What did the bbm user say to the other?

Nothing.

The internet outage for blackberry users this past week has open up a lot conversations about how interconnected people have become to their devices. Everyone who had a blackberry had an opinion on how big of an incontinence it was to them and if you weren't a blackberry user it opened the floor for many jokes like the one above. What I found troubling though was the particular value judgments that were being place on those effected. An example.

Two people in past week mentioned to me CTV's coverage of the blackberry outage, which some teens said that they felt lost without bbm and didn't know what to do with themselves. To some this may seem like a ridicules position to take, there are after all other means of communicating with others. Yet, when we build up these system of constant new smartphones and charge insane amounts for data through cellular companies, I think the position is completely normal. Haraway talks about the idea that humanity and technology has become one, and I agree, to suggest otherwise at this point I think it would be rather maddening.

Copy Right

Take a look at this video what do you see?

There is a big discussion going on right now about copyright issues, how society has changed its practices and how laws need to reflect those changes. Theses changes are no more visible than in the music industry.

It use to be that when people talked about copyright and the music industry it would be about things like Napster or Torrents, the consumer side. Recently though the conversation has shifted more on the side of the creators, artists like GirlTalk are making it big and people are, well, talking about it.

With current copyright laws, if sold for profit, songs like the one above are considered illegal, since they feature works of other artists without the proper royalties and permission. Yet, I wonder how much longer that will be the rule of the land.

GirlTalk has been allowed to continue not because the content is good, but because it's exposure for artists. We live in a value added society now, where both your Facebook and Twitter account want you to acknowledged everyone you do something with. Every sample means what was once old is new again. And it's the technology that perpetuates that has allowed it to happen in the first place.

This isn't a new issue, people questioned the New Wave scene when it first came out in the 70s. Yet, sampling is much easier than it has been in the past and it makes sense that people would be taking advantage of it.

The question I think people need to is what's the difference between a G chord on a guitar and a sample?