re-write culture. lawrence lessig stanford university/law professor

Re-Write Culture

Lawrence Lessig

Stanford University/Law Professor

1. photography

Daguerre1839

daguerrotype

photography=costly

William Fox Talbot: cheaper, made negatives (1870s)

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George Eastman, 1888, invented Kodak

• Eastman-Kodak camera: $25• Snapshot: permanent record

Lessig compares Kodak Photography to digital media tools today

• Video editing system in 1990: $75,000

• Today: $374

The real significance of Eastman’s invention… was not economic.

It was social.

Kodak taught Americans how to smile

Lessig: “Professional photography gave individuals a glimpse of places they would never otherwise see. Amateur photography gave them the ability to record their own lives in a way they had never been able to do before.”

Battle at the turn of the 20th century:

Should we require a person having their picture taken to give permission?

• On one hand: Capture images in public view: it’s a right.

• On the other hand: Take something away of value if you take a photo

The legal environment let the technology flourish.

COPYRIGHT: Photography was a new

technology 100 years ago.:It’s important that people were

free to take pictures whenever they wanted.

2. Just Think

Just Think!

• Media literacy: learn to write about the media with the media

• One learns to “write” by “writing” with images

• Read only vs. write/rewrite

What does it mean to write with visuals?

• Just Think: tinkering with culture teaches as well as creates.

• We have all these wonderful new tools to tinker with...like….????

NEWTECHNOLOGY: • It’s so important in our day and age to

learn how to write with visuals

NEWTECHNOLOGY: • It’s so important in our day and age to

learn how to write with visuals

3 . 9/11, Blogs

Blogs kept giving us personals stories after the networks and cable outlets turned to the “experts”

blogosphere vs. the packaging of TV news

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Lessig: • The Internet enables people to capture

images• Spread messages instantaneously• Unlike Kodak, the Internet allows creations

to be shared with a HUGE amt. of people, practically instantaneously.

• Blogs emerged as a new way to engage in public discourse “the most important form of unchoreographed public discourse that we have”

• Democracy: never about just elections• It means: control through reasoned

discourse: The public sphere.• De Toqueville: was most impressed by

the Jury and the process of deliberation• Not a lot of room for political discourse.

Lessig:• Blogs gave news stories a different life

cycle: blogs keep stories ALIVE• A concentrated media hides things from

the public• Bloggers are amateur in the sense of an

Olympic athlete: not paid.• Blogs=a way to triangulate the truth.• Blogs: the 5th estate (whereas

newspapers are the 4th estate)

NEWTECHNOLOGY: • The internet provides a means

for sharing information that enhances public discourse. (Think Benkler here and the “networked public sphere”)

4. Open Source• We learn through

tinkering.• Open source software:

collective knowledge-building (Benkler)

• Tinkering is no longer an isolated activity.

4. Open Source• Sourceforge• Linux• Open Source Lab

NEWTECHNOLOGY• The internet provides a means

for tinkering collectively

5. CONCLUSION

• Big debate:• Dad dad can tinker with the car engine

and yet today, a girl CAN’T tinker with the images she’s found b/c of copyright issues.

“We are building a legal system that completely suppresses the natural tendencies of today’s digital kids. We’re building an architecture that unleashes 60 percent of the brain and a legal system that closes down that part of the brain.”

• Were building a legal system that completely suppresses the natural tendencies of today’s digital kids.

• “We’re building a technology that takes the magic of Kodak, mixes moving images and sound, and adds a space for commentary and an opportunity to spread that creativity everywhere.

(This is good for public discourse.)

• But we’re building the law to close down that technology.”

COPYRIGHT: • We need to preserve our right

to tinker with images, b/c this ultimately enhances public discourse.

Lessig on Colbert

MIX 1

MIX 2

Music

Stroke of Genius• In October of 2001, a d.j. named Roy Kerr, calling himself the

Freelance Hellraiser, sent Temple-Morris a mashup called “A Stroke of Genius,” laying Christina Aguilera’s vocal from “Genie in a Bottle,” a lubricious pop song, over the music from the Strokes’ “Hard to Explain,” a brittle, honking guitar song. “Stroke” is a perfect pop song, better than either of its sources. What was harmonically sweet in the original songs becomes huge and complex in the combination. Aguilera’s vocal is an unabashedly expressive ode to her sexuality, and her control over it.

• Some a-cappellas are on commercially released singles, specifically intended for d.j. use, while others appear on the Internet, having been leaked by people working in the studio where the song was recorded

• The Trailermash.com• MAshuptown

• Endless Love• Ten things I hate about the Ten commandments• The weakest link• Hillary Clinton Vs. Barack Obama• Willy Wonka and the Blow Factory• Must Love Jaws• Mary Poppins

• Dick Cheney vs. Bush

Team Project

Student ProjectsBoxing match

Not so good:Evolution of the MediaA little mean