[Air-L] public private

Conor Schaefer conor.schaefer at gmail.com
Fri Aug 10 11:41:22 PDT 2007


Deanya,

Excellent post, thank you for sharing! I found your comment about laptop 
confiscation insightful, but to me it is does not invalidate the 
public/private dichotomy in ICT. Outside the realm of ICT, what 
constitutes private space to you? Hiding things under the mattress? 
Well, a search warrant can turn that into a public matter, too, can't it?

I think the public/private matter is fuzzy /everywhere/, and perhaps 
that's becoming more obvious as we try to formulate analogies which 
accommodate ICT.

I think that the ability to check browser histories is far from an 
indicator of lack of private space; for instance, I'm going to assume 
that you're using a Windows (probably XP) box in your thought experiment 
there, because most other OSes work with tightly locked-down user 
spaces. If a friend or significant other wants to use my physical 
computer, they don't have access to my cookies. This is by my definition 
very much a "private" space, because it is off-limits to anymore not in 
possession of the password. I acknowledge, though, that this private 
space could somehow be made public, just as I acknowledge that public 
spaces can undergo a like transition to private status.

Conor

M. Deanya Lattimore wrote:
> Hi Ed -- I agree with what you wrote that
>
>  >>I reject the notion
>  > that even bloggers who publish stuff are giving informed consent to
>  > become research subjects.
>  >>
>
> Consent to become a research subject is a different matter than 
> citation, as Jeremy's email on the other subject line says.
>
> You, like myself, continue to make great arguments about why the 
> dichotomy between public and private spaces will not continue to work; 
> we have got to begin thinking of these things in more nuanced ways.
>
> Let's continue to talk through some of your other points, but I don't 
> want to see my statement about policy and usage of internet documents 
> taken as a manifesto on intellectual property or research subject 
> rights; to generalize to terms that I didn't use from the ones that I 
> mentioned makes you run the risk of committing straw man fallacies.
>
> So let's continue the discussion in a more amicable fashion --
>
> You may indeed perform a piece of music on a street corner, but once you 
> *record* your music and post it onto the internet, you're in a different 
> level of public space.
> (Of course, new technology that monitors street corners on video and 
> enhanced video phones may make it possible for someone to record your 
> music and make a YouTube video of it... and good luck finding it to 
> report to YouTube as an infringement unless someone sends you a link to 
> it.  And by THAT time, hundreds of other people may have downloaded it 
> to their own computers!  :-)
>
> No one else has the legal right to record your music and pass it off as 
> their own -- that's just stealing.  But someone may theoretically 
> download it and use it on their own personal computers, or they may use 
> it to create a digital piece of artwork without ever letting anyone know 
> that it is yours; them's the facts of posting online.  They may even go 
> home and use a few of the words or phrases that they heard in your song 
> on the street corner and make up a new one of their own, never even 
> remembering consciously in the first place that they heard yours. 
> Derivative? yes; unethical? maybe; possible? yes.
>
> And even my own personal laptop could be confiscated and used against me 
> in a court of law; computers are FREQUENTLY confiscated these days.
> Ask anyone who has been convicted of downloading child porn from the 
> internet whether s/he still considers her/his own computer as a 
> "private" space.  It's just not that simple, wouldn't you agree?
>
> It's not even so much a legal issue for most of us as an ethical one; 
> have you ever checked your computer browser's history to see where your 
> spouse or child had been on the internet?  We have *got* to stop 
> dichotomizing private and personal space when it comes to electronic 
> communication technology or else we'll never get anywhere good with 
> public policy.
>
> Best!
> Deanya
>
>
>
> Ed Lamoureux wrote:
>  > sorry.
>  > I don't agree
>  > On Aug 10, 2007, at 10:55 AM, M. Deanya Lattimore wrote:
>  >
>  >> If people did not want their information to be considered "published,"
>  >> then they should write it on paper and keep it under their mattresses,
>  >> not type it into large databases that are collected, spidered, and
>  >> searched by other online tools.
>  >
>  > excuse me. "Publishing" something does NOT remove intellectual 
> property rights. In fact, those rights first become attached to the 
> ideas when they are "published" (put into form). When I play a song 
> I've written on the street corner, or in a bar, or at a concert, I'm 
> "publishing" it "in public." Doing so does not give ANYONE permission 
> to use it without my permission. "Fair use" allows the use of very 
> small portions of it for teaching or research, but only under certain 
> conditions. And the Teach Act modifies those allowed uses even  further 
> in the case of online educational purposes.
>  >> So by default for me, all internet work has been intended for
>  >> publication.  Maybe to limited audiences, like when someone posts pics
>  >> of themselves getting drunk in Facebook, but the fact of the matter  is,
>  >> it's still more in the public space than in the private one.
>  >
>  > I think that the notion that the internet is a public space is 
> contestable. I would argue that the network of computers, routers, 
> wires and other technological stuff are almost ALL privately owned 
> entities . . . sort of like a great land filled with connected  malls . 
> . . a mall is not a public space at all... it's private land  often 
> FILLED with people doing stuff in the presence of others. But  the 
> internet is not at all like public lands (city, county, state, 
> federally owned public space).
>  >
>  > Further, even if there is a "public feel" to internet published 
> stuff, and putting aside for a moment the implications of the DMCA,  the 
> Teach Act, and copyright law (not to mention a ton state laws 
> concerning "rights of publicity and privacy"), I reject the notion  that 
> even bloggers who publish stuff are giving informed consent to  become 
> research subjects.
>  >
>  >
>  > Edward Lee Lamoureux, Ph. D.
>  > Associate Professor, Multimedia Program
>  > and Department of Communication
>  > Co-Director, New Media Center
>  > 1501 W. Bradley
>  > Bradley University
>  > Peoria IL  61625
>  > 309-677-2378
>  > <http://slane.bradley.edu/com/faculty/lamoureux/website2/index.html>
>  > <http://gcc.bradley.edu/mm/>
>  > AIM/IM & skype: dredleelam
>  > Second Life: Professor Beliveau
>  >
>  >
>  >
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