Week 08 - Reflections on Hans Rosling's presentation

His presentation was great!!  I would sit throught that and probably any other presentation he offered even if it was on a subject I didn't know about.

He used his slides to prove his points.  He knew his material even though he looked to be reading most of it from a card.  The uses of moving grafts was good.  I have never seen that in a presentation before.  I'm rambling, let me get my list of what Lisa wants from us:

He uses technology to prove his point.  You can't argue with the graft telling you the information.  He explained his grafts and the changes as they happened again to prove his points.  The only slides he used with words were to highlight his discussion, it wasn't his discussion.  He put the countries up and the stats of students as he presented them.

I like the moving grafts.  They were fasinating, I will have to look at that as an option for a talk, even though I don't know what I would use it for.

week 07 - Copyright and the Kindle

(I had to change up the font as we are talking about that as well this week)

As I was reading the NYTimes article I started to get a little offended for authors.  How could we just take their ability and "steal" it creating poverty in the industry.  I got to the end where a lawyer at the Electronic Frontier Foundation warns that "parents everywhere should be on the lookout for legal papers haling them into court for reading to their kids." and I couldn't believe he would belittle the authors guild for fighting for what they had earned.  The second time I read it I started thinking, if you bought the book you have (theoretically) paid royalties on the book.  Does it matter if you have a computer voice stating the words instead of reading them off the page?  (although I must question the listening ability of anyone who, voluntarily, can actually stand that computer voice talking to them much less reading a book).  

I then go to our second article from the legal match law blog.  I found this blog answered some of the questions I came up with in the first article.  You've paid the royalities when you bought the book.  Then there is the optomistic thought that this will continue to escalate as new technologies come into play.  

I don't blame the authors guild for trying to get money they feel they deserve.  However, I think they should look at the big picture, pick your battles and fight the ones that need to be fought.  Perhaps this has started now because of upcoming technology and they are just setting the tone for the industry to pay attention to their rights as they come out with new options.

Cited works:

www.nytimes.com/2009/02/25/opinion/25blount.html


http://lawblog.legalmatch.com/2010/05/04/digital-storytelling-copyright-law-and-e-book-audio-readers/

http://dvice.com/archives/2009/03/kindle_2_the_re.php

week 06- reflections on copyright and street art

First let me start with the videos on plagarism...simple (and a bit goofy) but informative.  The video giving the instruction as to the proper way to cite the work was helpful for me.  I know this all needs to be done but to be honest I have never been that diligent when writting a paper.  I take information form multiple sources, I have a tendency to "jot" down the thought within the information I'm reading and use it in my work.  I neglect to write down where the thoughts came from so I can cite them in my work...I will do better, I will do better, I will do better.  Maybe it will sink in.

As for Shepard Fairey.  After reading the information, going out there to see how easy it is to get an image of Obama (extremely) I have to say I'm glad I'm not in a position where I need to know these laws better than I do.  One could say that as this is Fairey's lifes work he should have known the steps that should have been taken or should have someone close to him to help protect him (a manager of sorts).  On the other hand it sounds like he had no idea this would take off the way it did and that the picture would be as popular as it turned out to be.

As far as the AP goes I think there might have been an alterior motive to this whole thing.  Were they trying to send a message to all that have been using their photos without permission?  Were they upset with the candidate of choice? Is it something against Fairey himself?  Although I'm beleive I would be upset if it was my photo and the manipulation of said was bringing in money for someone and I was not getting any credit.  I just don't think I would bring it to court...too much time and money!!

cited sources:

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090125/1907073531.shtml

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29023218/


http://paidcontent.org/2011/03/11/419-ap-sues-three-more-retailers-over-obama-hope-image/

http://andromeda.ccv.vsc.edu/activekb/questions.php?questionid=124

week 05 - Are you a phone photographer?

The answer would be definitely!!!  A couple of years ago I bought an Ipod for my partner for Christmas.  The intent was for new music for the ride to work.  The digital camera has been collecting dust ever since.  She loves it!!!  When we were looking at upgrading phones we went with the Iphone (an Ipod touch that you can talk on).  This is great, take videos, pictures and share them at the touch of a button (I think a touch of another button and they go to facebook...) easy!!  Great pictures as well.  My sister-in-law is a professional photographer...she uses her Iphone constantly.  My mother-in-law asked her one day if she ever put "that stupid phone down" her response was "you mean my camera".  She is constantly taking pictures with it.  You can get great real life candides because people just act like themselves and are so used to seeing the phones they are not as guarded as they are around say a 35 mm.