[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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> >
>
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