Pirkka’s posterous

What is fair use in the internet era?

I have a problem with a concept of fair use that the mainstream media loves to bring up every now and then.

They (or us as I also work for MSM) especially love to say that bloggers just steal their stories, and come up with nothing original. AP says that even linking to their stories with the original headline is not fair use, and media companies have fought against search companies for ages.

Well, let me see some examples of the fair use status quo - it took just two minutes for me to find these.

• Daily Mirror tells that Victoria Beckham replaces Paula Abdul, and Finnish Helsingin Sanomat just translates (and shortens) it.
• Independent points out that people turn to classical music during recession, and Finnish Broadcasting Company YLE translates it as their news.
• Ashton and Demi's plane makes an emergency landing, they tweet it and People magazine makes a story that Finnish Ilta-Sanomat publishes pretty much just translated.

So all this is fair use in practice.

It seems that it's OK to translate, to quote and steal, if you're from a media company and you do it from another media company. It's like If you scratch my back, you can scratch my back sometimes later.

And for mainstream media the use of all the original material they find from Twitter, blogs and other social media sites produced by celebrities and ordinary people seems most definately to be fair use. They can use anything they find on internet as their material, but the same fair use shouldn't apply to individuals?

I just don't get this.

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You're happy therefore you're not really thinking?

Today is the day many people have been waiting for. Madonna is finally giving a concert in Finland, and at least 85 000 people seem to be happy about that.

As people are getting ready for the concert - listening to old records, thinking of what to wear and organizing pre-concert events - they're getting so excited that it really shows. Facebook status messages are flooded with Madonna related content.

So what do people do? Someone writes a happy Madonna message to which some people answer straight away with negative comments. "I couldn't care less!"

Why is it that so many people have to kill other people's enjoyment right away, as if it was somehow enjoyment taken away from them? It feels as if enthusiasm and happiness was being naïve, while being negative and rejective is somehow a sign of intellectuality.

I think therefore I can't be happy? You're happy therefore you're not really thinking?

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Internet video watchers get back on their couches, sort of.

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Paid vs. not paid messages - are they really all that different?

Should a blogger or a tweeter tell when he's writing about a product he got for free? Of course he should.

But should a blogger or a tweeter tell that he has for a long time bought himself the products he is writing about? I think he most definately should.

I know this may sound a bit odd, but I have been thinking lately that the latter doesn't necessarily make the online consumer messages any more independent or reliable than so called PR stunts, give aways or promotion deals aimed at bloggers.

If one has invested plenty of own money or time into some product, he doesn't want to be proved to have purchased a wrong product. It's not a paid message he is writing, but a message with which he wants to prove other people that he has made a right choice himself.

We stand up online for products we have bought ourselves, and I am most positive that our messages aren't actually any more reliable than most of the paid messages. We bring up mostly the positive things, because with them we can prove ourselves and others that we are right (and have been right for ages).

It's not paid advertising or PR, but for some reason I think it gets very close to that.

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Sneaker confession

There are two kind of snekear people. The other ones want their snekears always shiny and white. They have to look as if they were brand new. Then there are people who want dirt and bruises of life to be seen in their sneakers.

I bought myself a new pair yesterday, and I realized I belong to the latter group. I wish they'd get dirty soon.

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Are different ideas and ideologies a threat to us?

During summer vacation there's time to think. So far I have only come up with big questions, not answers or solutions to them.

• Why do we often take different ideas and ideologies as if they were threatening our own way of thinking?
• Why does it seems like we want a world with just one truth, the one we find most suitable? If someone else doesn't think the way we do, why do we try to convert he to think the way we do?
• Why is it so hard to accept different ideas, and the fact that they might work better for other people than me?

I think that we are every now and then so defensive just because we are so scared that our own way of thinking turns out to be wrong. We take life as something that is either or, you're either wrong or right as if there was nothing in between them.

I wonder if someone could help me to find some points of view to these small questions. :-D

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The Case of the Missing Journalists

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Entäs jos kiinnittäisimme huomion suomalaisiin?

Pakko ottaa kantaa HS:n YLE-kampanjoinnin tulistuttamana näin keskellä kesälomaakin. Keskustelussa tuntuu unohtuvan se, että kenelle näitä sisältöjä oikein tehdään ja miksi.

Nykyisen hallintoneuvoston ongelma on ainakin Helsingin Sanomien mukaan se, että se ajaa Yleisradion etua. Siksi Helsingin Sanomat näyttää ajavan uutta valvontaelintä, jonka tulisi ottaa huomioon myös kaupallisen median kilpailukyky.

Minulla olisi radikaali ehdotus. Entäs jos uusi valvontaelin ottaisi ensisijaisesti huomioon ne, jotka mediamaksua maksavat? Jos valvontaelin pyrkisikin ensisijaisesti varmistamaan, että YLEn sisällöt ja toiminta aidosti auttaa yksilöiden ja yhteisöjen äänen parempaa esilletuloa, että YLE palvelisi suomalaisia paremmin?

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Why does summer vacation love Twitter?

I have always hundreds of posts and articles waiting to be read in my RSS reader.

In Twitter there are none. I just dip into stream, where yesterdays
tweets are long gone. It's refreshing and forgiving, especially during
a summer vacation!

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Blogging vs. life streaming - life streaming for me, please!

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