Yo Ho, Yo Ho! It’s A Pirate’s Life For Me

March 30, 2014July 30, 2014 ~ jakepascoe ~ Leave a comment

“Media convergence is more than simply a technological shift. Convergence alters the relationship between existing technologies, industries, markets, genres, and audiences. Convergence refers to a process, but not an endpoint.” (Henry Jenkins 2004 p.34)

Why do we use The Pirate Bay? Hollywood suggests we use it just to piss off the creators and give the finger to the law, essentially being pirates. But that’s not true. The real rather sad reason for our use is simply that we can’t afford to buy every movie, game and tv show that we want to watch. Plus, we want to watch things as soon as they come out, not two months later.

The ideology behind The Pirate Bay is based around the idea of sharing free information and ideas. And because of this, they have become actively involved as a symbol of democracy and online freedom. They stand as a symbol to say “You can’t control us” to the film industry, and they help many little voices appear as one large, threatening voice.

“By Convergence I mean the flow of content across multiple media platforms, the cooperation between multiple media industries, and the migratory behaviour of media audiences.” (Henry Jenkins 2004)

Since The Pirate Bay was introduced in 2003, it has had a very strong impact on media audiences, and their migratory behaviour. It’s caused us to have an instant demand for media, and has shortened our patience for them to be released locally. It’s made us re-think “Is this really worth buying?”, where now audiences will only buy media if they really want it. Simple curiosity is no longer an instinct.

It’s also completely destroyed the renting business. The Pirate Bay, and illegal torrenting itself, can be seen as the reason why companies such as ‘Blockbuster’ and my person favourite, ‘Video-Ezy’, have almost completely disappeared. No want wants to rent a movie anymore. Not when you can easily download a high quality version of the movie for free. It doesn’t make economical sense for the customer.

An idea that does make sense, is Netflix. You pay a monthly subscription, and you have access to SO many movies and Tv shows online. The idea of paying for access, not per movies, I personally think is the way of the future. Spotify Premium have this ideology, as does Flattr. This makes is cheaper for everyone to access what they want, and the content creators are receiving the compensation they deserve. It’s pretty amazing that such a small amount of hardware can create such a shift in society.

References:

1. Jenkins, H. 2004, The cultural logic of media convergence, International Journal of Cultural Studies, Volume 7(1): 33- 43

2. Holmes David 2013, ‘The ride and fall of Blockbuster, told through movies I rented in the 90’s, Pando Daily, Viewed 3rd April 2014,< http://pando.com/2013/11/07/the-rise-and-fall-of-blockbuster-told-through-movies-i-rented-in-the-90s/ >

3. Brian, 2011, How Flattr Works, a simple way to reward people who create content you like, How Stuff Works, weblog post, 24th January, Viewed 3rd April 2014 < http://blogs.howstuffworks.com/brainstuff/how-flattr-works-a-simple-way-to-reward-people-who-creat-content-you-like/ >

You Wouldn’t Download A Car.. Or Would You?

March 21, 2014July 30, 2014 ~ jakepascoe ~ 4 Comments

In today’s modernised world, copyright is all around us, and dictates what we can, and cannot do every day. It’s like a bad smell. No one wants it, but even with all it’s negative attributes, it plays an intricate role in life. Christopher Moore put it well, “Intellectual property has changed how we share material” (2014). The rights people have claimed on certain works have made people rich, and people poor. It’s changed the economic and artistic world, and affected the creativity of almost everyone on the Earth. The concept of copyright began to spread around with the first copyright law in 1709. It established the legal right to copy texts, creating an enforceable monopoly, but limited copyright duration to a maximum term of 28 years. Then as the years rolled on, copyright laws swayed in the favour of the creators, more than doubling the copyright duration, even CRIMINALISING the distribution of copyrighted works, which again limited the creative minds of millions.

There’s the famous (and very old) advertisement on almost all produced movie DVD’s these days with a copyright ad and warning, which attempts to compare downloading a movie illegally through the analogies of “You wouldn’t steal a handbag” and “You wouldn’t download a car”. Ironically, and rather hilariously, this advertisement, itself uses copyrighted material illegally. I’m bringing this up to try and highlight the complexity and backwards nature of copyright at this point in time. It illustrates how copyright GIANTS break copyright law themselves without realising it. Also rather hilariously, you CAN download a car. The comedians down at Honda are making the concepts for several of their cars available for free while Hollywood is surely furiously looking for a new ad campaign. “The company is offering 3D printing data for five of its concept cars for free” (Luke Vandezande 2014).. ‘FOR FREE’. I’ll take three thanks.

Source: http://www.meh.ro/

In terms of The Pirate Bay, copyright is a HUGE issue. It would take someone years to to find out how many copyright infringements have been made because of TPB.

“All of us who run the TPB are against the copyright laws and want them to change, We see it as our duty to spread culture and media. Technology is just a means to doing that.” said a Pirate Bay operator.

The website can be seen as a symbol of rebellion against copyright law, an active defiance and protest showing that they don’t believe in the current state of copyright laws. The ‘Terms and Conditions’ of using The Pirate Bay is rather small compared to most organisations and websites. ‘Digital Trends‘ writes a nice ‘play by play’ of the whole document, and summarising what parts are important, and what everything means. Plus it’s a lot easier to read.

But to put it simply, they’re being the ‘safety’ police, allowing you to downloading anything for personal use, and protecting the users from virus’ by threatening dangerous file uploaders with a fine. They protect your privacy, and allow themselves to post personal emails involving copyright claims.

Fun Fact: You can download a back-up of The Pirate Bay that’s only 75mb.

References:

Moore Christopher , 2014, ‘The Stationers Company’, Lecture Week 3, UOW, 18/03/2014

Whitehouse Alex 2012, Piracy Advert Used Stolen Music, PC & Tech Authority, Viewed 30th March 2014, <http://www.pcauthority.com.au/News/309432,piracy-advert-used-stolen-music.aspx >

Vandezande Luke 2014, Make Your Own Acura NSX With a 3d Printer, AutoGuide.com, Viewed 30th March 2014, <http://www.autoguide.com/auto-news/2014/01/honda-releases-concept-car-3d-printing-data.html >

Couts Andrew 2013, Terms & Conditions: The Pirate Bay’s fine print is still punk rock, Digital Trends, Viewed 29th March 2014, <http://www.digitaltrends.com/web/terms-and-conditions-the-pirate-bay/#!B2Up7 >

Ernesto 2013, Download A Fresh Copy Of The Pirate Bay, With Permission, Torrent Freaks, Viewed 30th March 2014, <http://torrentfreak.com/download-copy-of-the-pirate-bay-with-permission-130220/ >

Learning French

March 20, 2014March 20, 2014 ~ jakepascoe ~ Leave a comment

For those of you that don’t stalk me consistently, it will be news to you that i’m learning French at Uni as one of my subjects. French as a language has always interested me. It seems sophisticated. And i’ve always wanted to learn another language, because i’m immensely jealous of people that can speak to languages. Especially when you can have a private conversation with people that also speak the other language! I’ve always wanted to do that.

But learning another language is hard, or so i’ve been told. So far we’re just learning the grammar of the language, which is a lot more complicated than it sounds. Every object even has a gender! And you have to remember what it is. It’s all so much to take in at once, especially when you have a 3 hour tutorial.

The pronunciation however, I find easier than the actual spelling, thanks to my awesome technique. An easy way to pronounce words in french correctly (or at least almost), is to put on an extremely stereotypical offensive French accent. I know this sounds stupid, and possibly rude, but it really helps! Because you naturally roll your tongue on certain letters, which you’re supposed to do, but it just makes it seem so much easier!

I also find that when learning French, it will either feel like you’re fluent already and you’re a genius, or that you have to reinvent the wheel just to understand what’s happening. And why you don’t pronounce the bloody endings of words, and why ‘Y’ is pronounced as ‘E-Glrek’. You just can’t win with the French, unless you’re Germany (I’m going to hell for that)

I would recommend French as a language to most people, because it’s interesting, and fun to learn. You may have to put in a lot of hard work, and a fair amount of study (which i’ve terrible at), but in the end it will be worth it. Especially if I still want to do a semester in Paris next year!

William Fitzsimmons

March 18, 2014March 18, 2014 ~ jakepascoe ~ Leave a comment

For my second music post, I’ve decided to introduce you all to one of my favourite Artists, William Fitzsimmons. He’s an American singer/songwriter, and I think of him as another Modern-Day Smiths band, just like Keaton Henson. Yes I have a fetish for break up bands. His first two albums, Until When We Are Ghosts (2005) and Goodnight (2006), we’re completely produced and released by himself. And that’s impressive.

One of his most well known songs, Passion Play (Below), is one of my favourite songs by him. It’s a beautiful song about how he considers himself a Christian, but struggles with his faith. Something im sure alot of people can understand and empathise about.

Some more of his songs that I love include, “Please Don’t Go”, and “So This Is Goodbye”. He is such a beautiful artist, and his music really makes you feel some strong emotions, which is what he tries to achieve. I love this beautiful nature in his lyrics, and to me, it really makes him stand out.

One of the reasons I fell in love with him so much, was his amazing beard! I mean, check it out! I’ve joined the Facebook group “William Fitzsimmons to Tour Australia“, it may only have 111 likes, but there are alot of people over in Australia that would love to see him live. Personally, I would travel to the other side of Australia to see this man. He is amazing.

“But GTA Made Me Do It”

March 17, 2014July 30, 2014 ~ jakepascoe ~ 4 Comments

It’s human nature to find someone, or something to blame. Always. A simple “Because” doesn’t suffice in our society, especially when talking to your parents. And whenever there’s a violent crime or event, the media will always try to give the public what they want. Something to blame. And that’s usually Video Games.

There have been numerous events where a seemingly innocent and harmless kid has shocked everyone into committing such violent acts. There are usually a whole lot of reasons involved that the media tends to ignore, such as bullying, depression and poor family situations. One example is a “Polite, well-respected graduate student” named Steven Kazmierczak. He killed 5 of his fellow University students in the United States before committing suicide with the same gun.

Now, the first thing I think of after hearing this is, ‘HOW did he get a gun?’. The fact that a UNIVERSITY STUDENT managed to obtain a gun highlights how lenient the US are with gun laws, and also how oblivious his parents must have been to the potential dangers. The video below is a skit by The Daily Show, and highlights just how stupid gun control is over in the US compared to Australia.

The link between this crime and video games was made by a man names Jack Thompson. He said to a reporter, “We find from brain scan studies out of Harvard that if you get started playing, for example, violent video games you are more likely to copycat the behaviours in the games.” During the same news interview, Mr Thompson continued onto a self-promotional parade about his books. Now, this makes me think that he only said what he did about Video Games, to get the attention he wanted. Because whenever you hear on the news that “Video games cause kid to murder”, the news makes it out to seem factual, and everyone panics.

Now, i’m supposed to base this post around what the media being blamed for today and is it justified. And it’s quite simple. The news is being blamed for representing false accusations as the truth. And this is true, to an extent, and there are the obvious exceptions of course. It might surprise most of you, but Fox New’s is not actually technically news. It’s entertainment. They won a court case in 2003 which gave them a legal precedent to no longer show the news. Everyone just ASSUMES that it’s news because it’s called “Fox News”, and it covers current events. Some people even confuse “The Onion” as a news source at times, and I find that personally hilarious.

So in conclusion, the media are accused of providing false facts as true, especially in the case of Video Games, and this impression from those educated enough to question the media, is totally justified.

References:

Benedetti Winda 2008, Playing The Blame Game, NBC News, Viewed 17th March 2014, <http://www.nbcnews.com/id/23204875/#.U0u9u-aSz-s >

Unknown Author 2009, Fox-Can-Lie Lawsuit, FoxNewsBOYCOTT, Viewed 17th March 2014, <http://foxnewsboycott.com/resources/fox-can-lie-lawsuit/ >

The What Bay?

March 13, 2014July 30, 2014 ~ jakepascoe ~ Leave a comment

For my media technology, I have chosen The Pirate Bay, and the torrenting technology behind it. I’ve personally always been interested with The Pirate Bay, and I’ve followed most of the history and drama behind the website for the past few years, being a user myself. The moral and ethical implications involved with the website and the social impacts it has is interesting if you really consider the whole picture.

The way The Pirate Bay works is similar to Google. It acts as a search engine for people to find and download torrents. The Pirate Bay shouldn’t legally be held liable for the torrents on the website, the uploaders should. This is like trying to hold Google liable for porn illegal websites.

The documentary ‘The Pirate Bay Away From Keyboard’ highlights these points very well from the perspective of the developers and owners of the website, and the issues involved both from a legal and moral perspective, as well as from a technological perspective. It’s an hour and a half film, but it’s definitely worth a watch. I’d recommend watching it at home after Uni or work, because it needs full attention in order to understand everything that’s being said.

Having said this though, The Pirate Bay is under constant threat from media companies of all sizes concerning the torrents available on their website. The Pirate Bay holds a consistent view on these threats which is evident in their statement’s on their legal page, “0 torrents have been removed, 0 torrents will be removed” (Legal Threats Against The Pirate Bay 2005). The constant threat from legal companies are always going to be a major problem for The Pirate Bay, but another major concern that it faces, is the constant upgrades and maintenance it requires. To run the Pirate Bay, it requires immense hardware to be running in the background, and a lot of money to continuously update it all.

There’s a large moral issue to using The Pirate Bay, the main one being that you’re not ‘supporting the creators’. But in today’s society, supporting the creators isn’t a priority. The priority is ‘I want this content now!’ and this in turn has affected the industry. Especially when content isn’t available to certain demographics! Back in the last decade, people were proud to own an entire series on DVD or VHS, but these days, no one really cares because of how easily accessible everything is online. There are a lot more issues I wanted to include in my first post, but I really couldn’t fit it all in, so stay tuned!

References:

1. No Author, 2005, Legal Threats Against The Pirate Bay, The Pirate Bay, Viewed 24th March 2014 <http://thepiratebay.se/legal>

2. Ann Harrison, 2006, The Pirate Bay: Here To Stay?, Wired, Viewed 24th March 2014 <http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2006/03/70358>

3. Klose 2013, TPB AFK: The Pirate Bay Away From Keyboard, online Video, 8 February, The Pirate Bay, Viewed 25th March 2014, <http://watch.tpbafk.tv/>

Bruises Are Just Hickeys From The Universe

March 9, 2014July 30, 2014 ~ jakepascoe ~ Leave a comment

So the soccer season is upon us! We have quite a few new faces in our team this year, and our coach had a brilliant idea of having a team building/bonding day. Now, we all occasionally go up to our local pub and grab a drink together, but just getting a few drinks and socialising doesn’t give us the opportunity for team building. That’s when our brilliant team coach came up with the idea of paintball.

Now, I had never been paintballing before, so I didn’t know what to expect in terms of pain or what where we would be playing would be like. Turns out it was an indoor arena, with your basic wooden barricades and walls. We only had 6 people that could come, so it was the perfect size.

Now let me tell you this, paintballs hurt. A lot. But the thing is, when you’re actually playing and you get hit, you don’t notice it straight away. It takes about a second to kick in. Maybe it’s just me, but I just felt ‘in the zone’. But the aftermath of paintball is always a good competition. Who got the worst bruise? I’m telling you now, no matter what, you WILL leave with a bruise.

It was a great team building exercise, working together to pelt the life out of the other team, covering each other and winning as a team. It’s a good idea to build communication skills and teamwork, and it’s great fun. 10/10 would recommend. But try not to get shot in the back of your head like I did.

Keaton Henson

Video ~ March 7, 2014March 7, 2014 ~ jakepascoe ~ Leave a comment

For my first music post, I want to post about my current obsession. Keaton Henson. He’s a folk rock musician from England, and he sings as well as play his play guitar, and very well I might add. To my (and others) great disappointment, he apparently suffers from massive stage fright, and so hardly plays in front of crowds. But I would love to see this man live. He has such a great voice.

His two Albums, Dear.. and Birthdays, were released in 2012 and 2013, so he is a relatively new aspiring artist.

I found him while watching a new tv show “In The Flesh” during the credits, and having a soft spot for soft indie music, I paused at the credits every few seconds to catch his name, and then looked him up on spotify.

If I had to compare him to anyone, it would be maybe City and Colour, or maybe Bon Iver. He’s almost like a modern-day version of The Smiths, the PERFECT breakup band. I’ll probably end up doing some posts about them all later. If you like Keaton Henson, you should check him out on spotify. My favourite tracks are; ‘To your Health’, ‘Flesh and Bone’ and ‘Sweatheart, what have you done to us’.

If anyone is interested, I’ll probably be posting once or twice a week in my music category, all generally the same style of music. We all enjoy a bit of party music, but that’s not exciting to blog about.

Anyway, check him out, he’s going to be huge one day, join the “I listened to him before he was cool” bandwagon.

First Week of Uni Complete!

March 6, 2014March 10, 2014 ~ jakepascoe ~ Leave a comment

My first week as a uni student is officially complete! And I’ve got to say, i’m loving it so far. I love how interactive the lecturers are, especially when it comes to twitter and wordpress! So far, every single one of them have shown such enthusiasm and passion for the subjects they teach, the kind that’s very rare to find in high school teachers. And i’m loving it. It somehow makes attending these lectures and tutorials so much more exciting.

I’m off to a good start with my BCM110 and BCM112 subjects, because I already had a blog set up, and it’s allowing other students to use it as an example, or to take inspiration and idea’s. And I love that. I even got retweeted by both my BCM110 and BCM112 lecturers when I offered help to all the new bloggers, which drastically helped my view counter! It’s a bit of a personal milestone, reaching 297 hits in one night. That was crazy.

My MEDA101 class at the innovation campus was awesome. It’s all about digital media, and digital art. And that’s exactly what I love. Being able to represent idea’s and emotions through digital forms to reach people. A lot of people found it dreary, and similar to English in High School (which I can see), but this time it isn’t about books or poems. It’s about audio and visual! And to me, that’s so different! You can actually interact with it.

If i’m going to be honest, my French was a little scary. The lecture was great, but when it came to the tutorial, it just got very intense very quickly. It’s going to take a lot of patience and studying to get good at it. But hopefully hard work will pay off. I’ve currently stuck sticky notes all over my room labelling objects in french, so hopefully that will work too.

But all in all, my first week of uni was great, and im excited for next week. Oh, and I managed to fill my car with exactly $20.00 so im pretty excited about that.

Australia v Ecuador

March 5, 2014March 10, 2014 ~ jakepascoe ~ Leave a comment

Tomorrow morning is the Australia v Ecuador match. This game, even though it’s just a friendly, is actually so important for the Australian manager, Ange Postecoglou. This is because he is bringing in several new faces, and has axed most of the older Socceroos, known as the “Golden Generation”. One of the most notable players missing is Lucas Neill, Australia’s captain. During his prime, Lucas was crucial to their success, and lead from the back to improve Australia’s international reputation. Having no club for many months, he recently signed for Watford FC in England, but his recent form and age has forced Ange to remove him from his squad indefinitely.

So the spot for Captaincy was available. Many people expected Tim Cahill to receive it, because of the impact he’s had for the squad (he even scored Australia’s FIRST World Cup Finals goal against Japan in 2006). But the role fell before the very worthy Jedinak, the Midfielder from Crystal Palace in England.

I think Mile Jedinak totally deserved to be Captain for Australia, even though he scored an own goal when we faced Oman in the Qualifying rounds for the World Cup. His recent performances for Crystal Palace have been amazing (in my opinion), he is alway full of so much energy, and is never scared of a tackle. He leads the team even when he wasn’t the Captain for Australia, and the fact that he is Captain for Crystal Palace already shows that he knows what he’s doing. Plus, Jedinak’s style of play is perfect under Ange, High Pressure. And I’m sure we will be seeing this against Ecuador.

One of the largest threats we face tomorrow, is Antonio Valencia, who plays on the right wing for Manchester United. Now, even as a United supporter, I can admit we’re having a bit of a crappy year. One of the worst for decades. And hopefully this form and morale can stick to Valencia during tomorrow’s game, otherwise Ange will have to mark him closely.

I’m predicting a 4-2-2-2 formation, which Ange used a lot at Melbourne Victory. With Kruse missing, I think he will give Rogic a chance to show his potential with a starting position, and I think he’ll place Leckie and Cahill up front, almost in a False-9 type of formation. He’ll play aggressive with high pressure, and try to capitalise off every mistake.

I’ll be up watching it live before I go to Uni, and I’m sure I’ll do a Post-Match thread later in the week.