Free Culture

Chapter One: Creators
Reading this chapter, I thought that author raised some very interesting points and supported these points with relevant examples. While we may not all think about it, a majority of what is created today is not totally original, it is modeled after a previous creation, but because of the tiny bit of infused originality, it is then seen as something new. With strict copyright laws in place in America, we are always concerned about giving credit to where is it due, which I totally agree with, but I think that it is important to recognize that a majority of what we are creating is just an extension of a previously existing idea and I think it is difficult to pinpoint ownership to just one precise person. I'm just throwing this out there but take for example the fashion industry. Every season, there is an "in" style, whether it be a particular color, style dress, or shoe. It isn't possible to decide who has ownership over this declaration, and it is actually original because each designer creates their own interpretation of that style. With that said, I agree with the authors idea of the necessity of free cultures where we leave a great deal open for others to build upon, because without this idea, we as a culture wouldn't have access to some the most important theories, forms of media, architecture, or entertainment because they would have begun and ended with their original creator.

Chapter Four: Pirates
Reading this article, I found it interesting that the main industries that are fighting the problems of piracy today, were actually industries that were born out of the act of piracy as it is defined. While I do understand what the concept of piracy is, I do wonder, and this may be a stupid question to ask, but if piracy is taking the ideas of a creative property of others without permission, can this be applied to ideas of using the same story concept for films be considered piracy? For example films that are labeled romantic comedies typically have the same idea that contribute to the plot or pop music utilized similar beats and lyrics, but just contain different spins on the same concept. Once again that may be a stupid question to ask...

Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace and Digital Speech and Democratic Culture
As expressed in both of these articles, the freedom of speech entails the ability to interact with one another, often disagreeing, agreeing, parodying or imitating one another. With the internet, the ability to say and publish anything that we want is made even more possible as blogs, MySpace, Facebook and other websites become more and more popular. Through this communication system, it is interesting now that people are able to fully express their opinions as Barlow explains without any privilege or prejudice of race, economic power, military power, or station of birth, so it appears to be the ultimate freedom. But it appears that certain governments are trying to regulate what is placed on the web, but isn't the web the ultimate freedom of speech that society has desired for years?