Media Ecology…responses

Media Ecology is an interdisciplinary field of media theory involving the study of media environments: “the study of media environments, the idea that technology and techniques, modes of information and codes of communication play a leading role in human affairs.”

“Report profile image violation”: since yesterday I noticed that in every youtube’s user page there’s this writing. Is this an exemple of DRM? It probably is. My technical knowledge is not stong enough to jugde if it was possible to be aware of the fact that someone is using our product? Would I mind if another user try to imitate my technique? I don’t think so. But I would probably mind the use of images I took or videos I shot as I do consider them as a private and personal souvenir…a picture of a specific moment of my life. Even in this case…I would I discover the misuse of my, let’s say, picture, within the neverending quantity of products published on the Web?

I don’t agree that hacking is freeing the information, if the hacking is just a copy and not a personal and creative product. A new product would be helpful but just a copy would just be a repetition that wouldn’t enrich culture in any way. I think we should distinguish between the possibilities of creating new products that can get inspiration from someone’s else works, technical or by contents, and just copying someone else’s works.

The freedom of information is another, but different important point. I consider the freedom of having access to information in its pure form, without filters that could alterate the content. The Web is certainly considered one of the most impartial way of getting a complete information, but unfortunately this is not completely true: there are technical ways to censor the information on the Web, and governments that use these possibilities, for example the Chinese government. So I wouldn’t talk about freeing information as the same problem of remixing or hacking information: the first problem is about having access to information, the second one is about creating new contents by “getting inspired” from already existing contents.

Culture should be free as a way to enrich our knowledge. The Web is a revolutionary means to have access to knowledge of different level of quality for free, especially Web 2.0. Web 2.0 is really the site of experimentation and innovation. I just ask myself if there’s a lack of brand new ideas or if getting inspired has just always been the way to create and develop new content and new products; simply before there were less chances for amateurs to publish and to contribute to popular culture in a practical way ?!!!

Free software or not? Hard to give a one-way answer. We probably need both of them: in order to develop useful free software we need shareware payment ones. This is one of my limits: I can’t understand how we could have good quality software if there are no investments…That’s why I’m not in the marketing field. Of course I would like to can get all the softwares I need for free, especially the ones for digital design.

The balance between quality and quantity is also an important issue. The DIY (Do It Yourself) concept is intriguing and challenging: it would just be important that people wouldn’t become too presumptuos about their results. If we surf over the Net, we have probably more chances to bump into poor quality products that into good quality ones: we need to be patient in order to evaluate the contents. But it is important that everyone can have the right to express themself and give a contribution to popular culture!!!