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Coming soon: Alexa for everyone, everywhere!

On the basis of their well known humour, SNL denounces the uselessness of voice controlled smart speakers. While adepts of brand new tech might introduce such devices in their homes and lives spontaneously, conspiracy theorists skeptically view them as intrusive spies.

Would you trust this small omnipresent black box, or dismiss it as another unimportant technological advance?

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“Security of personal information and user privacy are potentially irreconcilable with the conflicting set of user preferences regarding information sharing behaviours and the convenience of using technology to do so”’. - Edwards, L. and Brown, I. (2009) “Data Control and Social Networking: Irreconcilable Ideas?” in HARBORING DATA: INFORMATION SECURITY, LAW AND THE CORPORATION, A. Matwyshyn, ed., Stanford University Press

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Fighting cybercrime one nude at a time

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Can we laugh about everything? 

Humour is often biased, based on your culture and social inclinations. There are some things, however, that are just plainly obscene. The Dieudonné case has created great debate about freedom of speech, and how relatively irrefutable it is.

The Internet is often perceived as being the platform where freedom of expression is absolute. But violent content may cause civil or criminal liability, as it truly harms individuals, groups or nations.

When it comes to hate speech, some websites have managed to regulate publication, and some have even created categories of protected people. For instance, Facebook moderators will systematically delete any hate speech concerning sexual orientation, but not political ideologies. Because this is quite new, there are absurdities in the program. For instance, “it is permissible to say: ‘All terrorists are Muslims’, but it is not permitted to say: ‘All Muslims are terrorists.’” 

This is another illustration of when freedom of expression and the internet clash, an poses the issue of whether there should be harmonised legislation on what can be and what cannot be said online, or whether it is up to the websites themselves.

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Say it’s a weeknight, it’s cold outside and the only thing you want to do is lay back and watch a specific movie you’ve heard of lately. First thing you do, you go on Netflix, Hulu or your VOD channel if you have a subscription. If you don’t, or if the movie is unavailable, you go to your dear friend Google and ask for help. And Google is always there for you, happy to give you all the material you need to watch just the one specific movie. You click on the first link, because you’re too tired and not bothered enough to check if it’s safe. Or legal. You don’t even think about it, everybody does it, so why shouldn’t you? And besides, artists and producers have so much money nowadays, it wouldn’t make a difference or not whether you’ve watched the movie without paying for it.

Now imagine that your neighbour, your best friend, your brother, your mother also take the easiest and cheapest road to watch a movie. Streaming is not an isolated phenomenon, it’s a worldwide practice. A recent survey from the Intellectual Property Office showed that, in the UK, 62% of internet users have streamed or downloaded protected content*. But how many of these users are aware that they are infringing intellectual property? How many know what intellectual property actually means? Are they aware of the consequences in the artistic field?

In an era where almost everything is perfectly digitalised, anyone can find anything on the internet. And, boy, isn’t it so easy? Just type in a few words in the Google search bar, and you get thousands of results in less than one second. But how do you tell what’s legal content and what’s not?

We are at a point where you don’t need to have any advanced technological knowledge to have access to free content. If an eight year-old can do it, then anybody can. But still, even if that eight year-old is able to use an MP3 converter, he will not have the capacity to understand why it’s wrong.

The legal world of today is faced with an important challenge: how to limit or prohibit access to infringing websites without violating basic human rights (freedom of expression, freedom of information, access to culture amongst others)? How can copyright be respected when file-sharing is effortless an limitless in the online environment?

It is up to us, users, infringers, future lawyers and regulators, to find solutions that will not only be convenient for everyone but that acknowledge both the intellectual property rights of authors and rightholders as well as the human rights of all. 

*https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-consumers-give-boost-to-legal-downloading-and-streaming-for-tv-films-and-music

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“Memes begin with originators—people who create new memes or the underlying images that will become memes at someone else’s hand. The originators’ work is then taken by derivative authors who create new posts that are similar but slightly different from the original memes. From this point on, future derivative authors either build on previous derivative authors’ work or the original authors’ work and create many strands of memes which are all ultimately connected to the original meme.” - Patel R, “First World Problems: A Fair Use Analysis of Internet Memes”, (2013), UCLA Entertainment Law Review, Vol. 20, No. 2, 2013

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Problems in the digital sphere: does copyright protection stifle or incentivise creativity?

For more information, check out this video (referenced in the cartoon)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqq_oq6QWZI

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With the rise of digital content and the development of digitalisation, technology is pushing the boundaries by integrating everyday objects into the digital sphere. Where it might have started with pen and paper, games or images, it has now included films and other video content (Netflix, Youtube), music and sound recordings (iTunes, Spotify), books and essays (ebooks), photography (Snapchat, Instagram) and even money (bitcoins), amongst other daily devices.

During this transition from physical to completely virtual content, users are questioning their rights, particularly their ownership of such digital content. While the older generation might favour a physical form of library or music collection, the younger generation does not seem to care whether their books are on a shelf or on an ebook. How will digitalisation change our behaviour towards ownership? And, more importantly, will it affect us in any significant way?

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"Some people say that it is not for government to regulate when it comes to technology and the internet. We disagree." -- When government uses terrorism as an excuse to control the Internet

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An open letter from Vocabulary to the Internet

Ah, the Internet! How I love you, adore you, need you, hate you! You have completely changed me, forced me to adapt, and now, I can barely recognise myself. I used to be my own master, deciding which names should be given to what object or concept; but now, anybody can make up a word, as random as it may sound, which is bound to be included in the next dictionary! Photobomb, botnet, humblebrags? You can now unclick, binge-watch and stream on your web feed; you can be victim, or author, of a microagression on Twitter; read or write a NSFW fanfic listicle on Tumblr; derp on Snapchat…  You are a webhead, a Cumberbitch, a noob, a bloggerati, a dabber, an instagramer, a meme, a LOLcat and whatnot.  Asdfghjkl!!

Oh, precious language of mine, do you hate me so? I can barely keep up with myself; how do you expect the rest of the world to do so? There are the creators, which you now control, and then there are the parents, grand-parents of these creators, poor souls, who will still struggle to understand anything that comes out of their children’s mouths.

But then, what would I be without you? The possibilities are infinite, I am renewed every day by the people and for the people, and that is a true gift you have given me. I am like a phoenix, rising from its ashes continuously, and - oh!- how beautiful it is! You have managed to create what I have desperately tried but failed to do: a universal language, spoken by more than 3 billion people all over the world!

I can only hate you, but thank you for your contribution to my existence, and can only hope not to be too dependent on your users.

TTYL,

Vocabulary