The Behaviors Behind Music Piracy

Online Music Piracy Infographic

While searching through Google Scholar, in hopes to find a subject that would interest me, I came upon a scholarly article entitled A Behavioral Model of Digital Music Piracy. Google Scholar linked me to the Social Science Research Network which contained this article. This article contained multiple authors, source citations, an abstract, and a hypothesis and study included in the article to make it scholarly. They discussed the rampant growth of online music piracy in today’s society and the behavioral dynamics that lead to digital audio file piracy. They introduced this idea by stating facts about the piracy of online audio files and then went further in depth by analyzing a study they did to find the behavioral dynamics. They interviewed 133 undergraduate students, mainly under the business school, to study their thoughts and actions towards music piracy. They asked questions about the type of music they listen to, ethics, how often they buy and pirate music, and if they participate in music sharing. They found that young, college-age people are more likely to pirate music compared to older people. They also view that pirating music is not considered “stealing” but, in fact, “sampling” music. Another finding was that educational and legal campaigns were making very little of an effect on the music piracy epidemic and that instead of trying to use those kinds of campaigns, finding preventative methodologies for reducing music piracy should be taken into consideration. 

I must agree, with all of the educational and legal campaigns that are trying to end this problem on the Internet, the best way is to literally prevent people from being able to download music illegally. How could they do this? I am not sure. But until they find a way, it is going to be pretty hard to end something that has already started. 

The Digital Age

I spent hours on my computer today, in hopes that something would spark a post to discuss. After going from my favorite television shows, to favorite blogs, favorite web sites, I went to a newly found enjoyment: Poetry Slams. I went to the Pepsi Poetry Slam Competition that was held a few weeks ago in Bryan, and fell in love... with slamming. 

So I found myself on YouTube, surfing poetry slams that may spark a great discussion. Then I came upon this one. 

   

Gerald Jackson, the poet above that slammed about the "Digital Age" hit it right on the head when it comes to explain how we as the Digital Age have changed due to video games. It is as if we can learn all about life by viewing what is on the television screen, from history, to use of weapons, all the way to how to deal with a love life. According to Jackson's slam, "We are all children of the same system which where the mother is screen and the father is reality: absent. In May of 1998 Sony Computer Entertainment of America released a dual shock analogue controller. In January 2009, I'm still Dual Shock analogue controlled, reaching for a reset button."

What does it mean? Have we found ourselves stuck in a digital world where we live life constantly connected? to the laptop, phone, television, Facebook, video game... 

Gerald Jackson seems to view this idea in a negative light. What do you think?

The Life of an Online Image

In the very first post that I wrote, I talked about how photo databases create an open door for stealing photos for use on other websites. I decided to a little searching on other blogs to see if anyone else had discussed this topic. Amy Stein, a photographer, posted in July about this exact topic. 

In her post, Stein talked about how, as artists, it is their choice if they decide to put their photographs on the computer and that it is highly likely that they will be re-posted in other places on the internet. She states that she is not against her photos being posted on the Internet in other websites as long as she is credited the picture. 

The "Road Hog" Bus 1968 -Lisa Law
re-post #80

I was interested in seeing how much pictures are re-posted on the Internet, so I found a website called tineye.com. Basically, this website is an image search engine that finds everywhere and image has been posted. I decided to test out this website by logging onto my Pinterest account and choosing an image on one of my boards. I then copied the URL of the image and pasted it into the search engine. After a couple minutes of searching, the website told me that the picture had been re-posted seventy-nine times over the internet. When I "re-pinned" this picture to my Pinterest board, I had no idea who the photographer was; it had been copied and pasted so much that it had lost the attribution to the photographer by the time I came across the picture. If it wasn't for the sake of this post, I wouldn't have gone on a search to find the photographer, but after a few Google searches, I came across Lisa Law. A photographer in the 1960's Lisa took this photo entitled The "Road Hog" Bus at the 1968 Fourth of July parade in El Rito, New Mexico (http://americanhistory.si.edu/lisalaw/1.htm). 

I guess this post goes to show that how we as the "re-posters"  need to credit every photo that we use. If we don't start this practice in our lives, seventy-nine re-posts later, we will never know who took the really awesome hippie bus picture. 

Beyonce's "Inspirations" Being Questioned

Today, I ran across an article on the New York Times web site discussing plagiarism found in Beyonce's music videos.

According to the article, Beyonce's video "Countdown", takes dance moves as well as backdrop and style ideas from Belgian choreographer, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker. Keersmaeker says that she admires Beyonce's dancing and artistic abilities, but found it rude not to recognize where the ideas came from. 


Beyonce's reply to these allegations was that she found Keersmaeker along with others (60's and 70's famous people) as inspirations for this video.  


If we break this article up by viewing the claims, grounds, and warrants of the Toulmin Model, we will see that the claim is directed to the plagiarism found in Beyonce's music video. This claim was brought to the light by Keersmaeker. To support or give grounds to this claim, the article touched on the reader's/veiwer's sensory details by incorporating a video that shows the scenes that matched from Beyonce's video to the dance moves choreographed by Keersmaeker. The article also gave an ethos reasoning by quoting Keersmaeker in the article.


The warrant in this article was obvious with the focus on plagiarism. The word plagiarism has been drilled into our heads since we started writing papers in grade school. In other words, the article reaches our moral values. We know it is wrong to plagiarize, therefore we think that Beyonce has some people that she needs to give credit to in the making of her music video. 

Are We Following a Theme?

Twilight, the book that stole the hearts of many high schoolers, later becoming a movie sensation, has created quite an influence in today's media.

Vampires have always been popular characters in stories for many years, but I feel like it has more recently become more common in all forms of media; television, movie theaters, and books.

Is that gray line between plagiarism and inspiration becoming more socially acceptable? From Twilight to True Blood and Moonlight, these vampire stories have similar outlines that create the story. However, we know that they are not exactly the same, removing the proposition of the stories being clearly plagiarized.

Not only is the use of vampires being overused, but the remakes of superhero movies and other remakes are being created. Is this a new idea or just another form of inspirational plagiarism?

Is our culture being so handicapped with the use of the Internet that we forget to find new and creative ideas?

What Do Others Say About Plagiarism?

So this week I wanted to dive into the idea of plagiarism once again. I know that I have been writing about it for the past few weeks, but I feel like I could never really find a line that is created between plagiarism and creativity. 


I came upon a blog post from viget.com entitled Consumption: How Inspiration Killed, Then Ate, Creativity. The writer talks about how as children, we are subject to an intense amount of "inspiration". 

"The misinterpretation of inspiration is bred into our culture. In school we are taught by the examples of others, given information to digest and remember, instead of being handed problems to analyze and interpret on our own. As children we are taught to fear failure and to learn from the mistakes of others instead of experiencing them first hand. Many times curriculums centered around creativity and exploration are pushed out of the way to make room for ones rooted in practical application and applied theory.."

The author wants us to redefine the word "inspiration". Our culture is supposedly rewording this word in many ways. 


In Naldz Graphics, Drawing the Line - Inspiration or Plagiarism the writer discusses how the things around the world are "copied" from nature.

"Things around us are actually copied. The idea of airplanes came from birds. Most of the stuff around us is created through a study of nature. Up to this day, it is a common knowledge that the idea of airplanes was coined from birds. The birds still have the credit. People are not originalist, we are enhancers and developers. That is what Picasso meant by saying good artists copy."

Both of these blogs point out the fact that we are constantly immersed in possible inspirations. However, Viget completely disagrees in using the so called "inspirations" that we have today. Instead, we should be more focused on what it means to be purely creative without being dependent on the visuals around us. Naldz wants the reader to know that even the "Greats" had forms of inspiration that sparked an idea for their creative masterpieces. 


Between these two blogs, it is clear to see the bias over the blog by Viget due to the blogger's career in writing and other creative outlets. Otherwise, both posts stood as informative forms of sharing to others. 


So where do you stand? Is inspiration good, or are we killing our creativity by taking inspiration from around us?


I encourage you to read the two posts that I have linked to this post. They are very informative and shine a new light on this topic that I have been writing about in my posts. 

Inspired

This week, I decided to discuss how we use the world wide web to inspire us in our creative outlet. 

In my very first blog post, I had said that I would discuss how photo databases and creativity sharing on the internet has affected how we create.  

In the above pictures, we see two separate pictures of Toms; the Van Gogh painted Toms were found on one of my daily visited sites, etsy.com, and the second one is a picture of my very own hand-painted Toms that I made a few months ago. Before going on etsy.com, I had not thought of the idea to take my boring old canvas Toms into my own creation. Plagiarism? I think not. Inspiration? Very much so.

While surfing the Internet late one night last year, I came upon some henna art photos. This temporary skin tinting tattoo is a gorgeous piece of art used traditionally at Indian weddings. I fell in love with the intricate and flowy designs found in the markings. I was so intrigued by this art form that it inspired me to paint the picture on the right. Plagiarism? No. Inspiration? Yes.

As an artist, I am so thankful to have the world wide web to have as a reference. Painting the Eiffel Tower has never been easier. Instead of having to travel to Paris to sit in front of the real deal, we can Google the Eiffel Tower and paint off of a photograph. When asked to paint a bulldog, for a Louisiana Tech painting, I was very happy to have a photograph of a bulldog instead of having to find a live dog and make it stay in one spot for hours on end as I paint. 

Photo databases such as Google Images, Pinterest, Flickr, and Etsy have been found helpful in the life of  viewers in search of inspiration. Just as the ways we receive the news have changed (word of mouth, radio, television, email) so does how we receive forms of inspiration. Should we accept the Internet as a form of receiving inspiration as we do with receiving news online? Thoughts?

pinterest.com

Visual Perspective on Plagiarism

So at the end of last week's post, I shared two photos; one photo was Van Gogh's Starry Night, and the other painting was inspired by Starry Night. 

Showing a painting last week, I wanted to show another style of art; yes, it looks like a bunch of words and color, but it is print art. 

I chose this piece because of the topic of plagiarism versus inspiration in artwork. 

I did a little digging on Jim Jarmusch and discovered that he is an independent filmmaker in the United States. He is the creator of Stranger than Paradise, Dead Man (starring Johnny Depp), his most recent film Ghost Dog, along with many others. Studying film in New York in the late 70s, Jarmusch tested new ideas and learned under bright mentor filmmakers (Nicholas Ray and Amos Poe). He played music and joined the artistic movement. All of these experiences that had encountered were building blocks for his film creations.

After reading up on Jarmusch, the words to this art piece had an even greater meaning to devour the influences around you to make your work authentic.

The use of the retro typeface and color scheme reminds me of the indie style. The color scheme of contrasting colors draws the eyes to continue to read. If all the lines were strictly blue, this would create a probable loss of interest and eye appeal to the viewer. 

The repetition of the lines also assists in making the viewer read all the way from the top to the bottom of the piece. 

All in all, I believe that this piece not only verbally explains plagiarism versus inspiration, but I also think that the "pasted" phrases on the piece bring a sense of copying and pasting to it. 

Thoughts?

Dead Man (1995)

Creativity, Originality... What does it all Mean?

What is creativity?

When I think of creativity, I think of art; I think of a new song never heard before, an abstract painting that makes one stare deep into its individual strokes, a novel with an unforgettable plot, the list could go on and on.

Someone commented on my first post regarding how one defines and realizes true creativity.

Is there really such a thing? True creativity? How does one come up with a creative idea?

As an artist, I get my creative thoughts going with an inspiration or multiple inspirations. Normally this inspiration comes from music, my friends, and objects or activities I notice on an average day. Sometimes my inspiration is from a verse that I read in the Bible that morning; my inspiration comes from everywhere. Where inspiration is, creativity is sure to follow.

That brings me to my next question, originality. How does originality and creativity work together? What is originality?

According to the WordNet Search, originality is “being as first made or thought of.” So if a work of art is created straight from our thoughts, our creativity is original? Thoughts?

Enters the World Wide Web. How does this lovely creation affect how we think and how our original creativity is presented to the viewer?

At the click of a button, we can surf the vast expanse of YouTube and learn how to do anything from making an intricate graphic on Adobe Photoshop to building a hovercraft in your garage.

We can view the millions of pictures on Photobucket or Flickr.

We can follow blogs that introduce new ideas that we may never have thought of without reading their daily posts.

With all of these inspirations, we slowly begin to lose view of the line that separates inspiration from plagiarism.

Just as technology changes around us, so does how we receive inspirations. Does that mean I can copy an exact painting and call it my own original piece? No. However, I believe we can get inspiration from those art forms we see on the Internet.

Starry Night Vincent Van Gogh

Collaboration by 8th Graders inspired by Starry Night

Inspiration or Plagiarism? 

Awesome video created by cirkuit100

Creativity Online

While reading through the three areas of inquiry, I was drawn to the Creativity, Piracy, and Intellectual Property of inquiry. As an artist, the word creativity caught my attention and reading that new ideas in creativity were becoming few and far between, I couldn't help but want to dig deeper into this subject area.

With the use of the Internet, people have access to many databases of pictures, paintings, ideas, and other forms of creative outlet. Although having these items and ideas at the click of a button have proven to be helpful, I along with others wonder how it has affected a person's creativity. Are we depending on the creative ideas of someone on the Internet over our own? And if we are using other people's creative ideas, is that a form of plagiarism? Are people who share new ideas over the Internet losing recognition for their creations?

In the next posts, I hope to cover topics about photo databases such as Photobucket and Flickr as well as blogs and creativity sharing outlets such as Pinterest. I would like to research the effect these websites have on the creative ideas that humans have and if it is hindering us from reaching our full creative potential.