16 Weeks of Blog

Initial thoughts on plagiarism in the blogosphere; Controlling plagairism: A mack truck doing 120 with no driver

2006-01-26T11:06:00.000-08:00

Plagiarism in the blogosphere strikes me as an interesting concept. I had never thought about plagiarism in relation to the world beyond ink on paper. The idea that something in a digital format may still be intellectual property is common place to many americans but what about on the world scale and how could something such as this be regulated? Take, for example, Earth Station 5, a peer-to-peer file-sharing program based out of the West Bank, whose spokesman has said, when receiving complaints about the legality of what is transpiring, “we tell them to go fuck off” (http://www.economist.com/business/displayStory.cfm?story_id=2301336). Digital property is a wonderful ideal in first world nations where being sent to a federal penitentiary is a considerably worse than working 9-5 and watching sports games on your big screen. That completely changes when you consider that people living in refugee camps, having their families destroyed and torn apart for generations through war and civil dissent probably wouldn’t mind getting their 3 square meals a day and having a guaranteed roof over their head. This is assuming they get caught. But I severely digress.
What does this have to do with plagiarism and the blogosphere? Everything. Certainly, plagiarism is an extremely serious offense in universities and throughout the professional world; do not take credit for that which is not yours. Immediately I think that some sort of code or honor system must be implemented to maintain personal, intellectual and digital properties but there appears to be no real way to do this when there exist both the doctor of philosophy in England posting his daily findings to a blog and the cunning hacker in Jakarta who not only steals the doctor’s ideas but also his blog. Our friendly hacker has just plagiarised by all conventional senses of the word but what is in place to stop him? Not a damn thing.
I guess what I’m really getting at here is not the definition of the lines of plagiarism, as I think I find these areas as grey, if not more so, than the rest of you, but rather the policing and enforcement of plagiarism law in the WWW. There are ways to enforce anti-plagiarism law in the blogosphere and the ‘net but it does not seem as though our current governments/police agencies have the slightest inkling to lift a finger. This leads me to question why. The first thing that pops into mind is that there simply is not enough monetary compensation for such actions. Sure there is with things like violations of the DMCA and stealing property for the RIAA and MPAA but I’m pretty certain our police couldn’t care less about Dr. Bob’s latest findings on the mating habits of african albino monkeys. Even if they did, it is not enough, something like policing plagiarism on the WWW is going to take a unified world-wide front and I just don’t see that happening any time soon.

Blogs and their inhibitions upon the freestyle world.

2006-01-26T10:16:00.000-08:00

I often attempt to be very careful with what I choose to say and express particularly in scholastic situations; I normally attempt to give what I feel is closest to the expectations of the instructor without much creative input, I normally like to keep that stuff to myself. This said, a freestyle blog comes as a bit of a challenge. My initial thoughts urged me to lay verse and rime as if G-money were dropping beats and B-ry had just dogged my Momma but the idea of recording "flow" or freestyle rap, especially in a blog, struck me as not only peculiar but also destructive of the art form. What I most enjoy about freestyle is its immediacy and demand for quick actions and response. The blog removes these elements. Sure, the blog is an immediate form of communication but nowhere near as instant as throwing rimes into someone's ear from three feet away.

EDIT: It just occurred to me that nothing is stopping me from recording freestyle flows and posting them to my blog, a curious thought that is a bit unlikely for me, but who knows.

I have never been flowing with anyone and been able to say, "hey, I screwed up that last line, gimme just one second to think of a better rime." Simply the idea that I can look over what I have typed before I have posted it demotes the blog to a level below that of the freestylists on the streets in the hierarchy of 21st century communications.
However, I will give the blog a few points for the fact that with it I could network myself with freestylists worldwide and possibly setup VoIP battles.
Not that I am going to send my rimes via the web 8,000 miles away but I am intrigued by the numerous different ways blogs could be integrated to maintain the personal experience opposed to their current dehumanized words on my LCD.

A few different kinds of blogs, briefly explained

2006-01-19T11:11:00.000-08:00

When I first read prof. Melton's email dictating that a blog would be mandatory for this class I was a bit apprehensive; blogging seemed a bit risque or edgy to be integrated into collegiate coursework. Upon a few brief google searches I found that much more may be involved in blogging than I had previously thought. There are many different categories of blog however personal, political, topical, and collaborative blogs appear to be some of the most popular.
My roommate was watching the Colbert Report tonight on which a Mr. Sullivan, titled as a Blogger, appeared. He runs a personal blog with no central topic; subject matter may range from quirky website links to personal sentiments on religion and politics to daily events to anything else that comes into Mr. Sullivan's mind. This is the nature of the personal blog--to act as an online diary for anyone willing to type and post their thoughts.
The use of blogs by political candidates has become exceedingly common in contemporary political campaigns however this is only one type of political blog. Other political blogs may contain personal comments about certain political issues or may even be long essays about current political topics (Wikipedia).
Topical blogs are another widely used blog style which focus on a niche. A blog may fit into more than one topical category. Topical blogs seem to be less common than either personal or political however, both personal and political blogs may be loosely formed around a central topic, i.e. daily weather or upcoming elections.
Finally, the collaborative blog is a widely used style of blogging in which many entries are written by multiple people. Slashdot.org, despite denying its status as a blog, holds many of the essential qualities of a collaborative blog focusing on technology.
These are only a few of the many types of blogs which clutter our web today. The idea the any one’s personal thoughts are immediately published and accessible is mind-blowing. I am excited yet still apprehensive to see where blogging may take us as a worldwide networked community. Do every person’s opinions and feelings on whatever really need to be heard?