[Air-L] public private

[M. Deanya Lattimore]

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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