Gift Economies - Midnight Run

Gift economies play a big part in today’s society when it comes to providing goods for the advancement of public good. There are many different organizations and individual people who make up a gift economy. A person who donates money to relief funds in conflict countries is contributing to a gift economy. Toys for Tots or the Salvation Army are organizations that contribute to the gift economy. Scientists and scholars contribute to the gift economy by sharing their work and ideas for other to expand and further advance in that subject. Peter Kollock, in his essay The Economies of Online Cooperation, states that the best example of someone contributing to a gift economy is one who is “a literal altruist – who works for the good of others without any regard to self.” These are hard to find indeed, but the overall point is that those who contribute to gift economies ask for nothing in exchange. A gift economy service that I contribute to is the Midnight Run organization. Do I classify myself as a literal altruist—probably not. But I do consider my contributions to others an example because I do not ask for anything in exchange for my services.

For those of you who don’t know, Midnight Runs are services in which people take items that are donated to a church and distribute them to those who are less fortunate. I am part of the St. Barnabas Episcopalian Church in Ardsley, NY and do these Midnight Runs with my grandfather about 4 times a year. He is very religious man and has always been a stern believer in helping those who aren’t as fortunate as him. My church on Saturday nights twice a month go around New York City distributing food, clothes, bibles, blankets to those who are living on the streets, or are in extreme financial crises. In a blog article titled How to Save the World, Dave Pollard quotes a philosopher named Hyde, who said “Every gift is its own reward, but that reward is multiplied, without limit, when the gift, or any gift, is passed along to others. A story is a gift. Blogs are gifts. Ideas and insights and teaching and counsel are gifts. Conversations are gifts. The Midnight Run service is a prime example of this because aside from giving out donated gifts, we hand out bibles and pamphlets to help enlighten those who have lost faith in the world. We also have small conversations with the homeless people which is a gift of its own because they have no one to talk to. Giving them 30 seconds of small talk makes their day.

Kollock in his article also wrote pertaining to public goods “First, it is to some degree indivisible in that one person's consumption of the good does not reduce the amount available to another.” This applies to the Midnight Run because there are so many other organizations (such as schools, Salvation Armies, synagogues) that participate as well. If my church runs out of clothing and blankets for one night, most likely the next night a different organization will be out on the streets continuing where we left off.

Finally, the Midnight Run can be classified as a gift economy because it helps people build relationships. On their website, they write: “Midnight Runs is dedicated to finding common ground between the housed and the homeless. Midnight Run tries to provide the homeless poor with a few of the bare essentials needed for survival.” Not only do we distribute blankets and clothing to the homeless we find a common ground with them. In an article titled The Gift Economy by Gifford Pinchot, he writes “In a gift economy it is the circulation of the gift(s) within the community that leads to increase—increase in connections, increase in relationship strength.” Clearly the Midnight Run organization does increase connections and relationships with the homeless.

I believe a gift economy is a good thing that gives back to the public. The Midnight Run organization is just one of thousands of examples of contributors to gift economies. I noticed that in most of the articles I read, they didn’t talk much about gift economies not having to be material. In my opinion, a gift economy does not have to be a material item. Contributing to a gift economy can be as simple as shoveling snow off the driveway of your elderly neighbor, or helping someone whose car broke down on the side of the road. Gift economies are becoming increasingly more common in today’s society. The gift economy is “coming back as we enter the information age,” states Pinchot. The current economy is shifting away from the industrial age and starting to focus more on the management of information—information and aid are being distributed to the public through gift economies.

Sources:

Kollock, Peter. (1999).The Economies of Online Cooperation: Gifts and Public Goods in Cyberspace. Retrieved on September 18, 2008, from http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/soc/faculty/kollock/papers/economies.htm

Pollard, Dave. (17 April 2005). How to Save the World: The Gift Economy. Retrieved on September 18^th, 2008, from

http://blogs.salon.com/0002007/2005/04/17.html

Pinchot, Gifford. (Summer 1995). The Gift Economy. Business on a Small Planet, 49. Retrieved September 18, 2008, from

http://www.context.org/ICLIB/IC41/PinchotG.htm

PS - IF ANYONE READING THIS LIVES IN LOWER WESTCHESTER COUNTY (NY) OR IS FROM NEW YORK CITY AND WOULD LIKE TO DO THESE RUNS, PLEASE VISIT THE WEBSITE FOR MORE INFORMATION ON SCHEDULING AND INFORMATION.

The Darknet and Copyright Laws: Which Will Succeed?

I will start off by telling everyone that I can be classified as an internet “pirate.” I commit piracy everyday, whether it’s downloading music straight from the web, or downloading movies that are still in theatres from torrent websites. Do I think it is wrong to do this—absolutely not. In fact, I do not see anything wrong with it. I think copyright is just a societal device to help the rich get richer. I believe piracy is not a serious issue, and laws against it should be reduced in severity.

Copyright laws have been around since the 1600s accompanied with the creation of the printing press. Then the Copyright Clause was implemented into the Constitution in 1787, which gave exclusive selling rights to the creator for a period of time. Then in 1886, a convention known as the Berne Convention began to implement copyright laws between sovereign nations. In 2002, the WIPO Copyright Treaty created even greater restrictions that supported copyright. Why have there been conventions and laws for over 400 years, yet piracy is still an issue in today’s society? I believe it is because there are so many people that support/disagree with copyright laws, it is virtually impossible to come up with a permanent solution.

Everyone complains about how the music industry doesn’t find it fair, or seeing movies before they come out is bad, but when you think about it, who are the people hitting the newspapers still? Brittany Spears and Lil Wayne are still millionaires, and record companies are still promoting CD’s and still making millions as well. Actors like Mel Gibson and Russel Crowe are still driving Mercedes and living in mansions. So what’s all the fuss about? Sure they’re losing some money, but there still making millions of dollars off their music or movies. For example, the Dark Knight within the first 20 days made 400 million dollars. God forbid I downloaded the torrent off the internet and didn’t contribute another 10.75 to that income. A Swedish editor wrote an article in the newspaper Expressen, and in it he wrote, “Those that argue that music should not be downloaded from the internet, doesn’t represent the consumer, presumably.” This quote clearly states that patents and copyright laws are in place primarily for companies to keep gaining income. The company is not looking out for the interest of the consumer, and is looking out mainly for itself.

Further proof of this argument can be seen in this article with the excerpt: “The majority of such development is taking place within large corporations...This means that the question we shall ask, is if the large corporations as a group would commit as much on development should patents and copyright be non-existing. The answer would be – probably, because of competitive reasons.” Once again, the Swedish editor is stating that even without copyright laws, companies would still commit to producing new music and movies and books, primarily to keep gaining income. I completely agree with this author. I think no matter how much we share music through the internet or download movies instead of buying them, companies and artists will still thrive, so why pursue and condemn those who download music or media for free?

The interests of content creators and public good are already being accommodated as well. The creators are still profiting from their work (especially in the music and movie industry which is of biggest concern), and when it comes to the public good, well, that’s what p2p applications and torrents are for. If people want to buy a CD or go pay to see a movie, more power to them. But when it comes to public good and being able to acquire items, that is partly what file sharing is for. In an article titled, “The Darknet and the Future of Content Distribution” authors write, “Today, several popular applications and services offer similar capabilities. CD-writers have become mainstream, and DVD-writers may well follow suit. Hence, even in the absence of network connectivity, the opportunity for low-cost, large-scale file sharing exists.” This quote further proves that public good is already being fulfilled, and that everyone and anyone have access to cheap music and movies. This quote also is saying how CD-writers have become mainstream. Now, if people are so supportive of copyright laws, why do they still make every computer standard with CD or DVD burners? It doesn’t make much sense in my opinion because people use CD/DVD writers to burn music or movies and distribute amongst their social network.

Overall, I believe that copyright laws are not necessary. I believe without copyright laws, companies will still thrive, and media figures will still come out with new work. Piracy has been around for quite some time, and artists still come out with CDs making millions. Actors are still doing new movies everyday that result in millions of dollars of income. Copyright is suppose to protect the creator and support them in making new work, though new pieces of work are coming out everyday, despite how many people are sharing music or movies on the web. I believe copyright may never be annulled, but piracy will continue no matter how strict the laws get.

Sources:
1. Peter Biddle, Paul England, Marcus Peinado, Bryan Willman. (October 2003). The Darknet and the Future of Content Distribution. Levine’s Working Paper Archive.

2. Pettersson, Karl-Henrik. (April 2005). Copyright bad for a modern society. Retrieved September 11th, 2008, from Expressen. Web Site: http://www.p2punite.org/?q=node/17

3. (n.a.). (n.d.). Copyright. Retrieved September 12th, 2008, from Wikipedia. Web Site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright

COM 125 Assignment 2: Mosaic Web Browser

If I had to guess, 80% of us once had an America Online account. Do we remember when we were younger browsing the web with our 56k connection? Do you remember Netscape Navigator? Where do you think those browsers came from? Mosaic was a web browser created in January of 1993. Although people had come out with web browsers way before this, Mosaic would eventually prove to be a revolutionary concept, in that it laid down the foundation and success for modern day web browsers.

Marc Andreeson and his partner Eric Bina became intrigued by a web browser known as Viola. They planned to expand on its concept and make a newer web browser with more features. The two worked for the National Center for Supercomputting Applications (NCSA). The first Mosaic was released in April of 1993. Originally, Mosaic was released as a program designed to get information from various public networks. Though over time, it proved to be a program that would change everyday life. Though it was innovative, a few issues resulted in an upgrade and release of Mosaic 2.0 in December of 1993. Mosaic made it easy for people to spread information amongst the world through their program. It also was the first browser to allow images to be displayed in the actual document, rather than being opened in another browser pa

ge. The World Wide Web became extremely globalized with the release of Mosaic.

Gary Wolfe, a writer for Wired magazine wrote the following about Mosaic: “Mosaic is the celebrated graphical "browser" that allows users to travel through the world of electronic information…Mosaic's charming appearance encourages users to load their own documents onto the Net, including color photos, sound bites, video clips, and hypertext "links" to other documents. By following the links [you] can travel through the online world along paths of whim and intuition.” This is a long quote, but a meaningful one. It basically sums up Mosaic in a nutshell. The internet is a system that connects the world and allows people all over to spread information to each other. This is exactly what Mosaic did. It was one of the first browsers to allow people to spread information to each other within seconds. It was one of the first programs to allow people to do this easily. It allowed scholars to spread ideas and scientists to share information; it helped technology advance, and more importantly, helped connect together the world. Below and Above you can see the difference between Viola and Mosaic. Which one looks easier?

CNETnews, in 1994 published an article titled: “Mother of Invention: How the Mosaic Browser Triggered a Digital Revolution.” Once again Mosaic is being praised as a revolutionary program. Mosaic did not add many features to the browser, though it was one of the first browsers that allowed people with intermediate computer skills to access. Its graphics and designs were also appealing to the average user. There are studies done in the mid 1990s that prove that internet use skyrocketed around the same time Mosaic was released.

Still don’t believe that Mosaic was the innovation of web browsing? That program we all use called Internet Explorer, where do you think that came from? In 1995, Microsoft licensed Mosaic for 2 million dollars, modified it, and renamed it Internet Explorer. After a dispute, Microsoft ended up paying Mosaic 8 million dollars for auditing issues. Every Internet Explorer version before 7.0, in the About box, then said “Based on NCSA Mosaic.”

The internet is a fairly new invention, being that it hasn’t been around for a long time. It will most definitely advance in later years into a more powerful, innovative device. There are hundreds of different things that led to the creation of the internet. The internet involves email, browsers, file sharing, satellites, millions of networks worldwide, hypertext, TCP/IP, etc… All these things had a beginning sometime in the past. Though when it comes to recognizing web browsing, Mosaic may not have been the first, but it was the one that became the most popular, and helped lead the world into a digital revolution.

Sources:

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosaic_(web_browser)

2. http://news.cnet.com/2009-1032-995679.html

3. http://www.livinginternet.com/w/wi_mosaic.htm