1) I am indebted to Peter Roosen-Runge for this insight.
Chapter Two Notes
1) Another problem with the argument that computers are more environmentally friendly than paper is that the machines themselves contain harmful materials. “Thinking of computers as a disposable product is…bad news for the earth, environmentalists point out. That’s because of all the hazardous materials that computers contain, including lead, mercury, cadmium and chromium.” (“Computer pollution,” 2000, M1) As old computers are thrown out to make way for the latest versions, many find their way into landfills, where these chemicals are ultimately released into the environment.
2) Since the mailing list is not commercial, and is presumably welcome by the ezine’s readers, there is no justification for services such as AOL to block such messages; however, they have put in place filtering mechanisms which cannot differentiate between spam and legitimate communications. If something like this had been undertaken by a government, it would be called censorship, and a public outcry would likely ensue. This type of “private” or “corporate” censorship, however, raises public apathy.
This is not the only example of private censorship I came across in the course of this study. The editorial guidelines of 1st Chapter stated that it would not accept pornographic material of any kind (defined as “any material where [sex or sexuality] is the main focus, or is not presented in good taste”), material that was “grossly offensive to the online community, including blatant expressions of bigotry, prejudice, racism, hatred or profanity,” material that promoted or provided instructional information about illegal activities or material that defamed any person or group.” (Schlau, 1998, unpaginated) These guidelines, it was stated, were “In accordance with GEOCITIES content requirements.” (ibid) Presumably, anybody who was caught publishing material which did not adhere to the commercial service’s guidelines (and many of the stories which we have seen were published online would not), would be in violation of their contract with the company, and would lose their account. Online, apparently, contract law supercedes constitutional or charter freedom of speech guarantees.
3) Despite this, books such as James Redfield’s The Celestine Prophecies, which became an international bestseller after it was picked up by a publisher, continued to be self-published right up to the end of the 20th century. (Boushka, 1999, unpaginated)
4) I made these two threads up off the top of my head. I suspect, however, that the reader attempted to find connections between the initial image and the two which followed. As I said, human beings are meaning generating machines.
5) If anything, collaborative writing on the Web supports the theory of secondary orality proposed by Walter Ong. (1994) Following Marshall McLuhan, Ong claimed that digital communication networks recreated in modern cultures the social conditions of tribal, oral societies. Collaborative writing on digital networks is, in many ways, analogous to oral storytelling: individuals contribute details which help shape the overall narrative, which does not belong to any single contributor. Oral stories, like digital works, can be ephemeral, and need to be written down/printed out to achieve a more permanent form. There are differences as well, of course: oral stories require physical co-presence to be communicated effectively while digital stories do not. Still, the similarities are worth pursuing further.
6) The reason most often given for this exclusion is that individual producers do not measure up to “professional standards.” This takes two distinct forms. On the one hand, esthetic standards are invoked: thus, photocopied zines are not distributed in most bookstores because they aren’t as “esthetically pleasing” as glossy magazines. On the other hand, technical standards are invoked: 8mm or 16mm films are not shown in theatres equipped to show 35mm or higher films. While there is validity to both types of standards, we must recognize that they are often used to exclude a wide variety of voices, leading to a homogenization of the cultural artifacts which are widely distributed.
Chapter Three Notes
1) On the other hand, one writer suggests not to put too much store in Microsoft’s buying into a cable company since, “After all, [Microsoft Chairman Bill] Gates also has a stake in a satellite company and has been working with the Telcos for years.” (Steinberg, 1997, 80) Another writer claims that of the three facets of the online industry (content, software and access), only “Microsoft is working in all three areas by providing Internet access and content through The Microsoft Network, as well as Web browser and server software.” (Savets, 1997, 95) The strategy of Microsoft, the largest supplier of computer operating systems in the world and one of the biggest financial winners in the computer industry, seems to be to ally itself with companies involved in every trend in digital communications so that it will be positioned to capitalize no matter what the future of computer mediated communications is. “Between 1994 and 1996 Microsoft spent $1.5 billion to purchase or invest in forty-seven companies.” (Herman and McChesney, 1997, 126/127) Microsoft’s reserves of cash and short-term securities is estimated at between $18 and $21.8 billion dollars (Bank, 1999, B8), giving the company a huge amount of money to invest. For this reason, Microsoft’s name will come up often in this chapter.
2) Critics of traditional economics have argued that pegging economics to human desire is unsustainable and will necessary lead to the despoliation of the planet, since human desires, by definition, have no limits, while the planet has very definite limits. See, for instance, Matsu, 1997 or Lasn, 1997.
3) This quality of information is not celebrated by every commentator. Some see us suffering from conditions of “Information Glut” or “Data Smog” (Shenk, 1997), unable to find the information we need in the vast stores of information which exist. However, most commentators believe the advantages of access to increased amounts of information necessarily outweigh the disadvantages.
4) If information was infinite, the cost of information would be zero. However, since information is finite, though increasingly vast, we can only say that its value approaches zero without ever achieving it, the condition of an asymptotic curve. It isn’t necessary for information to actually reach zero, though, for us to say that its value is zero.
5) The term channels, borrowed, of course, from television, to describe streams of online content, is used in order to make the new medium more comfortable for new users to use. It may also help new users, who can be assumed to be unfamiliar with the technology, more readily accept attempts to limit online media to the form of television. As with many metaphors applied to new media, the channels metaphor relies on a restricted view of the medium (in this case, the Web) which benefits specific interests.
6) As we shall see in the next chapter, the mistaken idea that artists — writers, in particular — are solely motivated by a love of craft has contributed to their low status on the economic totem pole.
Chapter Four Notes
1) Grousing about filtering systems on The MacNeil/Lehrer News Hour, Senator Exon claimed, “We didn’t hear much about that until the Exon Decency Bill was widely considered and debated.” (“Focus — Sex in Cyberspace,” 1995, unpaginated) Perhaps. But if that were true, all that would mean is that the CDA actually had the beneficial effect of spurring the development and dissemination of useful online tools.
2) Given the overwhelming arguments in favour of striking down the CDA on the grounds that it violated the First Amendment, the Supreme Court decided it was not necessary to resort to the Fifth Amendment to strike the Act down. The Fifth Amendment assures every American’s right to free assembly: “those who object to [the CDA] are generally trying to defend the right to assemble a like-minded group…” (Johnson, unpaginated) In effect, it was being argued that the Internet was a place where communities formed. Thus, the ACLU argued that the Internet is analogous to a physical place where people gather, and that government had no right to interfere with them there: “We should stop thinking about most of these issues as if they involve the sending of a message from party A to party B (or to parties C through Z), and instead fully absorb the fact that most communications on the net amount to the joint creation of a new shared space allowing the assembly of like-minded individuals.” (ibid) It would have been fascinating to see the Court grapple with this interpretation…
3) Incivility in the debate about the CDA was not limited to those who opposed the legislation, of course. In a radio discussion of the CDA, one of its proponents claimed that “the same ACLU that says pornography is appropriate for children and embraces pedophilia kinds of information for children says that prayer in school will destroy America.” (McPhee, 1996, unpaginated) This is a gross distortion of the ACLU’s position.
4) Critics of government control of content on the Internet often portray their opponents as Neanderthals who have no experience of the medium they are attempting to regulate. However, statements like Beaudoin’s do crop up from time to time, suggesting that politicians do have some understanding of the nature of the Internet. For example, Singapore’s minister of information and the arts “told Parliament that ‘Censorship can no longer be 100 percent effective, but even if it is only 20 percent effective, we should still not stop censoring….We cannot screen every bit of information that comes down the information highway, but we can make it illegal and costly for mass distributors of objectionable material to operate in Singapore.'” [note omitted] (Human Rights Watch, 1996, unpaginated) This suggests that some attempts to censor the Internet are made, not out of ignorance, but out of moral conviction. I find something endearingly Quixotic about this.
5) Applying copyright to a collaborative medium such as filmmaking was, at best, a quick fix since, the auteur theory notwithstanding, no single person can be considered a “creator” of a film. In a vacuum, the copyright for non-independent films is given neither to the writer or the director of the film, but the studio that produced it. It is argued that since the studio takes the financial risk in making the film, it should get the lion’s share of the economic benefits which come from the work. Perhaps. The point is, a regime which recognized the relative contributions of creators in a collaborative medium would likely divide the rewards of working in the medium in a substantially different way, likely to the benefit of some creators who are now, for the most part, poorly compensated for their work.
6) It can be argued that these sorts of legal battles are a consequence of seeing the rights of creators as property. In many jurisdictions in Europe, creators are considered to have a “moral” right in their work, regardless of who owns it. “Moral rights, more commonly found in civil law jurisdictions, protect the right of the author to be associated with the work, remain anonymous, not have the work mutilated or distorted, and not have the work associated with any product, service, cause or institution.” (Johnstone, Johnstone and Handa, 1995, 172) The courts following such a regime might have found that articles could not be reproduced in databases without the creators’ permission, regardless of the issue of compensation.
7) This is not to say, however, that the rewards of creation should be considered purely personal. A society which compensates artists poorly in the belief that they would create in any case for other, personal reasons takes unconscionable advantage of the artist, and does itself a disservice inasmuch as artists who require adequate compensation may not be able to create works which may have been of benefit to society. Look at it this way: some garage mechanics truly love working with cars, but nobody would argue that they should be inadequately compensated for their work because of it.
Chapter Five Notes
1) I am indebted to Ella Chmielewska for insights on this subject.
2) Most people understand a home page to be a personal page created by an individual to promote his or her interests. While this definition of a home page sometimes coincides with the one being used in this chapter, it isn’t necessarily the case. A lot of Web surfers do not have personal pages, but everybody has to have a page come up when they first log on to the Web.
3) One search engine has even forgone any pretense to neutrality. “With GoTo.com, founder Bill Gross and CEO Jeffrey Brewer claim they’ve created the ‘first-ever market-driven search directory.’ That is, those who bid the most on a given word or search term come out on top in GoTo’s search results.” (“Will GoTo go?”, 1998, 80) This would seriously disadvantage small information providers who could not pay for the premium space, as well as the people who could use their information if they could find it.