Information, Images and Inequality

SOC 425

Second set of Projects                                                                                                                                  Prof. Stephen Adair

                                                                                                                                                                                Spring 2003

Many of the projects, I expect, will take the form of written essays or short research papers (of four to five double-spaced typed pages), but you are free to use other media, including the making of a visual essay, a class presentation, a video, a web page, a cartoon, or other means to communicate and share what you have learned.

Information for the projects can be gathered from any number of sources, including assigned books, other books and journal articles, websites, systematic observations, interviews, magazines, photographs, video games, etc.  Please be sure to document all your sources.  For many of the projects listed below, the web may be your important resource.  Please document material taken from websites.  Do not plagiarize, that is, do not pass off other people’s work as your own.  Also, if you are writing a paper or an essay, develop your own thesis and use resources and other materials as evidence to support your claim.

In general, I want you to pursue issues that interest you.  While all topics not listed below, must be checked out with me before handing them in, my only requirement is that the projects you select involve critical thinking on the social issues and implications that reside at the intersections of technology, culture, and the accumulation of wealth in the contemporary world.

1. Write a critical book review of Copyrights and Copywrongs. See the course website for a description of this assignment. 

2.  Write a short research report that identifies and considers the major ethical, legal, and social issues at stake in the battle over Napster and mp3 files.

3.  When DVD films began to be produced a few years, Circuit City attempted a particular strategy for the distribution of digital video, DIVX, where people would keep digital copies of films, but pay per view.  The strategy failed.  Consider what the history and failure of DIVX tells us about digital culture.

4.  Should people be able to patent genes, gene sequences or “invented” life forms?  (Note for some initial materials and a “con” view see the The Council for Responsible Genetics at www.gene-watch.org

5. Investigate legal, ethical, and social issues involved in the ownership and licensing of images, including art images and computer-generated images. Consider investigating issues in regards to the ownership, copyrighting and licensing of images in Corbis corp

6.  Investigate and describe a new organization or a political group (or groups) that is challenging new forms of ownership over intellectual property (i.e. Electronic Frontier Foundation, IPJustice, Digital Future Coalition, Global Internet Liberty Campaign, The Council for Responsible Genetics,  See the website for this course for some examples.

7. Richard Stallman wrote an article “Copywrongs” (see www.wired.com/wired/archive/1.03/1.3_stallman.copyright.html) in 1993.  Compare and contrast Stallman’s arguments regarding copywrongs with Vaidhyanathan’s arguments.

8. An excellent source for materials on intellectual property is available at www.ifla.org/II/cpyright.htm.  Review some of the sources and write an essay that addresses a particular legal change or change in political perspective regarding intellectual property.

9. A Norweigian, Jon Johansen (“DVD Jon”), has found himself in the middle of a controversial copyright case.  What did Johansen do, and why is it significant?

10.  Your own idea that is related to intellectual property.  Talk to me about it.