Contented With User-Generated Content?

PithArtist

“IMAGINATION: n. A warehouse of facts, with poet and liar in join ownership.” – Ambrose Bierce, Devil’s Dictionary

Consider Twitter’s terms of service:

1. We claim no intellectual property rights over the material you provide to the Twitter service. Your profile and materials uploaded remain yours. You can remove your profile at any time by deleting your account. This will also remove any text and images you have stored in the system.
2. We encourage users to contribute their creations to the public domain or consider progressive licensing terms.

Obviously, Twitter users don’t worry much in general about the copyright terms of their creations, or at least they don’t let such considerations get in the way of generating billions of tweets. It’s that willingness to “get in there” and use a service that forms the rush past the old media’s rule set.  This is on our minds at CTP, which is why we made our terms similar to Twitter’s.  We don’t own your intellectual property, we just match up our merchandising capabilities with your phrases.  We run the database that ensures your exact phrase isn’t duplicated inside CTP. When you coin your phrase, that’s exactly what you’re doing – coining your phrase.

How do coiners see the ownership issue?

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Rekindling The Digital Ownership Debate

PithArtist

Sorry.
- Amazon, to Kindle customers who bought digital copies of George Orwell’s “1984″ and “Animal Farm”

In an ironic twist on themes in Orwell’s most famous novel, Amazon’s e-book reader’s customers have found that what they thought they bought can be pulled out of their Kindles.

In this clip from The Daily Bruin, there’s a discussion about what happens when it’s not clear who owns which digital bits. Entire Kindle article here.

Despite the assumed right to a permanent copy of the materials they paid for, Amazon’s digital recall reached over the wireless network and reclaimed everything from unsuspecting consumers.

Unlike recalls where customers may be asked to voluntarily return their goods and relinquish their ownership, the Kindle network can be used to erase their rights overnight.

Digital ownership of an e-book through Amazon is also subject to a strict policy that prohibits any unauthorized sharing of the digital content. Its terms of service state that the Kindle owner “may not sell, rent, lease … or otherwise assign any rights to the Digital Content or any portion of it to any third party.”

These restrictions prove that digital content is not “owned” in the traditional sense of the word. Anything that belongs to me, be it a book, a desk or a video game, is something that I should be able to sell or trade whenever I want, because I have previously purchased the right to do so.

What Needs To Be Re-thought? Only Everything

PithArtist

We spend a lot of time rethinking the notions of content and ownership at CTP, and we’re not alone.  Michael Wesch, Asst. Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Kansas State University has a thought or two about the new content landscape and has condensed these into a terrific video clip that we think everyone should watch.  Enjoy!