Hemmungs Wirtén
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| - | The traditional use of land before enclosure had a lot to do with gathering and collecting of resources, such as firewood. Commoners in the winter months would be allowed to cut branches off of trees for firewood during the winter months. In 1866, the areas permitting lopping were enclosed. A tradition that the commoners took part in for years was put to en end by the enclosure and privatization of land. Those who continued to go lopping were considered 'trespassers' and were prosecuted and sentenced to prison. | + | The traditional use of land before enclosure had a lot to do with gathering and collecting of resources, such as firewood. Commoners in the winter months would be allowed to cut branches off of trees for firewood during the winter months. In 1866, the areas permitting lopping were enclosed. A tradition that the commoners took part in for years was put to en end by the enclosure and privatization of land. Those who continued to go lopping were considered 'trespassers' and were prosecuted and sentenced to prison. After much protest, loppers were given money to compensate for their loss of the right to Lopp, which was used to build a hall in their town called the "Loppers Hall". This hall was the new gathering place for lopping. The meaning of lopping changed to simply gathering at the new Loppers Hall to celebrate and talk about amongst each other. |
| ==Commons and Public Space== | ==Commons and Public Space== | ||
Revision as of 17:16, 5 December 2011
About the Author
Eva Hemmungs Wirtén is Professor in Library and Information Science (also Associate Professor [Docent in Swedish] in Comparative Literature) at Uppsala University. Her research is focused on the history, theory and philosophy of intellectual property and the public domain. She is currently developing an international research network dealing with Culture, Creativity, Copyright (CCC) based at Uppsala University. She is also working on a new book, preliminarily entitled Libratory Life: Law and the Unmaking of Knowledge, 1976-2006, where she highlights the impact of intellectual property in research and higher education. Eva is also a member of the working group on policy in the COST Action A 32 on “Open scholarly communities on the web” and sits on the board of the newly initiated Swedish research observatory on cultural policy SWECULT.
Abstract
As a result of the digital revolution and the ever-increasing use of the internet, discussions around the conflict between copyright and the public domain are more prevalent than ever before. While these discussions have been hotly debated by legal scholars and in blogs and online forums, Terms of Use is one of the first books to concentrate on the conceptual foundations of the public domain.Taking an interdisciplinary approach, Eva Hemmungs Wirtén reveals the nineteenth-century origins of contemporary phenomena such as blogs, wikis, the 'Creative Commons,' as well as the 'Open Source' and 'Open Access' movements. Hemmungs Wirtén examines topics as diverse as the pharmaceutical uses of plants, the patenting of DNA sequences, and Disney's reworking of Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Books in order to provide a frank theoretical discussion of how nature and culture have been transformed into intellectual property.Timely and provocative, Terms of Use will challenge and inspire readers by providing an original and innovative approach to the understanding of the public domain and its origins.
Summary/Reviews
In Terms of Use, Swedish scholar Eva Hemmungs Wirtén seeks to deepen our understanding of issues surrounding the Internet, digitization and the public domain. These issues are most often discussed today in legal terms, making the public domain “a lawyer-free zone remarkably crowded with lawyers.” The author instead chooses a “stubbornly historical” path, exploring what meanings the public domain and the commons, as well as intellectual property rights and copyright, accrued through time.
Rather than offer a sweeping intellectual history, Hemmungs Wirtén narrows her focus to case studies involving the actual jungle – a decision that she admits readers may find “arbitrary if not downright bizarre” – and the British Empire in the Victorian era. This allows her to examine the commons in reference to imperialism and the jungle as a site for the mining of resources. Within this book, there is a chapter dedicated to plants (such as the cinchona tree, the source of quinine) and how the science commons model developed in the North exploited the South. Control of biological diversity has swung to the nation state in recent decades, which raises its own problems. Such as, more restrictions on use of biological resources by indigenous people. There is a chapter on jungle animals, which were broadly conceived of as useless in the wild and having value only if available for visual spectacle, whether in zoos or stuffed. This takes Dr. Hemmungs Wirtén to modern-day museums and art galleries that commit “copyfraud,” claiming copyright when reprinting works that are actually in the public domain, such as Henri Rousseau’s jungle paintings. The final chapter considers the route from Kipling’s The Jungle Books to Disney’s The Jungle Book, and holds up Disney both as an exemplar of the cultural value of appropriating existing works and as the godfather of copyright litigation.
The public domain today, the jungle and imperialism, the history of intellectual property rights – that’s a lot to cover in 159 pages. Imposing the jungle into the book’s fabric causes particular problems. The 19th-century case studies occupy too much text, resulting in abrupt end-of-chapter transitions to the 21st century. Most puzzling of all, the book’s subtitle actually negates one of the book’s central arguments. Whereas Dr. Hemmungs Wirtén seeks to reclaim the jungle as a site used historically for appropriating biological and cultural resources of value, Negotiating the Jungle of the Intellectual Commons simply reinforces the longstanding metaphor of the jungle as a dark and dangerous place that must be slashed through.
Despite these problems, Terms of Use is an easy read. The book is written with real brio, and the author’s untiring effort to squeeze more research, more 19th- and 21st-century connections, more analysis onto every page is quite fascinating. There are fascinating asides relating to the longstanding peasant right to gleaning (the collecting of stray grain missed during harvest); the Prince of Wales’s 9,000-person hunting party in India in 1876; and the rationing of Disney cartoons by 1970s Swedish television to one hour per year, on Christmas Eve. More centrally, Dr. Hemmungs Wirtén in conclusion makes a compelling case that copyright, originally designed to reward creativity and to spur innovation, is now too often used to hinder innovation. On the other hand, allowing ideas to travel in the public domain, allows for their free exchange. Particularly encouraging the “after-thinking” about existing ideas that is essential in producing new ones. Though it can be difficult to retrace how the book came to that conclusion – is the Victorian jungle, free to all (British), a model for the intellectual commons, then? – Terms of Use is indisputably provocative. Like the commons itself, it lends itself to after-thinking.
from:http://www.universityaffairs.ca/who-owns-the-jungle.aspx
Sources
- The Ins and Outs Of Public Domain
- Imperialism
- Herbert Shiller Theory
- Cultural Industries and Cultural Policies- Hesmondalgh
- Lecture With Eva Hemmungs
- Critical Pedagogy in the Twenty-first Century
- The Loughton lopper who saved Epping Forest
Chapter 1: 'From Time Immemorial': Customary Rights, Rites of Custom
Chapter Summary
Multiple representations of land permeate and structure the way we think about the public domain (pg 14). The first chapter considers at some length the underlying historical and theoretical principles that have shaped our current understanding of the public domain. Real and metaphorical land (arguments for and against private property) holds a prominent place in this discussion.
Primary Argument
Chapter one underlines the historical and theoretical principles which help to shape current understandings of the public domain. The primary argument surrounds the struggle over the right to culture-- is it a common good or a commercial product? This chapter highlights a tremendous tension and struggle over the notion of culture. Is it a communally held activity of individuals and groups or is it a commerce in which industries employ individuals in the production of various things? Is it a common good for all or is it a business where those who can afford it can access it? The chapter highlights how the term 'enclosure', once understood as fencing in public property (the commons), remains prevalent within society today. From this chapter, we learn how yesterday’s 'digging' and 'grazing' became today’s 'googling' and 'sampling' and how the commons and the public domain contribute to such radical transformations.
Enclosure
The land on England in the 1700's consisted primarily of large fields, open grazing fields for all to share and live together in. By the 1800's, much of the land in England began to become enclosed, fenced in and claimed by property owners.
Colonial Enclosure
The main analytical aim of Chapter 1 was to forge a connection between enclosure 'at home' and enclosure as part of the logic of imperialism. It explains how the rules and policies within one country are influential to the development and use of rules in other countries and colonies as well. A national interest along lines of improvement and development were established within the Victorian Era. However, both the ceremonial and symbolic acts that were used by various European powers were very different from one another. The French, for instance, used parades and ceremonies to gain consent for their actions where as the Portuguese claimed property rights based on their superior technology and seafaring/map making capabilities. The Dutch, like the Portuguese, regarded information as propriety. The English however, were very unique in how they marked private vs. public property. They used gardening and cultivation as a symbolic way of justifying their colonial project. English settlements in the New World were therefore not about parades, technology, or map making, but about the everyday practices of building fences and planting gardens. The raising of fences indicated not only a distinction in property, but also an improvement of society. Sometimes symbolic fences can employ a strong meaning then actual barbed wire or structures that create actual physical barriers.
Resistance to Enclosure
Diggers
- These were organized groups of people who opposed the enclosure of land. they opposed the privatization of land, and dug and tore down fences that enlaced open land. They questioned the authority of those who decided that a portion of land was rightfully theirs.
The Diggers were a group of English protestant communists who attempted to reform the existing social order by leveling existing property to create rural communities. Once they began to put their ideas into practice and began cultivating the land they became known as “the diggers.” Led by Gerrard Winstanley who firmly believed “true freedom lies where a man receives his nourishment and preservation, and that is in the use of the earth.” How has this concept affected the 20th century? During the mid to late 1960s there was the development of the San Francisco Diggers. They were known as a radical community action group who much like the English diggers envisioned a society free from private property and all forms of buying and selling. The San Francisco diggers put their beliefs into practice by opening stores which simply gave their stock away, they also provided food, medical care, transportation and even housing. They also organized numerous free music concerts and works of political art.
Digger thinking evolved around a few central themes: -depiction of land as "common treasury relief for all." -he that works for another either for wages or to pay him rent, works unrighteously. A similar concept to socialism. Socialism: A theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution of capital, land etc., in the community as a whole.
Interesting video clip on consuming and the idea of "free"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iki6oDgPf48
Gleaning
The author looks at practice known as Gleaning. After a farmer would harvest their fields, Gleaners would come to the field and pick up any grains or produce that were left behind or missed in the process. It was a very important part of peoples lives, as it provided them with food that they could not have afforded. Some farmers has a problem with people taking their property, something that they owned and made themselves. Gleaners saw it as a right, and thought that since the food was leftover, and was not going to be used anyways, it might as well be given to those who need it.
Gleaners began to have rules and restrictions regarding when they were allowed to glean, and how much of the ‘property’ they were allowed to take. Examples of which are how some farmers made gleaners only glean during daylight hours so that everyone would see them doing it.
Loppers
The traditional use of land before enclosure had a lot to do with gathering and collecting of resources, such as firewood. Commoners in the winter months would be allowed to cut branches off of trees for firewood during the winter months. In 1866, the areas permitting lopping were enclosed. A tradition that the commoners took part in for years was put to en end by the enclosure and privatization of land. Those who continued to go lopping were considered 'trespassers' and were prosecuted and sentenced to prison. After much protest, loppers were given money to compensate for their loss of the right to Lopp, which was used to build a hall in their town called the "Loppers Hall". This hall was the new gathering place for lopping. The meaning of lopping changed to simply gathering at the new Loppers Hall to celebrate and talk about amongst each other.
Commons and Public Space
Urban Commons
The idea of the urban commons was now more about the visual then the physical use. There was now the want for space and beauty as a place to escape the dismal conditions of the rapidly expanding urban cities and industrialization. This kind of common became less tied to the idea of subsistence living through gleaning and became about satisfying the increasingly important need for recreation, relaxation, and leisure. In 1866 Frederick Law Olmstead stressed that the most important advantage for a town in having a public park was that it added to the health, strength, and morality of the people. Olmstead firmly believed reaching such morality was not achieved through advertising displays, the sounds of steam engines, or commercial traffic but by the making of pastoral vistas and scenery that offered the most contrast to the rest of the town. If the parks were thrown open to and used by the public, the same public would perceive a well kept garden as common property, something that everyone had share in doing, and in which they had a common interest. A current example of the this type of urban common transformation would be High Line Park in New York city. High Line park was initially elevated railroad tracks which was converted into what is now known as “the park in the sky.”
Urban Publics
The public that we know today is different than the commoners in history. Public today requires private life. The outcome of private life (Having a place of your own, an income etc) give you the ability to gather and function in public. In urban publics there is a cost to nearly all of the functions of public gathering spaces, such as film’s, concerts, museums. Those public spaces that are free of charge are more often than not decorated with promotions and advertisements. The use of mediated communication and mass culture gives the public focal points for thought and discussion, which the author says, obstructs the publics ability to have a rational and critical discussion. There is a study that took place by Lee Humphreys from Cornell University that looked at the use of mobile social networking and its relation to use of public places. She at the use of mobile networks like Dodgeball, similar to foursquare, a service that allows you to check in to places and meet people. She found that public spaces were becoming slightly more privatized with services like these, because although they are designed for users to meet new people in urban spaces, people were more or less just meeting up with people that they knew. This means that people’s interactions and public spaces are being predetermined and planned out, and include only a private group of people that they know from before.
Information Commons
Throughout this chapter, we see how the idea of the commons gets tracked into the networked and knowledge-intensive present. Society has been introduced to an intangible commons of the mind recognized as a learning commons. The media saturated, online, and globalized information age depends on an information commons-- clusters of computers servicing the needs of the public. The 'decentered' and 'deterritorialized' nature of the information commons makes it appear very different from commons of the past and represents the ultimate disconnection from actual land. When using the term 'information commons' in the twenty-first century, a virtual and digital space is thought of. The emergence of the World Wide Web transitioned the commons from a tangible area of land to a symbolic and virtual space. The information commons is simply made of a very different raw material than traditional soil, turf or grass. The tragedy of the commons describes how information is both the outcome of and the prerequisite for production. This idea is better understood by understanding the commons of the past: if you imagine a pasture open to all, each herdsman will not be altruistic, rather he will try his utmost to keep as many cattle as possible on the commons even when the end result will prove detrimental to himself. From this notion, it is believed that as long as a functioning balance between what the land can hold and the use of it is established everything will be just dandy. The problem with this unfortunately, is that in today's society this state of equilibrium is very unrealistic and unlikely. In the digital age, people are streaming movies and downloading music in lower qualities simply for the immediacy of it. Although the information commons is recognized as a virtual space, a need for fences has been established. Although they are not made of wood or barbed wire, they serve the same purpose and make it increasingly difficult to access information.
"Using the increasingly valuable trope of the intellectual commons, the author might be called a copyright minimalist as against copyright maximalists, who assert that the purpose of copyright and other regimes that protect cultural expression (patents and trademarks) is to maximize the economic value of the expression to the rights holder, whether the rights holder be the creator or some person or organization to which the creator has ceded rights. Maximalists assert the identification of cultural creation as property, with the assumption that such property deserves protection from theft and misappropriation in the same way we prevent others from taking our houses, cars, and wallets." ( Klein, Naomi. No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies. P.66)
Examples
From the issue of physical property and the rights to use it to the digital age and intellectual property rights. This is a website which supports legal and technical infastructure that maximizes digital creativity, sharing and innovation. http://creativecommons.org/
Further Questions
- How can the diggers and loppers of the Victorian Era be connected to Hackers in the information commons today?
Critiques
Further Reading
Mashing-up: the Rise of User-Generated Content. Eva Hemmungs Wirten
No Trespassing: Authorship, Intellectual Property Rights, and the Boundaries of Globalization. Eva Hemmungs Wirten
No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies. Naomi Klein
Key Questions/Study Guide
Important to Understand:
From this chapter, it is important to understand how society make sense of today's commons by comparing it with yesterday's. The public knows more about the specificity of the information commons by lessons learned about the use of tangible resources and processes of the past. The same arguments of improvement and progress have been used throughout history highlighting the idea of enclosure and the use of fencing. Fencing in of symbolic space in the twenty-first century has become prevalent and known to society. Ultimately, this chapters demonstrates how the public continuously looks at the history to understand the present.
Notes and References
Chapter 2: 'Drugs of Virtues the Most Rare': Plants, Patents, and the Public Good
Primary Argument:
Chapter 2 dedicated to plants (such as the cinchona tree, the source of quinine) and how the science commons model developed in the North exploited the South. Control of biological diversity has swung to the nation state in recent decades, which raises its own problems. Such as, more restrictions on use of biological resources by indigenous people. She also explores nineteenth century plundering of the Amazon by imperial powers, hunting as an imperial sport. Wirtén, in a fascinating and creative account of the history of the commons, uses the theme of a jungle to show the “geopolitical dimensions of the jungle and the unbroken liaison between imperialism and the public domain, contrasting the British Empire with the Empire of globalization and information technology”.
Plants Exploration:
For the aspiring botanist or simply a curious observer, the Amazon has plenty to offer. The Amazon region is home to tens of thousands of plant species, many of which are the source of modern medicines and local remedies As early Western explorers ventured into the Amazon-one of the most enticing parts of the Americas- the almost incomprehensible array of new and unknown flora and fauna before them premised earthly riches beyond what they ever imagined possible.
This chapter is a story of exotic plants and their biomedical uses-from sixteenth-century- deserves a place in this context for several reasons. Part of a global commons, plants were by tradition designated an inviolable heritage of mankind and a necessary public good. Unfortunately, darker nuances of colonial exploitation and misuse do not trail far behind that gentlemen's agreement of share and share alike.
Common Heritage of Mankind & Science Commons:
Since there are always multiple companies working with several labs to conduct research for various purposes, it becomes a question of whether or not this data should be shared openly. If the data is being conducted for the beneficial purposes to humans, they should be able to see the results being concluded in these research labs.
Key Arguments
Who should own plants? With what limitations and factors?
Diminutive plants occupy a far weightier role in the history of colonialization than their relative smallness would seem to suggest. To complicate things even further, plants themselves are less important to this narrative than the knowledge of what biological material does and can be made to do interns of pharmaceutical application. Centuries of struggles concerning the discovery, control, and use of plants for such purposes involve and intricate web of individual actors, private and public institutions, and property paradigms that are, in their very complexity, emblematic of the hybridity of ownership.
Are plants used for the public good or for commercialism purposes?
“The universally accepted principal that plant generic resources are a heritage of mankind and should be available without restriction. The idea that no single state can control, let alone own, certain parts of the planet”. Since plants are a creation of "god", then who should decide who owns plants. The reason why everyone should not be given the advantage to own a plant is mainly because people do not understand the use of the plant and what it could cause. Different plants are used for different reasons which can only be figured out by a scientist in a laboratory. Big corporations, companies and government agencies try to control and own plants for both the public good and commercialism reasons. In order for someone to own the rights to a plant, they must get an approved patent. "Patents exist to reward and provide incentives for innovation." Not everyone can receive a patent, one must show the innovation created in the laboratory that will eventually help humans.
What is public domain?
Public domain works are not restricted by copyright and do not require a license or fee to use. Public domain status allows the user unrestricted access and unlimited creativity
There are three main categories of public domain works:
- Works that automatically enter the public domain upon creation, because they are not copyrightable:
- Titles, names, short phrases and slogans, familiar symbols, numbers
- Ideas and facts (e.g., the date of the Gettysburg Address)
- Processes and systems
- Government works and documents
- Works that have been assigned to the public domain by their creators
- Works that have entered the public domain because the copyright on them has expired. (Note: Use of some works, such as ideas and symbols, may be restricted by other laws, such as patent, trademark, or trade secret.)
Circulating Cinchona
The Cinchona tree is a very important metaphor for patents in a world of globalization and technology. The story begins in the late 1700's when Malaria broke out across countries. Leaders of the countries were in desperate need of a cure for the disease. When they discovered that the bark of a Cinchona tree could cure Malaria and other diseases, the search for the tree became a high priority. The bark of a Cinchona tree contained quinine. Quinine was the antidote to Malaria and other such diseases.
Countries soon panicked in a rush to try and find the Cinchona tree as soon as possible because it was said to be found only in the Amazon. Many European countries wanted control and distribution of the Cinchona tree because, it would help create medicine for their people. Producing this medicine would help the country's economy grow, and also help save their people from the horrible diseases.
The Story Goes:
A man by the name of Dr. Bravo owned the Cinchona trees. However, he had died long before the frenzy over the trees began. No one knew who Dr. Bravo was during this time, therefore to everyone in search of the trees, the Cinchona tree was in the public domain for anyone to claim. In 1760, Jose Metis went in search of the tree for the Spanish King Charles III. However, no trees were found. Then in 1865, a man by the name of Mamani found the Cinchona tree and gathered its seeds. Mamani notified his friend Charles Ledger who had been searching for years for the tree. Charles Ledger was originally appointed by the British government to find the Cinchona tree many years prior, but he failed to do so. So when Mamani found the trees in 1865, Ledger had his chance at resurrecting his mission.
When Mamani and Ledger offered to sell the seeds to the British government, the government refused the seeds because they believed the seeds were deteriorated. The Dutch government praised the seeds and offered to purchase the seeds. Ledger sold the seeds to the Dutch, and the Dutch economy began to flourish.
Concept of Biopiracy
Definition: [1] This can even be seen in today's society with growing technologies. There is a lot of information available through different modes of technology, which may or may not be credited. With so much information, it becomes difficult to acknowledge an individual for his/her work. for example, someone might start a research study online, but someone else might come in and finish the product, and get full credit. This becomes an issue of whose intellectual property it was. This has its positive and negatives to it, since the research may have not concluded if someone else didn't come in and finish it, but then again, the individual who started the research didn't get credit for it. Intellectual property's are an issue that are arising with the increase in technology and information, and it becomes difficult to organize.
Example
- 1. Opium vs. Morphine: Opium comes from the poppy plant and Morphine comes from raw opium. Morphine is primarily used to treat both acute and chronic severe pain. (ex. Labor pains) Negative uses are mainly addiction and drug abuse.Without restrictions on this drug, people could use this plant/opium for wrong reasons and cause danger to themselves. This goes against the universally accepted concept of common heritage of mankind because this plant can not be available to anyone for several reasons.
- 2. Marijuana is a plant used as a drug which is both legal and illegal in different countries. This drug has several purposes, including both pharmaceutical purposes and pleasure purposes for others. This plant has restrictions on it in many parts in Canada because it is seen as a drug which is abused and used for wrong reasons. There is a lot of controversy about whether or not this drug should be restricted or open to everyone to use.
- 3. The neem tree is a tree that has been used in India for over 2000 years for many pharmaceutical purposes. A company in the US is in a dispute with India because they are trying to buy this plants patent from India. The US wants to do further research to increase the availability by produces other products to benefit people. But India does not want to give them the rights to take this tree because they think it is there intellectual property. This creates issues between them about whose intellectual property it actually is.
Further Reading
Key Questions/Study Guide
Links
Chapter 3: 'Telegraphic Adress "The Jungle," 166 Piccadilly': Taxidermy and the Spectacle of the Public Sphere
Primary Argument
...Important to remember, Humans make culture! Therefore culture is human. However, is culture free?
Telling lies
“Is it not yet fully understood that taxidermic representation of objects stands upon a level with pictorial art?” Modern reader- taxidermy is that of art, but art that is somehow also exact science.
taxidermy artifacts-(stuffed animals) represent a revolution in the interaction between human and non-human, illustrate the liaison of science that forms the Victorian staging of the public and the private, and more than anything, they epitomize the relationship between the colonizer and the colonized.- all these dichotomies needed to be explored , and there was no better place to do so than by entering the highly ordered world of natural history museums or zoological gardens, controlled environments that characterized the virtues of classification and the promise of new knowledge.
wild animals resist falling under control- perhaps the least own able of “things” . Roman law: all untamed living creatures, regardless of their habitat were considered resnullius, or belonging to nobody. When captured, they became property of the captor- despite their unownable qualities, in colonization they were acquired owned and commodified as often as they were revered.
From bizarre furniture in Victorian era, to public wonder and awe in zoos, to digital jungle paintings, wild animals illustrate changes to the cultural landscape of enabled and disabled uses.
SPECTRES OF RIGHTS INCREASINGLY IMPORTANT WHEN CLAIMING OWNERSHIP IN A CULTURE DEPENDENT ON THE VISUAL
-theatricality and visuality is chapters focus- from nature to culture.
Big Game Hunting
animals had to be hunted first- tigers bears emus etc went to hunt- empires dominance- boys become men etc “poachers” who invaded and stole
it is as if the act of slaying was a personal assertion of superiority and in addition it confirmed the rightfulness of imperial destiny. discusses cummings book about hunting and killing the giraffe- callousness and reverence.
Photgraphic Gun by etienne jules marey – shoot both the animals and hunt at the same time-gave animals eternal life commons terminology- it was a set for tragedy; that wild animals would never be in danger of depletion was unthinkable and therefore it was equally inconceivable to abstain from what was there for the taking.
to men like john adams, locke’s principles outlines a property politics where subsistence constituted the only right of natives to their land. By substituting the body bison with body cattle, the underlying rationale of the project was to replace savagery with civilization.
hunting= profit seeking, extermination, but mainly for pursuit of science. killing was required for scientific enlightenment and knowledge. killed 28 musk ox to procure one young ox for zoo.
only hunt elephant for tusks-leave the rest for waste.. waste refers directly to the animal not being seen by the proper spectator.
without onlookers, the animal does not fulfil its promise of education and entertainment!!!
left in the wild, the brox rhinoceroses is useless, a classic way of devaluating resources in the commons
altering animals into furniture popular elements of interior decorating in Victorian era. (Feel bad for animal lovers/pita advocates in this chapter)
ex- old fire screen, chairs in horse and tigers skin, elephant foot liquer case, tiger skull lamps- stylish interior to homes.
appear in urban public space, by a way of display and conduct, a wild animal -once perhaps free but deemed wasted in that state- can fulfil is potential for visual use and become a truly public animal.
Hano, Chunee, and Joice Heath, Age 166
roman/british empire proficient in securing wild animals for various purposes of display and entertainment.
animal combats were popular 19th century London menageries- Exeter Exchange- one shilling would let you hold lion cubs, ride elephant and watch animals being fed.
-material and rhetorical qualities –exotic animals were an important/essential part of Victorian life.- strict hierarchical distinctions- purpose to serve man (horse) vs dependent on man(pigs) elephant shot 152 bullets –public got a chance to see him dead in his cage!
people will do anything for profit!! Commodify anything!!
Walter Potter made Sussex Museum of Curiosity an example of very different animals from Wards- a duckling with three eyes, two beaks four legs four wings.
Ward and Potter are worlds apart, but each staged their own representation of animals.
German Firm Carl Hagenbeck was foremost importer of animals but due to finances they branched out to displaying wild people
Metropolitan Jungles
Henri Rosseau- made a play about Wards expeditions- A Visit to the 1889 exhibition fantastic travelling device, a magical carpet ride to the “country of dreams”
the attraction for the museum (Jardin des plantes) was placing the foreign in the visitors reach.
betes sauvages-illustrated book of animals in museum. Kiplings “the jungle book” 1899
world fairs, exhibitions natural history museums, and zoos interacted and shaped the public perception of colonialism and the exotic. The urban identity of these new public institutions even reinforces their power of interpretive hegemony.---
the process of urbanization itself, the way in which the various spheres of public and private were controlled by buildings, both in terms of the layout of the home and the layout of public buildings and parks, structured the expectations of people and their behaviour in these respective domains. It also revolves around forms of theatricality, setting the stage for public interaction—on the street, at the cafe, in the museum, and at the zoo.
olmstead- ‘men must come together, and be must be seen coming together- park regulated coming together.-
design of these new public spaces facilitates the paradigmatic rise of the visual- watching others and being watched in return
public as a problem- verge of becoming agitated and aggressive –potential stampede of uncontrollable Chunee- a crowd that can be so easily transformed into a dangerous mob on the streets could, once moved away from the streets to indoors (or even the gated outdoors, as in the case of zoos), be subjected both to the controlling gaze of others and to the ways of seeing imposed by architecture and landscape.
Ward-universal interest in the animal kingdom displayed by all classes of society, whether in the select few who gain admission of the Sunday, or the masses of the plebian Monday.
taxidermy- control over exotic/wild.
Rousseau’s most famous jungle painting-hungry lion throws itself on the antelope -as if all of our preconceived notions of the jungle come to life in these paintings, but makes them aware of the unauthentic and surreal they are.
Copyfraud
COPYFRAUD: winter 2005, Tate Modern’s jungles in Paris, the first U.K exhibit of Rousseau’s jungle painting in 85 years. –tiger in a tropical storm (surprise!)The equatorial jungle (1909) tropical forest with monkeys (1910)
the national gallery in London may physically control and own tiger in a tropical storm but that ownership alone does not allow them free rein to do as they please with Rousseau’s canvas. Whereas a private owner can restrict access to a painting or prevent it all together, the role of the museum is to hold objects and art in trust, so that public can view and enjoy collections without counterproductive restrictions.
digitization changes this web of relationships altogether . His paintings are still one-of-a-kind objects in a museum or private collection; at the same time they lead a prosperous second life on the Internet by way of museum websites. Over 15 million people a year visit the website for New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, where only 4.5 visit the actual museum. The New Getty Museum in Los Angeles receives around 10.5 million people in website compared to 1.2 visits. Users spend 12-15 minutes on metmuseum and 9.5 on getty.-Our collective memory is fickle as well as short.
photocopier once destabilized not only preconceived notions of what technology was capable of doing, but also helped destabilize the idea of art itself.
!!!Xerox had at once revolutionized the technology of reproduction, but even more significantly, set off a new respectlessness, democratization if you will, in the relationship between producers and consumers!!! The photocopying era presaged the era of digitization; we now enter a new phase in the history of copying and in the understanding of what we mean by an original and a copy in art. recent controversy illustrates the increasing convergence between art and technology, as well as the challenges concerning the ethics of use that inevitably follow from that connection.
Case on pg.102 artist Joy Garnet vs Susan Meislas on “Molotov Man” cocktail painting. Lawyers- the painting went online in different contexts.
the museum is online-could look at Rousseau’s paintings in own home.
What constitutes fair use of someone’s copyright? Are there limits to what we should do with images? !!copyright lasts 70 years after the authors creator!!
copyfraud: falsely claiming a copyright on works in the public domain.
Ward’s abandoned rhinoceros patent wasn’t constituted and was fabricated, he made it look like there was.- Ward understood perfectly how essential it was to use intellectual property rights to create an illusion of proprietorship.
does not give museums a blanket go-ahead to slap a copyright notice on works that have reverted to the public domain. We have to accept their right to limit access to artwork if such restrictions deemed necessary, and have faith in their discretion to exercise caution when it comes to suitable uses of the paintings or objects in the media; we also have to respect their wishes to prevent substandard reproductions from flooding the market.
museums are extremely dependent on the revenues of merchandising; together with ticket sales, membership fees, and fundraising, retail and shop earnings are major revenues.
question before the court was whether it was possible to copyright colour transparencies of public domain paintings. Case on pg.106.
Anyone for who would like to illustrate a book will encounter copyfraud claims. Anyone who tries to put together a bundle of texts for teaching purposes will see the copyright sign in places where it has no business to be. We all sign contracts and agree to licenses because we dread the consequences of uses that may be perfectly legitimate. We are conditioned to think that ‘every work is copyrighted unless proven otherwise” we always begin on the defensive.- if you are not vigilant or easily intimidated you might end up paying for access to works that are in the public domain.- museums etc are among these offenders.
show that not only wild animals functioned as a ‘ornamental’ resource in the 19th century but how such status profoundly related to the staging of imperial power.
of importance is the tension between public aspirations and private rights that collide in the establishement of new public spaces, reinforcing the complexities of an emerging culture of display. The steady increase of deception in order to claim intellectual property rights.
As we enter an era of digitization, the taxidermy mount becomes the digital thumbnail and we find ourselves in a full blown period of copyfraud and an invasive permission culture.
Nothing other than the telling of lies?!
Primary Sources
Critiques
Further Reading
Sussex Museum: Walter Potter Free Culture: The Nature of Future Creativity By Lawrence Lessig
Key Questions/Study Guide
Links
Chapter 4: 'I Am Two Mowglis': Kipling, Disney, and a Lesson in How To Use (and Abuse) the Public Domain
Primary Argument
Copyright Law and Trademark is restricting and limiting our uses of culture and commodifying culture within society. Copyright was originally intended to promote and protect creativity and was a reward for innovation. Now, coupled with the Copright Term Extension Act (CTEA) and Trademark Law it is preventing culture from entering into the public domain. This has resulted in culture becoming moments of consumption rather than moments of creation. Our ability to express ourselves becomes constrained through the overlapping of copright and trademark laws because iconic signifiers within our culture belong to major corporations, therefore we have become silenced.
Copright and Trademark Law
Copyright Law was originally intended to serve as a reward for authors who developed creative works. It served as a safety mechanism to ensure the work could not be stolen by others and that the author maintained exlusive rights to that work. It is important to note, that the original intent of copyright was to allow the author to have control of their intellectual property for a limited amount of time before the work was able to fall into the public domain. Since the creation of the Copyright Terms Extension Act (CTEA)in 1998 intellectual property is now prevented from falling into the public domain. The CTEA extends the copyright to 75 years after the authors death. Although, if for instance a corporation owns intellectual property they are permitted to renewing there right to the work every 75 years, therefore preventing important cultural texts from ever entering the public sphere. The CTEA is also coupled with Trademark Law which is inherently perpetual. Trademark Law allows authors to protect characters within their work from being replicated without their permission in the public sphere. Essentially it means, that even if a character is in the public domain in terms of copyright, its parallel protection as a trademark overrides its public domain status and only further limits our uses. The rationale behind trademark law is that it protects consumers from confusion as it limits imitations of the brand. Consumers know who that character is, who they are associated with, that they are purchasing a legitimate brand and who the source of the product is. Trademark law also allows the company to maintain control of their reputation and prohibits "defamation of brand". The corporation is able to govern who their product is affiliated with and exactly what message they are conveying.
The Right to Fair Use
The principle of fair use acts as a safety mechanism whereby the public is allowed to interact with cultural works during ongoing copyright. This principle acknowledges at some level, that consumers have rights and allows consumers to use the texts without permission from the author. There are certain guidelines which demonstrate and allow the fair use principle to apply. First, the nature of the work can only be used for parody, research, commentary, criticism and teaching. Second, the amount of borrowed text cannot be the entirety of the work 3. The commercial impact of the borrowed texts, which is to say the borrowed text cannot change the original works value in the market place.The princple of fair use ensures we do not put intertextual dialogue on hold for the time frame of the copyright.
A Permission Culture & Reading-Writing Process
Reading-Writing Process
Hemmungs Wirten argues that we live in a society based around the philosophy of a "permission culture". Nothing is ever new, culture is created through an ongoing process of appropriation or otherwise known as intertextuality. In order write new works and create new texts, we must read and learn. Unforuntately, copyright and trademark laws interrupt this process of learning and proclaims that creators cannot base their "new works" on old texts from which they gained knowledge and were inspired by. Essentially, copyright and trademark laws professes that we are forbidden to learn from texts and apply this new knowledge. "Learning is not merely the treasuring up of words in the memory; it is through thinking that the toughts of others are seized, and this after-thinking is real learning" (Heummungs Wirten, p. 136). Even when we believe texts are genuinely innovative we are often unaware of the intertexuality evident in the works. Take for instance, Avatar. The film was revered as a innovative and awe-inspiring, although its plot is eerily similar to that of the legendary folk story Pocahontas and its graphics resemble the video game World of Warcraft.
Permission Culture
In modern day society, blatant intertextuality is forbidden as it infringes on copyright and trademark laws, which therefore results in what Hemmungs Wirten terms a "permission culture". Creators can only create on the basis that they gather permission from the works which inspired them, otherwise their creations will never be allowed enter the public domain. This proliferation of a permission culture has come at the cost of consumers and creators in two ways: first, locating and securing rights from a copyright owner is an immense financial burden for creators and a nigthmarishly long process. Second, the public is now limited in their freedom of speech. We must now ask permission in order to use works which should be readily available to us to use in whichever way we please.In this sense, we our use of culture is restricted and we limited to to few things we can actually call "culture" (texts we are free to interact with). Our culture is dwindling in modern day society and it is not absurd to say that our culture was more rich in the era's that were based on oral communication, where story telling was the primary distribution of culture. Take for instance the folk tale of Pocahontas, this story is true and a part of our heritage, although we are not allowed to interact with it because the story now belongs to Disney as copyright and the animated character Pocahontas is protected by trademark laws. The public domain no longer cultivates the creation of culture, but rather fosters a competitve environment based strictly on economics. The desire to publish works in order to grant them entry into the public domain is no longer based on the desire to create culture, but rather the monetary value in it. This creates a hostile public domain where it is becoming increasingly difficult to create "new" pieces of culture, as the market is aggresively policied by major corporations.
Differences in Jurisdiction
Digitization
Primary Sources
Government of Canada: Copyright
Critiques
Further Reading
Mappying the Digitial Public Domain: Threats and Opportunities
Free Culture: The Nature of Future Creativity By: Lawrence Lessig
Key Questions/ Study Guide
- Do corporations benefit from the public domain?
- Is it in the best interest of corporations to encourage the public domain or restrict it?
- Is culture a commercial product or a common good?
Links
Apple vs. Nokia This exemplifies the idea that there is no clear path as to what constitutes copyright infringement. The jurisdiction varies from country to country, and even state-to-state.
2011 "George Lucas Selects" This video shows George Lucas' encouragement for fans to write their own ideas which relate to Star Wars. This is much like how Star Trek fans were provided the opportunity to write their own scripts within the Star Trek plot. Some of the fan-fiction presented were actually used in Star Trek Next Generation
Conclusions
More Publications From The Author
Terms of Use: Negotiating the Jungle of the Intellectual Commons (forthcoming, University of Toronto Press, September 2008).
No Trespassing: Authorship, Intellectual Property Rights, and the Boundaries of Globalization (Toronto: The University of Toronto Press, 2004).
“’Don’t Fence Me In’: Travels in the Public Domain ,” New Directions in Copyright Law, vol 6. Ed. Fiona Macmillan. (London: Edward Elgar, 2007).
“The Global Market 1970-2000: Producers,” Blackwell Companion to the History of the Book. Eds. Simon Eliot and Jonathan Rose (London: Blackwells, 2007).
“Litteraturens Lag: att forska om upphovsrätt (tvärvetenskapligt).” Tidskrift för Litteraturvetenskap 3-4, 2006.
“Out of Sight and Out of Mind: On the Cultural Hegemony of Intellectual Property (Critique).” Cultural Studies 2-3, 2006.
“Life, Liberty, and the Relentless Pursuit of Ownership: The ‘Americanization’ of Intellectual Property Rights," American Studies in Scandinavia, vol 35, no 2, Fall 2003.
Global Infatuation: Explorations in Transnational Publishing and Texts. The Case of Harlequin Enterprises and Sweden (Uppsala: Publications from the Section for Sociology of Literature at the Department of Literature, Uppsala University, 38, 1998).
Notes and References
Hemmungs, W. E., & Hemmungs, W. E. (2008). Terms of use: Negotiating the jungle of the intellectual commons. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
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