"This song is Copyrighted in U.S., under Seal of Copyright # 154085, for a period of 28 years, and anybody caught singin it without our permission, will be mighty good friends of ourn, cause we don’t give a dern. Publish it. Write it. Sing it. Swing to it. Yodel it. We wrote it, that’s all we wanted to do."
“Copyright warning” included in in Woody Guthrie’s recordings from the early 1940s (source)
Homeward bound
I wish I was.
-Simon and Garfunkel, 1965
When I decided to start a blog in January of 2004, coming up with the right name was very important. I knew that whatever I chose was going to be my identity on the web from now on, so it needed to reflect who I was and what I was on about. The name “heimatseeker” emerged from my pursuit of and desire for a place where I could belong and be who I am. Heimat for me was - and is - ”a manifestation of the quest for meaning, purpose, and identity.” Seven and a half years after its inception, my heimatseeker pseudonym is as valid as when I created it, and it’s not just name, it is me.
Admittedly, however, even for a German the quest for meaning, purpose, and identity can sometimes be a bit overwhelming and abstract. It’s good to remember that there is also a very concrete dimension to Heimat - a physical space with houses and streets and trees and streams; a place with people and traditions and pictures and stories. It is, to paraphrase a common saying, “where they have to take you in.”
What got me thinking about all this is a wonderful new website:
Laupheimer-Ansichtskarten.de, a collection of almost 800 historic postcards from the 1890s to the 1990s.
It very literally hits home with me: A collaboration between my dad and my brother, the project brings the history of my hometown Laupheim to life, takes you into its streets, tells its stories, and lets you explore and share your own. By preserving a snapshot of a place in time, rich history is preserved and exposed. This is even more true of those postcards that were mailed and therefore provide a glimpse into someone’s world, long before the instant communication of the web. By putting each artefact in context (through maps, tags, and current-day comparison photographs, among other things), it connects today’s locals and visitors, both in the real and in the virtual world, with those who have come before and those who will come later.
The most fascinating aspect of this project however aren’t even the pictures on the postcards - although some are quite beautiful and intricate, especially the really old ones. What really grabbed my attention were the stories behind them. Laupheim, despite its over 1,200 year-history, is a small town with little to make it stand out. What compelled people to come here, purchase a postcard, and send it to a friend or loved one? Were they just passing time while waiting for an appointment, in the same way someone today might use Twitter or update their Facebook status? Who is the dapper-looking young man in the beer garden in 1925? Was a Zeppelin so common in 1910 that the crowd at the train station would remain completely unfazed by it? What was it like for the soldier in 1940 to receive “Merry Christmas” wishes on the front in World War 2?
I spent the first 20 years of my life in Laupheim, almost all of it in the same house, into which our family moved when I was three. The house is visible in this 1997 postcard. If I look closely, I can see the window of my old bedroom.
Since I moved out, things have become more complicated. In the second 20 years of my life I lived in 18 different apartments (I counted!), not including multiple short-term stays while waiting to move elsewhere. So if you ask me where I’m from, the best answer I can come up with is Laupheim. I may never live there again, but I can still close my eyes and walk its streets as if I had just left yesterday. Even though much has changed in the last two decades, when I return for a visit it feels a lot more familiar than different. As an expat, I find comfort in that fact.
In a previous blog post, I wondered “how much does place define who we are, and how much do we define a place by being in it, becoming part of it?”, coming to the conclusion that ”place isn’t static, but evolves with us who are in it, and that we can create Heimat wherever we want to, if we choose to do so.”
Heimat is more than just a physical place, however, it does have a physical aspect. Preserving and sharing stories of places where we gather with others is part of that creation of Heimat. The power of the net makes it possible to do this beyond physical barriers. The power of human connection gives it meaning. Beautiful.
There is much to love about the story of the fake Apple store:
For one, the sheer boldness with which these people simply went and recreated an entire Apple store. The level of detail they went to in order to replicate an almost perfect experience. The fact that they managed to not only make the customers, but the employees themselves believe it was the real thing. They even referred their customers to other, real Apple stores1 when something wasn’t in stock! What a beautiful example of the increasing blurriness between original and copy; the genuine article and its imitation.
My previous blog post about imitation, individuality, and identity looked at the history and philosophy of copying as a fundamental part of creativity and being human.
“But what about the artists, who should be paid for their efforts?”, the copyright-holders (who often are not at all the same as said artists) ask indignantly.
Regardless of where you stand in this debate, one thing is clear: The internet is a giant copy machine, and it is, and will continue to be, used for that purpose. This is not going to change. Moreover, copying isn’t limited any more to just digital files.
If I wanted to build my own Apple retail store, I would start with an image search (156,000 results on Flickr, over 20.4 million on Google Images) and go from there. And it’s just a matter of time before 3D scanners and printers can do what’s envisioned in Makers, where any object can be captured, adjusted as necessary, and recreated in minutes.
Does this mean that creators have to resign themselves to having all their work stolen and never making any money unless they retrain as IP lawyers?
Not at all.
A couple of months ago, we learned that in the US Netflix’ paid movie streaming service now accounts for more bandwidth than BitTorrent, meaning that “perhaps the first time in the internet’s history, the largest percentage of the net’s traffic is [paid] content.”
And last week, a report revealed that users of pirate sites such as the recently shut-down kino.to also spend more on movies in theatres and on DVD. Similar reports have come out showing that music pirates buy more digital music than the average music consumer.
So here is my advice for people who would like to make money from their work:
And remember: Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
(1) “Do you have a Web camera for my MacBook?” asked one customer. “No, but our other store in Lujiazui should have it,” said the sales representative, referring to Apple’s genuine retail store in the heart of Shanghai’s financial district.” (Quoted from the above-linked Reuters article found on stuff.co.nz)
(2) I can’t believe I made a baseball reference. This has to be the first time ever. Although technically, it’s a “movie about baseball” reference. A movie I haven’t seen. And won’t have to, thanks to Wikipedia.
(3) New Zealand is feeling this particularly badly, because a lot of content from overseas is simply not available here, or only years after it aired in its original country. And it’s not just movies and TV shows: When I moved here, I cancelled my paid Audible account because none of the audio books I was interested in were available “in my region” once I didn’t have a US-credit card any more.
(4) There are a lot more than the two I linked to - they simply came to mind first.
(5) Point in case: One of the fake Apple Store’s customers is quoted saying, “The prices are the same as the real store but the service is better here.”
(6) As this cartoon poignantly states, “the more similar the copy and the original, the more important it is for one to be real and the other to be fake, pinning their marketplace values on the theoretical existence of authenticity in a consumer culture.” Read the whole thing - it’s actually really funny. Cos it’s true.
Last month, I attended Internet New Zealand’s inaugural Nethui conference.
The purpose of Nethui was to gather Kiwis involved with the internet, and to “shape our future together” by looking at opportunities and challenges for the internet here in New Zealand. Very broad! 500 people came, and the sessions approached the topic from a number of different angles, from culture to infrastructure to legal issues to policy.
Most of the conference’ s sessions are available on video, and coverage from media and blogs provides a good overview of the discussions and issues. I’ve summarised the themes which stood out for me in a presentation I gave to my workmates, which you can access below or on prezi.com.
For this post, I’d like to focus on what were my takeaways from the conference:
“We, the users, are the internet, and we get the internet we deserve,” as one of the speakers said. Or, if we look at it from a system perspective: We are all nodes on the internet. P2P is at the core of the internet, and organisations who get this will do well on the net. Those who don’t, not so much.
For me personally, this was a poignant reminder that we create our own reality. We shape the world we want to live in by what we do and how we do it. Yes, there are strong forces that try to increase control and limit freedoms - but we are a strong force, too! It’s really up to us to create the world - and the internet - we want to have.
It’s encouraging to see so much activity and creativity happening everywhere (creative commons, maker spaces, etc.)
And it’s not limited to software development: open source principles are reaching beyond code and are being applied in other areas.
The free and open creators’ culture is happening (albeit alongside expanding monopolies.)
It’s high time to stop distinguishing between the digital and “real” world as they are converging and simply becoming the world we live in: let’s talk about literacy, not digital literacy; learning, not elearning, etc.
I think it’s important to stop referring to people engaged in conferences such as Nethui as the “internet community”. I’m a citizen who uses the net, as well as other means, to engage with others, learn, communicate, work, play. I also make phone calls and read, but that doesn’t make me a part of the “telephone community” or the “book community.” It’s 2011!
Finally, it’s also become clear that we need to tell our stories better. For example, why is open data important? What’s the point of net neutrality? Why do we need better internet access? Hopefully not just so we can watch more US television…
We’re small. Everyone knows everyone. Ministers and MPs show up for conferences such as Nethui. Compared to other countries, in New Zealand there’s real chance for everyone to generate noise and influence and make a difference.
And despite our geographical isolation, New Zealanders can become world leaders in areas we care about (and the net is making this easier.) To lead the world from New Zealand, we need to think big, and not limit our imagination or creativity, or let anyone tell us it can’t be done. This is the good part about #8 wire mentality!
The danger with conferences as high-level and broad as Nethui is that it’s all talk. Where is the action?
One way to look at it is that this is the action. Pulling off a conference like this and getting 500 people engaged and talking for three days, and hopefully sending them back to their communities and workplaces fully of energy and ideas, can be the start of something bigger. It’s up to us now to continue the effort and turn it into concrete actions. For me, that means working for an open source company, the Retake the Net initiative, and sharing these lessons. It’s a start.
Good morning. How are you? I’m Dr. Worm.
I’m interested in things.
I’m not a real doctor, but
I am a real worm
-They Might Be Giants, Doctor Worm
Academic titles are big deal in Germany. Unfortunately, it appears that not everyone who holds one also deserves it. Over the past 6 months or so, a number of politicians and other prominent figures had their doctorates revoked by their universities when it came out that they had plagiarised large portions of their theses. The most prominent case was that of up-and-coming political star and Minister of Defence, Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, whose dissertation turned out to contain well over a thousand instances of unattributed passages on almost every page of the text.
So, a politician was caught lying. Why is that interesting? It’s interesting because of the way he was caught. It wasn’t his university that realised the problem or went to find proof. Instead, once the first suspicions became public, Guttenberg’s thesis was analysed extremely thoroughly through crowd-sourcing, on a wiki platform dubbed “GuttenPlag” where anyone could contribute.
Many did. The GuttenPlag wiki quickly reached 2 million page views per day and had thousands of active contributors. Media attention was enormous, and Guttenberg didn’t just have to surrender his academic title, but also resign from his political offices. The wiki won the prestigious Grimme Online Award for its “journalistic impact and innovation.”
Similar web-based collaborative efforts have sprung up since, most notably Vroniplag.
None of this would have been possible without the power of the internet. Anyone was able to join in, compare portions from a pool of large amounts of text, collaborate with others, and share their findings. Moreover, the collaborative nature of the net - the network effect, if you will - made it possible to not only accomplish a big task very quickly, but get people excited and rallying behind the cause.
“Isn’t it ironic”, said many mainstream media outlets in response to the Guttenberg affair. “Those same internet people who want everything for free, steal music and movies as they please, and vote for the Pirate Party all of a sudden care about copyright? Isn’t that applying double-standards?”1
I really don’t think.
Guttenberg and the rest of the lot took someone else’s work (or more precisely, a large number of other people’s works) and pretended it was their own. That’s not generally the case with people who share or download content. They may simply want to consume it (listen, view, read), or maybe use it to create something new on its basis (remix, mash up, extend.)
The line between plagiarism and creative adaptation is of course blurry, and it has been long before the internet - one of the best examples is Led Zeppelin’s debut album, as poignantly described in Everything is a Remix. What has changed since 1969 is the technology. Now we have this giant copying machine called the internet, and it’s not going to go away. ”Copying, imitating, duplicating, even faking, are not aberrations, but a fundamental part of what it means to be human,” I wrote in a previous blog post. Technology just makes this process easier.
“Policy making is continuing as if there was no internet”, Lawrence Lessig said at Internet New Zealand’s recent Nethui conference.2 And this, I think, is fundamentally the problem, and the clue for the answer. The internet provides the platform for a new culture, a culture that has shifted from one-way dissemination of information to two-way creative interactions.
It’s not a question if we want this to happen or not - it already has. We can ignore it and pretend we can just continue as we have (as the increasingly outlandish attempts to protect certain corporate interests demonstrate.) Or we can choose to work with it, and find ways to responsibly act, communicate, and create within this new reality. A good first step would be to stop referring to “the internet community,” as if it was a strange cult. It’s 2011.
We are the internet. Some of us just may not know it yet.
(0) Punk rock fans will recognise that the this article’s title is a reference to a line in the song Franco Un-American from the NOFX album War on Errorism.
(1) Not an actual quote, but very much paraphrased.
(2) The full-length video of Lessig’s Nethui keynote is worth watching.
"Knowledge would advance more quickly if new findings were discussed openly and published for all to read. Thinkers would inspire one another, and ideas would bread and multiply […] ideas were not like gold, but ‘like torches, that in the lighting of others do not waste themselves.’ With ideas as with flames, in fact, to share meant to create light."
Edward Dolnick, The Clockwork Universe: Isaac Newton, the Royal Society, and the Birth of the Modern World (2011), page 67
About Robert Boyle and the Royal Society’s new approach to openly discussing and publishing knowledge, rather than keeping it secret as had been the practice.
Wondering about how to improve democratic participation seems a rather silly and pointless exercise when your own elected representatives show open contempt for the system and the people that got them into power in the first place.
When I lived in the US, I used to get upset when all kinds of legislation would get bundled together with “money for the troops” - something no lawmaker would dare oppose. Now the New Zealand Parliament pushed through a Copyright Amendment Act under urgency, as part of the emergency provisions for Christchurch Earthquake recovery. As someone aptly commented on Twitter, “The people of Christchurch must really appreciate the urgent attention parliament is paying to their earthquake-induced copyright issues.” Who’s the cynic here?
Colin has written a well-put commentary about this sad farce, which drives home the realisation that it’s not the manifestation of democracy which is in question, but democracy itself. “Perhaps we are no better than other countries where policies seem to be bought by well-heeled lobbyists. Faced with choices like this, why should the next generation of potential voters even bother?” Indeed.
And yet, here I am, still wondering if there’s a better way.
In 2007, R.U. Sirius (of cyberculture and transhumanist fame) proposed an Open Source Party for the upcoming US election. The idea was to bring proven open source processes and principles into the political realm and address the fact that “many of us will wish […] that there could be a dynamic discourse about the many real issues and problems that get ignored.” Three years later, efforts are underway to revive the concept, founded on transparency, openness, “early and often”, expectation of community, and the principles of the Bazaar: flexibility, feedback, and modularity. The latter, of course, is based on Eric S. Raymond’s seminal paper from 2000, which to this day can be read as a model not just for software development, but for societies and governments as well. Recent global developments such as the near-collapse of the economy, the shock and awe of Wikileaks, the Twitter-fuelled revolutions in the Middle East, and the emergency of Pirate Parties all over Europe exemplify change happening right before our eyes. Is this the time for a new open source party?
I wish I could wholeheartedly agree, but I don’t. Political parties still operate within a bigger system, and I don’t believe that true change is going to come from within established structures. Moreover, the principles of open source are ways of operating, communicating, decision-making; they are methods, not substance, and people vote for parties or people based on what they stand for, not based on the processes by which they come to their decisions.
We don’t need a political party that stands for open source itself; instead, we need to promote and encourage the adoption of open source principles in our existing worlds - at home, at work, in our communities, in our political system. We have to change our actions, and in order to do that, we have to change how we think and talk about democracy.
Indeed, this goes way beyond the question of how we organise our electoral or representative political system. It goes to the fundamental question of how we extend our human capabilities, and quite literally, how we can change the world.
Ambitious? Definitely. Naive? Probably. And yet, we create the world we live in every day through the words we speak and the actions we take. If we can frame the debate, we can change the world, one step at a time.
Here are some ideas and principes we all can try out right now:
Will applying those principles change the world? Probably not, but if I can live by them, they will change my world. If others join in, a network effect will happen.
It’s not the worst we could do. It’s the best we can do. And it’s something we can do.
"Everything is more complicated than you think. You only see a tenth of what is true. There are a million little strings attached to every choice you make; you can destroy your life every time you choose. But maybe you won’t know for twenty years. And you may never ever trace it to its source. And you only get one chance to play it out. Just try and figure out your own divorce.
And they say there is no fate, but there is: it’s what you create. And even though the world goes on for eons and eons, you are only here for a fraction of a fraction of a second. Most of your time is spent being dead or not yet born. But while alive, you wait in vain, wasting years, for a phone call or a letter or a look from someone or something to make it all right. And it never comes or it seems to but it doesn’t really.
And so you spend your time in vague regret or vaguer hope that something good will come along. Something to make you feel connected, something to make you feel whole, something to make you feel loved. And the truth is I feel so angry, and the truth is I feel so fucking sad, and the truth is I’ve felt so fucking hurt for so fucking long and for just as long I’ve been pretending I’m OK, just to get along, just for, I don’t know why, maybe because no one wants to hear about my misery, because they have their own.
Well, fuck everybody. Amen."
The Preacher, in Synecdoche, New York, 2008
“Can we create an open source democracy?”
That was the question with which I concluded the previous post. Following events around the world in the two weeks since then, I can’t help but wonder if this is even the right question. Do we, as a species, not have bigger issues to address first? How relevant is the particular form of democracy when the worlds seems to come crashing down all around us?
We only have to look yet again to the Middle East to appreciate how good we have it here in New Zealand. Unlike the successful (at least, as best was we can tell at this point) revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia, the Libyan uprising has now turned into a horrible war. The situation in many other countries, including Bahrain, Yemen, and Syria, is also far from stable. Natural disasters aside - that’s an entirely different post - we can feel safe in our homes and our towns.
However, there’s no reason to be complacent with our situation. One of the more recent threats to democracy in this country is the “Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement” (TPPA), a so-called free trade agreement. In reality, its reach would go far beyond trade. Joining the TPPA as it’s currently proposed would significantly reduce or even remove New Zealand’s sovereignty in a large number of areas, including GM food, copyright and intellectual property, software patents, medicine buying and subsidies (Pharmac), etc. etc. TPPA would allow foreign, corporate lobby groups to directly drive and define New Zealand policy, and threaten lawsuits against our government if they don’t like our decisions. And these wide-reaching changes aren’t even debated with, or approved by the New Zealand people - the text of the agreement and the negotiations are secret (although parts have been leaked.)
Democracy?
More than ever, politics appears to be a closed system; something that happens behind closed doors, in its own sphere, and removed from “real people.” Many of us desire a more direct engagement with politics and politicians - but how, if the really important decisions are made in in a world to which we have no access?
This lack of transparency and ability to have a say results in the disillusionment and fatigue I wrote about in the previous post. In a 2010 survey, politicians were ranked as the second least-trusted profession in New Zealand (the only profession that fared worse were telemarketers,) and it’s similar in other countries.
And we can find a number of other reasons why things are not going so well:
These are all just a few high-level points, but they all show that we are at the brink of a new world, where old ways don’t work any more, but a new, strong paradigm hasn’t emerged yet.
In the next post, we’ll get beyond the list of what’s wrong, and look at ideas how things could change.
