually an efficient way to prevent and solve crimes. Many citizens don't understand the fact that these methods just make people’s lives safer. If somebody is a law abiding citizen, he shouldn't even care about the fact that he gets controlled by the police or government because he doesn't have to hide anything. 

The Privacy Invasion

In Rockwell's hit Somebody's Watching Me, one of his lines is "I always feel like somebody's watching me and I have no privacy." In this day and age these lyrics couldn't be truer. David Brin writes about the possibility of two different types of cities. One city is a myriad of cameras that "report their urban scenes straight to Police Central where security officers use sophisticated image processors to scan for infractions against an established way of thought." At first glance, this doesn't sound so bad. In fact, it sounds nice to know that the police will be able to do their job extremely well and crime rates could drop significantly. But then it sets in. How long till they start to misuse the information they have? One day they'll be using the cameras to help fight crime and the next day they're using it to spy on friends or enemies of theirs and getting a hold of personal information. Garfinkel mentions that our personal information is already being given out to third parties and that credit cards with private information can be viewed by officials to track where they've been and what they've been doing, which can be useful when solving a crime, but there is a very fine line between using that information for good and having it at your own disposal.

Jeffrey Rosen - Is Privacy Dead?

In this video, Jeffrey Rosen is talking about how privacy, to an extent is dying; how it no longer exists. All personal bubbles are being broken into and invaded. He mentions how things have changed severely since the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Phone calls and emails could be hacked into in order to find out if there was any relation to the attacks. Security has become a lot stricter wherever we go, airports being a prime example. It used to be a simple luggage scan to make sure there were no weapons and a metal detector to make sure nothing out of the ordinary was on you. But after 9/11 that all changed. There really is no sense of privacy in the airport now, Bags can be personally checked to make sure of nothing illegal, and rather than a simple metal detector, Rosen reveals how airports now have x-ray technology that can get a view of the person's actual naked body through clothing. This is repulsive in general and especially in the cases of underage children and disrespect to the elders. Also, many people have morals. The last thing they want strangers having is naked pictures of them. Privacy has no existence anymore in an airport. Again, they claim it is for our own good and safety, but when ordinary people have easy access to things like that, it no longer serves the purpose it was intended for.

Brin recognizes this problem and opens up to the idea of the second city. The second city is similar in the aspect that there are still cameras perched on every vantage point. However, "These devices do not report to the secret police. Rather, each and every citizen of this metropolis can use his or her own wristwatch television to call up images from any camera in town." Again, this sounds like a great concept. A person walking at night can check to make sure no one is lurking around the corner. Likewise a parent can check to see where there child may have run off to if they were missing. Even better, a shoplifter at a mall can be spotted and taken into custody in no time. And if that's not enough, as far as police headquarters goes, "any citizen may tune in on bookings...especially the camera control room itself, making sure that the agents on duty look out for violent crime, and only crime." This sounds great! We can even make sure the police don't abuse this power, but of course at some point the citizens will use it for their own personal desires such as to stalk someone they know, or to spy right in someone's backyard and just as easily upgrade to drones that they could steer right into the "privacy" of someone's home and record all of their passwords and other personal information. No matter which approach is taken, privacy is invaded. The invasion may claim to be for the good of the people, but in reality it may really be used for one's own shameful use. As this technology evolves even more and the idea of all citizens or anyone at all having access to seeing your every move and all your personal information, Rockwell's song about being paranoid that someone is always watching may not be a huge stretch from the truth.

Subjecting Ourselves: Grindr and Privacy

As our access to technology increases, we become more connected to others through our devices.  Some new apps that are arriving, such as Grindr, are connecting people more people with a specific goal.  Grindr is an app on iPhone and android that allows men who are gay, bisexual, or bi-curious to see what other users are around and contact them.  The most unique feature of Grindr is that it actually tells you the distance away other users are.  Many concerns have been made about how are we going to protect our privacy as technology increases.  David Brin writes "But accountablility is no side benefit.  It is the one fundamental ingredient on which liberty thrives.  Without the accoutability that derives from openess - enforceable upon even the mightiest individuals and institutions - how can freedom survive" (Brin 332).

The main concern that David Brin has with the expansion of technology is that it will be used against us because we will not be able to be trusted by any institution.  I argue that we are the ones that sacrifice our freedom because we trust technology and its users.  In the article "Child Molesters Moving to Grindr to Find Underage Victims", underage children are using Grindr as a way any other user would.  While the article argues that the blame of this crime rests with the parents, it rests with the idea that we can trust technology and its users.  We trust that people are honest on the internet, and even that we should meet them in person.  In a way, we have created easier ways for hate and sexual crimes to be committed.  Grindr has also been linked with hate crimes as people are able to track the location of the users and locate them if they have a picture on their profile.  The problem of booming technology is not entirely arisen from the fact that it will become easier to monitor users.  It is the simple fact that we trust the booming technology.  We are the enablers of our loss of privacy; we are willing to subject ourselves to invasion of privacy.

As our technology booms, will we be as trustworthy of technology? When we continue to connect with the world, we will give up our privacy.  Our privacy will be gone as we become more trustworthy of each other. 

Privacy or Convenience?

Right now I am sitting at my desk, alone in my dorm room, typing this blog post. But in the back of my mind, I feel that I may not be alone. I am using the Lawrence wireless network, so there could be the chance that an administrator of Lawrence University is seeing what I am doing online.

More and more situations like these where privacy is compromised when using technology appear in today's society. Simson Garfinkel writes an intriguing article titled, "Privacy and the New Technology: What They Do Know Can Hurt You" addresses the issue of compromising privacy with new technology. Garfinkel states the reality that we as a society are trading our privacy for convenience. That "in order to enjoy the benefits of modern society, we must necessarily relinquish some degree of privacy" (324). Think about it. Technology makes everything more convenient for us. We are able to turn on our laptops and shop without even leaving our seat. We are able to pick up our cell phones, make a call or send a text, and communicate with someone without having to see them face-to-face. We are able to go online and listen to Taylor Swift's new album without having to go to the store and buy it ourselves. But at the same time, we are giving up part of our privacy. Just by going online, advertisers are able to see where we go and target their advertising in that way. Furthermore, joining social media sites allows us to put our personal information on the web for all to see. Or even by joining websites and creating passwords, this information stays in the database for people to discover. There is always a way for people, like hackers, to discover your information.

France 24, an international news channel, reported the issues of privacy with Google's mapping application in their article titled, "Watching Yourself... Google's Watching You." With Google street view, you are able to explore places around the world through 360-degree, panoramic, and street-level imagery. Now, these images are taken by Google's crew and civilians are often captured in these shots and many people are not okay with this invasion of privacy. For starters, it is unsettling to know that an image of you is available for anyone to see on the web. But more than that, this means that you could be caught doing something you would rather the public does not witness. Cheating on your significant other, for example, or sunbathing topless. Anything that exposes you against your own will. You can see how this is a big issue as addressed by Garfinkel.

We may made need to make an important decision if we want our privacy secured. That could involve no more putting our personal information on social media webpages, no more online shopping, or maybe even stop paying with credit cards since our personal information is being entered into a database with each swipe. But this world we live in has made everything so much more convenient for us. We just need to ask ourselves if it's worth the privacy risk.

A World Full of Cameras

           The Challenge of an Open Society by David Brin argues that there are two types of cities that are bound to happen with in the next 20 years.  Both of these cities include tiny cameras over viewing everywhere in town.  However, the primary difference between these two places is who has the authority to view the videotapes, police or citizens?  The advantage from these cameras is that street crime has nearly vanished.  Although this is a great benefit for all of the citizens, it forces them to give up their privacy.  Privacy is about self-possession, autonomy, and integrity (Garfinkel, p. 323).  People who live in these types of cities can no longer regulate what they wish others to see.  Their lives will be watched whenever they go outside of their house.  The lack of control is a breach in human desire. 

So the question now becomes, which is more important, privacy or safety?  According to Jean Thomas, the homeowner victim, safety is the most important.  She and her husband set up a video home surveillance system to protect their house from yet another burglary.  The following YouTube video shows how she caught the robbers.

Florida woman watches house being robbed via internet. (1 minute: 30 seconds)

            As seen in the video, Jean Thomas was at work and logged onto her house’s live video camera feed to find her house being robbed.  She saw live two men breaking in and going through different rooms seeking valuable items.  As soon as she saw the men she called 911 to have police dispatched. “The video allowed her and the police to act swiftly” (1:11).  Soon after her call, the officers showed up and caught the robbers.  Because of this live video camera, Jean did not miss her Wii, new flat screen television, or a safe full of expensive items. 

             This is similar to King’s Lynn crime reduction discussed in The Challenge of an Open Society.  Similar to one of the cities Brin discusses, King’s Lynn installed video cameras in “trouble spots” in an attempt to reduce the crime rate.  King’s Lynn fall in crime rate followed in suit to the future cities.  The YouTube video above furthers this argument because we can see a clear example of how beneficial cameras can be.  Although as Brin suggests, with this type of surveillance, comes intrusion.  If people are on camera they are constantly going to be scrutinized by viewers and held accountable.  As Brin argues in this article, people expect accountability from others but want privacy for themselves.  Applying this to the YouTube video, Jean Thomas could be putting herself in unknown danger by having her house under live surveillance.  Someone could hack into her website account and then watch her video feed while she is at home, compromising not only her privacy, but her and her husbands’ safety. 

With new technology, comes a new hacker

Test

Here is a cool video I found. Walking Dead's GREG NICOTERO Gores SCOTT IAN

Exposure on YouTube: The Great Relationship Between Producers and Consumers

When kids hang out together, playing video games and watching TV are certainly some of the most preferred activities. With the emergence of YouTube, many hours are spent where two kids are sitting in front of a computer randomly searching for funny and entertaining content. The concept of YouTube is simple: anyone can create an account and upload appropriate and legal videos of their choosing. There are many dollars to be made off this product. As Jean Burgess and Joshua Green explain in their article "The Entrepeneurial Vlogger: Participatory Culture Beyond the Profession-Amateur Divide," there are three main contributors to YouTube. The three groups are: big media companies (such as the National Football League and recording studios), Web-TV companies (such as NoGood TV and JumpTV), and "ordinary" users. Burgess and Green also describe how YouTube disrupts the producer-consumer divide. Consumers are now producing their own content for other consumers instead of the professional entertainers. While Burgess and Green find this detrimental to the entertainment industry, one recording studio is using this to their advantage to make money and promote young artists.

Ark Music Factory is a musical production company. What makes them different from a typical recording studio is that they do not go out and look for talent. As stated on their Wikipedia page, young artists come to them and pay $2,000-$4,000 for their services. Ark Music Factory will then help the client write a song, produce a music video, and promote the song. YouTube is obviously their main outlet when it comes to showing these videos. Their most notorious client is Rebecca Black and her music video for the song "Friday" received millions of views in a short period of time on YouTube. The catchy tune is loved and hated across the world. After this popularity, Rebecca Black then went on to join another record label with the help of Ryan Seacrest. Taking a look at the Ark Music Factory website, there are other artists they are trying to expose. Abby Victor is one of the artists who is profiled and while she may not be very well known to the everyday internet user, her videos still have four to five million views. 

Rebecca Black's success is a great example of how the producer-consumer relationship works harmoniously through YouTube. Many people get noticed on YouTube and go on to join and sign contracts with these big production companies. The production company is benefiting from YouTube and the tremendous tool it provides. Comedians, musicians, and freak-talents take advantage of this outlet. The Ark Music Factory is a unique contributor to YouTube. They are not necessarily the ordinary user but are not quite up to the standards of a big media company. Furthermore, Burgess and Green's uneasiness about YouTube is detrimental to artists. Copyright infringement is definitely an issue but that goes along with illegally downloading music. As technology advances, so will the ability to abuse it. With recording labels profiting off their newly found recruits and the artists getting the exposure they crave, YouTube is the perfect tool and the successful relationship continues.

The YouTube Celebrity Jimmy Tatro

Jean Burgess and Joshua Green, the authors of The YouTube Reader, say that there are three types of contributors to YouTube: the big media companies, WebTV companies and amateurs. What I am going to do in this post is to show how important the amateur contributors are for YouTube with the example of Jimmy Tatro, a student at the Arizona State University. I will also try to explain why Jimmy Tatro became so popular whitin such a short period of time.

Jimmy Tatro joined YouTube on November 23th, 2011. His username is LifeAccordingToJimmy and he makes videos about everyday problems for college students, for example akward social interactions. Tatro is part of a fraternity house and makes a lot of his videos together with his fellow roommates. His videos are not made to be taken very seriously but rather to entertain his audience in a funny way. Tatro releases a new video every monday and for this reason, many people follow his channel on YouTube to always be up to date. 

The main reason why Jimmy Tatro becamo so popular is, in my opinion, because he talks about problems that most of the college students face every single day. For example, he talks about the different kind of people on  Facebook in a funny way but at the same time, most of the stuff he says is true. My favorite video of him is "Gym Etiquette" and I can tell, from my own experiences, that most of the stuff he talks about in this video is true. Part of the reason for his success is that he figured out what college students want to hear and see and finally made videos about it. College students are a big part of the YouTube audience and because of that, he became famous in a short time. Many students know about him and recommend his videos to their friends. His most recent video, "Breaking Up with Overly Attached Girlfriend", was uploaded on YouTube five days ago and already has more than 5.5 million views. 

The most important thing to be successful on YouTube is to make videos about things that people are interested in. The example of Jimmy Tatro shows us that it is possible to become famous over night. Even though it seems to be easy to make videos that people like watching, you have to do something that does not already exist and you have to talk about things that people are interested in. Many students can identify themselves with Jimmy Tatro and have already faced most of  the things that he is talking about. 

Is this Real Life?

Vlogging, or videoblogging, is a relatively new sensation, made famous by Youtube.  Pelle Snickars and Patrick Vonderau say "The form has antecedents in webcam culture, personal blogging and the more widespread 'confessional culture' that characterizes television talk shows and reality television focused on the observation of everyday life" (94).  The subject matter of vlogs varies, but the idea of "confessional culture" exists throughout them.  Vlogs have become such a sensation because they are easy to produce, the viewer feels as if they are being spoken directly to, and vlogs encourage discussion.  The idea of easy to produce videos with the encouraged discussion entices viewers to create their own vlog as a response to a more popular blog, perhaps even becoming viral.

One vlog that I used to watch when I was younger was called "The Internet Killed Television".  The premise of this vlog is that it is an ordinary, young couple using Youtube to document their life.  After 4 years of vlogging every single day of their life, including their wedding proposal (their most viewed video and embedded below) and wedding, they still are able to get around 90,000 views per video.  After watching many of their videos, I would say that vlogs do not only rely on just the idea of confessional culture.  Vlogs have many aspects of voyeuristic films, especially with personal and daily vlogs, because the viewer is able to watch a strangers life from afar.  Confessional culture only goes as far to explain the content of vlogs, but using a voyeur lens allows us to really see that we are almost spying in on people's lives.  While the example that Snickars and Vonderau bring up (lonelygirl15) is a way to explain how content of a video allows a vlog to gain a lot of popularity, it is the fact that the viewer is watching another persons life.  While The Internet Killed Television is a vlog, it does not re-enforce the idea of confessional culture as much as some other vlogs.   The voyeur lens provides a reason to watch the videos.

The content of the vlogs is important to gain viewership, but voyeurism is the reason that people make vlogs.  It is the idea of peeping in on peoples lives that entices the viewer to continue their viewership.

Convergence and The Relationship Between Media Producers and Consumers

Let's say you have a favorite show on television that you live and die by. You schedule your days around this show. But, much to your dismay, you have a prior, weekly commitment every time your show is on air. What are you going to do? An easy question to answer if you have access to the internet: you go online to watch the episode(s) you missed. As media outlets expand, we no longer solely rely on newspapers, the radio, or even television to gain access to the information we want and the shows we want to watch. Henry Jenkins addresses this reality he calls "convergence" in his book titled Convergence Culture. In the introduction, he defines convergence as "the flow of content across multiple media platforms" (2). Now that media is uploaded online, media companies are required to rethink what it means to consume media and, furthermore, must accept the fact that if they want to remain relevant and popular to the public, they need to adapt to these technological expansions.

Take most TV personalities. They have expanded their medium of media (I know, difficult to say). The Ellen DeGeneres Show is not solely visible on TV anymore. She acknowledged that her audience is not only in front of their TV screens at home, but they are now online. For this reason, she adopted her own twitter where she not only tweets random happenings and thoughts during the day, but also interacts with her followers. She also has her own YouTube channel where there are uploaded snippets of her shows as well as additional footage. New and old media are colliding. Media producer and media consumer are now interacting.
Ellen has even brought YouTube users and "stars" on her show, thus representing the increasing interaction between media producer and media consumer. Ellen brought two little girls from YouTube on her show who performed the song Super Bass by Nicki Minaj.





Due to the impact of media companies expanding the potential markets across difference popular platforms, Ellen is appealing to a wider audience and allowing for this interaction between media producer and media consumer. This convergence is highly important if Ellen wants to remain in business and connect with her audience. Some of these media companies or successful franchises "originate on television, on the big screen, some as books, and some as games, but each extend outward from it's originating medium to influence many other sites of cultural production" (19).

Amateurs Make the World Go Round

This week, we were tasked with reading articles on some websites that make the internet world turn. Specifically, how both Youtube and Wikipedia do what they do efficiently. They're both new communities that developed from the Web 2.0 revolution. But while most people accept and love these resources, there is some dissatisfaction with them. One of these naysayers, Andrew Keen, argues in his book, The Cult of the Amateur, that with the addition of these 'anyone can do it' websites, we are losing our culture, and declining in artistic prowess.

In reality, however, not much has changed. While there are new technologies to facilitate easier access to knowledge of topics, the understanding of them is still the same. Look at Wikipedia. While it does allow for anyone, presumably non-experts, to create a ‘wikiality’, the facts must still be checked with concrete knowledge. At the bottom of every Wiki page is a list of resources used, kind of an internet bibliography. So while it is true that amateurs – “a hobbyist, knowledgeable or otherwise, someone who does not make a living from his or her field of interest” (Keen, 36) – make up the bulk of the editors on Wikipedia, the facts come from the experts themselves.

Keen’s other problem arises in the land of citizen journalism. He sees this as one of the many reaches of amateurism that erupted from the internet. The way he sees it, only the people who went to college for journalism, or has a background in writing is allowed to report on events. But those people can only report on so many things. They’re paid to talk about certain things, and are allowed only that. Citizen journalists, however, have no jurisdictions (besides the law, of course). With the power of the internet, they also helped bring mainstream news to a wider variety of people.

While he doesn’t mention Youtube and its creations, I’m sure he has some negative views on this video sharing site. It’s the definition of amateurism. Whereas Wikipedia required knowledge of something, anything, Youtube just requires a camera. Even I have a Youtube account, in my vain attempt to become noticed. But that’s what it’s all about. The millions of people on that website aren’t trying to destroy culture, and make a farce of art and expertise. They’re trying to develop their expertise into a profitable venture. Based on just the Youtubers I subscribe to, the talents these entrepreneurs have range from video arts (Vincent Cyr, FreddieWong), to actors/comedians (Toby Turner, Ryan Higa, Kevin Wu), and musicians (DavidChoi, Chester See, Destorm Powers, etc.). Some of these artists, such as Freddie Wong and Toby Turner, have mentioned in their videos their educational background in videography and acting, respectively. Yet in mainstream media, it’s rare to see these professional, amateur Youtubers. Just because they haven’t been hired by a record company or film studio, doesn’t mean they aren’t qualified.

In all, the internet isn’t a place for only the professional and expert. It’s a melting pot of ideas, talents, upbringings, and intelligence. From Wikipedia to Youtube, culture isn’t being destroyed; a new one is simply being born.

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Bibliography:

Keen, Andrew. The Cult of the Amateur: How Today's Internet Is Killing Our Culture. New York: Doubleday/Currency, 2007. Print.