summaryrefslogtreecommitdiff
path: root/writing
diff options
context:
space:
mode:
authorNick White <git@njw.me.uk>2010-09-26 12:51:14 +0100
committerNick White <git@njw.me.uk>2010-09-26 12:51:14 +0100
commit33d710efd825eb493459494821dda22467011973 (patch)
treecb4df409bf1c70941ada3866400a1e0f61b19de0 /writing
parent7a0c25eac0f1c2adf031343ff8c761ba73570cb6 (diff)
downloadnjw-website-33d710efd825eb493459494821dda22467011973.tar.bz2
njw-website-33d710efd825eb493459494821dda22467011973.zip
Merge pubs and articles to writing
Diffstat (limited to 'writing')
-rw-r--r--writing/consent.txt273
-rw-r--r--writing/copyme.txt485
-rw-r--r--writing/index.ttl28
-rw-r--r--writing/makevideo.txt4
-rw-r--r--writing/unburn.txt76
5 files changed, 866 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/writing/consent.txt b/writing/consent.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..dd93d19
--- /dev/null
+++ b/writing/consent.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,273 @@
+Issues of consent in human-animal sexual relations
+=======================================================================
+
+### Nick White
+### 2008
+
+Introduction
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+This paper arose from a talk I gave for the Lampeter Anthrozoology
+society, which I did not expect to seriously pursue. However in the
+preparation and subsequent discussion of the talk I stumbled upon a
+host of issues that I found very interesting indeed. This paper is an
+attempt to follow up on one of the thorniest issues raised, that of
+consent in human-animal sexual relations; how it may be judged, and
+why it matters.
+
+I'll start by giving a little information on key terms, and how I'm
+using them here. I will then go on to explain in greater detail the
+question that this paper addresses. Next will be a review of relevant
+anthropological theory, and how it may be applied to better understand
+the debate. I will follow this with an examination and deconstruction
+of some of the justifications given for the special treatment of
+zoophilia compared to other areas of human-animal interaction, and
+then conclude with a discussion of the implications of research in
+this area for anthropology.
+
+The conversations upon which this work is based are responses are
+gathered from entirely informal discussions friends; they are not
+informed by any fieldwork or rigorous methodology.
+
+
+Key Terms
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+First an explanation of potentially the most ambiguous term I'm using
+here: zoophilia. Different scholars have put this term to many
+different uses over the years, but with the emergence of a
+self-identified zoo community the word has taken a more definite and
+stable form. Zoophilia, as used by members of the community, refers to
+the romantic love of non-human animals, which while not necessarily
+entailing sexual expression, does tend to imply it. I will be focusing
+on the sexual aspect of such relationships in this paper.
+
+The term bestiality refers more strictly to sexual acts between human
+and non-human animals. Whether use of the term is appropriate to refer
+to sexual contact as part of a loving relationship is not widely
+agreed upon.
+
+'Zoo' is a self-identifying and self-created term for members of the
+community of zoophiles which grew up and thrived in the more anonymous
+and safe spaces offered by Fidonet and the Internet.
+
+
+Question Addressed
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+Zoophilia is often referred to as 'one of the last taboos' in Western
+Europe and America, and problematic as such an assertion may be it is
+undeniable that many people feel uncomfortable about the topic, in
+many cases considering intra-species sex as an abhorrent and
+incomprehensible activity. When pressed beyond answers along the lines
+of "it's just gross" and "it's wrong," the reasons people gave me for
+their objections often revolved around issues of consent. Zoophiles
+often respond to accusations of non-consensual sex by pointing to the
+great physical strength of the animals they engage with and the
+resultant ease with which the animal could end the sex act if it so
+chose. However this answer fails to address the issue of informed
+consent and coercion, which are at the heart of the argument. An
+animal can not be understood definitely enough to know if it consents,
+and even if it could it is doubtful that such consent could be
+considered 'informed.'
+
+The question which interests me in the response of my informants is
+why consent is seen as necessary at all. Consent is not considered as
+important in a great many human-animal interactions, from sleeping
+arrangements to reproductive activity (in the case of neutering or
+artificial insemination) to killing and consuming for reasons of
+dietary preference, all of which would be considered utterly
+unacceptable in human-human interactions without the consent of each
+party. (Whether human-human killing is acceptable if consent is
+granted is a controversial issue, as can be seen in debates
+surrounding euthanasia.)
+
+
+Review of Relevant Theory
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+A reasonable place to start to examine and answer these questions is
+in a review of relevant anthropological theory. In particular I'll be
+looking at how Ingold's model of Trust and Domination and Milton's
+work on Egomorphism are useful in understanding the varying reactions
+of people to zoophilia.
+
+First, though, it's worth quickly reviewing the idea of a dichotomy
+between humanity and 'nature' (which includes animals). Put simply,
+this model conceives humans as a combination of two distinct parts,
+part nature and part transcendent of nature (expressed in theology as
+the body and the soul). According to this belief system humans are
+fundamentally different from their surroundings, and moreover "it is
+the proper destiny of human beings to *overcome* the condition of
+animality to which the life of all other creatures is confined"
+(Ingold 1994: 2 [original emphasis]). The mark of a 'civilised'
+person, to which all should aspire, is the extent to which they have
+cultivated their transcendent self, suppressing that which is
+identified with nature.
+
+It is quite simple to see why Zoophilia would be problematic in such a
+model. In sexually engaging with an animal, a person necessarily
+rejects their transcendent self - and all that their 'civilised
+society' has been built to overcome - and instead embraces their
+animal nature. Simultaneously to this the 'wildness' of the animal is
+compromised, thus also unfairly disturbing its place in the order of
+things.
+
+Such ideologies are alive and well today - with arguments frequently
+framed in terms which make it difficult to think outside of them (Bell
+and Russell 2000: 192) - but they are little help in addressing issues
+of consent. Under such models animals are so unquestionably
+oppressable by and different from humans that they are simply not
+empowered to give or refuse consent regarding any human action.
+Arguments for the importance of consent, which I am focusing on here,
+cannot then rest upon such a model.
+
+A more illuminating model for our purposes may be found in Tim
+Ingold's theory of trust and domination, which he elaborates in
+considering the different engagements with non-human animals of
+hunter-gatherers and pastoralists.
+
+In his model hunter-gatherers do not seek to entirely control their
+food supply, but rather trust that appropriate engagements with the
+animals they wish to eat will provide a good and reasonable amount of
+food, in quantities and qualities acceptable both to the animal and
+the hunter. Such a view attributes agency to all actors, and
+presupposes an active and participatory engagement between species
+(Ingold 1994: 13-15).
+
+Pastoralists, by contrast, seek to entirely control and manage their
+food supply, by means of domination. Consent of an animal is not
+considered as relevant to the task of food production. Animals
+pastorally managed "are cared for, but are not themselves empowered to
+care," with the herdsman taking the role of "protector, guardian and
+executioner" (Ingold 1994: 16). While animals are allowed some
+freedoms, this is only within the bounds defined by the humans
+'managing' them. In the words of Bill Hicks, "You are free (to do what
+we tell you)."
+
+This turns out to be a quite nice way of contrasting different views of
+zoophilic engagements with animals. Zoophiles, on the one hand,
+generally see their relations with animals as based on trust, in which
+the animal is empowered to give or refuse consent, and each party in
+the relationship may offer themselves freely to the other. Those who
+argue against zoophilia on grounds of consent, however, view such
+engagements as inevitably dominated by the will of the human - the
+animal being powerless to resist - and any human 'interference' is
+therefore necessarily exploitative.
+
+The most useful theory for examining consent in zoophilia however is
+Kay Milton's model of egomorphism. Here Milton suggests that rather
+than anthropomorphically stating that people perceive animal
+characteristics as like humans' (and thereby implying that they really
+can not be), it is far more accurate to talk of people perceiving
+individual characteristics of an animal as similar to certain of their
+own characteristics. She then goes further, noting, with Ingold, that
+one will perceive quite different characteristics and meanings based
+on how one interacts with the environment.
+
+The large variety of meanings which may be interpreted from the
+perception of similar situations will inevitably result in different
+ethical implications. While consent may be easily recognised by many
+people in many situations, its recognition will be dependant on how
+one interacts with their surrounding environment. Where a zoophile may
+perceive an animal raising its tail as a clear invitation, a
+non-zoophile may perceive it as an automatic reaction, an example of
+confusion, or equally likely will not notice it at all. Here then we
+also encounter the tricky problem of 'only seeing what you want to
+see'.
+
+The lack of any significant weighing in of the scientific
+establishment on the psychological capabilities and limitations of
+animals (at least in the public consciousness), coupled with the
+increased difficulty most feel in communicating with an animal which
+is not able to speak their language, leads to a large range of
+observed characteristics in animals between different people. This
+correspondingly leads to a significant difference of moral
+implications, and hence to increased conflict.
+
+
+Deconstruction of Justifications
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+All of this good theory has however yet to completely address the
+central question of this paper; why is consent more important for
+human-animal sex than interactions such as human-animal killing?
+
+Bolliger and Goetschel, both lawyers, argue in a recent essay (2005)
+that animals should be legally protected from sexual advances made by
+humans. Their arguments are not unique. The most relevant part of the
+article follows:
+
+> One should act on the assumption that the animal's consent is
+> forced, either through an *artificial* fixation on a person or by
+> use of other *psychological methods*... Admittedly, in our society
+> many animals are used against their will for other purposes, such as
+> animal testing or the production of food... However, different to
+> zoophilia, most of these actions can be *socially justified*.
+> (Bolliger and Goetschel 2005: 40 [added emphasis])
+
+Firstly it's worth quickly examining the contention that animals could
+only give consent after 'psychological methods' were used by humans.
+It seems odd that psychology is presented as a particularly unfair and
+manipulative part of a relationship; psychology is after all generally
+considered a completely inevitable facet of human relationships.
+Furthermore, to deny the acceptability of any power differentials -
+which are of course present in any relationship - is hardly reasonable
+or realistic.
+
+The argument that industries such as animal testing and food
+'production' may be 'socially justified,' but zoophilia may not, is
+also rather odd. Zoophilia is, after all, inherently social, and
+moreover is argued to be an attempt at the pinnacle of social
+relationships for zoophiles, namely a relationship of love and
+fulfilment which may not even be possible for them with other humans.
+To argue then that this is less 'socially justified' than the desire
+to have a larger variety of food, cosmetics and cleaning products,
+doesn't seem to me to be reasonable, at least not without further
+justification.
+
+
+Conclusion
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+It is difficult to find many detailed examinations of why consent is
+more important in areas of sex than other human-animal interactions in
+literature, and this presents itself therefore as a good area to
+conduct research. This paper in particular suffers from a very
+unfocused and vague sample of people, whom I fear I may be speaking
+more for than of, as well as the quite frequent and unsupported citing
+of the beliefs of an unqualified 'majority.'
+
+The issue of zoophilia, sparse as serious discourse on it may be,
+proves particularly capable at illuminating the models of
+classification through which people interpret the animals in their
+environment, in prompting people to confront the reasons for views
+which had previously been simply assumed.
+
+Works Cited
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+- Ingold, T. (1994) 'From Trust to Domination', Animals and Human
+ Society: Changing Perspectives (ed. Manning, A & Serpell, J),
+ London: Routledge, pp 1-22
+- Bell, A & Russell, C. (2000) Beyond Human, Beyond Words:
+ Anthropocentrism, Critical Pedagogy, and the Poststructuralist Turn,
+ Canadian Journal of Education, 25: 3, pp 188-203
+- Bolliger, G & Goetschel, A (2005) 'Sexual relations with animals
+ (zoophilia): An unrecognised problem in animal welfare legislation',
+ Anthrozoƶs: Bestiality and Zoophilia (ed. Beetz, A & Podberscek, A),
+ Indiana: Purdue University Press, pp 23-45
+
+
+Further Works
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+- Beetz, A & Podberscek, A (eds.) (2005) Anthrozoƶs: Bestiality and
+ Zoophilia Indiana: Purdue University Press
+- Cassidy, R (2007) Zoosex, Stimulus Respond, 18, pp 83-92
+- Ingold, T (ed.) (1988) What is an Animal London: Unwin Hyman
+- Miletski, H (2002) Understanding Bestiality and Zoophilia Maryland:
+ East-West Publishing
+- Singer, P (2001)
+ [Heavy Petting](http://www.nerve.com/opinions/singer/heavypetting),
+ Nerve
diff --git a/writing/copyme.txt b/writing/copyme.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..aef4cc4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/writing/copyme.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,485 @@
+Copy me: Technological change and the consumption of music
+=======================================================================
+
+### Nick White
+### 2009
+
+> For those who worry about the cultural, economic and political power
+> of the global media companies, the dreamed-of revolution is at hand.
+> The industry may right now be making a joyful noise unto the Lord,
+> but it is we, not they, who are about to enter the promised land.
+> (Moglen 2001)
+
+Introduction
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+Technological changes have political implications. Changing the way we
+interact with things encourages a reconsideration of the rules and
+institutions that have governed previous interactions with them.
+
+The current debate about copies of recorded music using the Internet
+is an excellent example of this, and by examining it one may better
+understand the relations between people and recorded music, and
+between listeners and the traditional publishers of music.
+
+While undoubtedly a great deal may be usefully said and examined in
+other technological changes in music recordings, I will here focus
+primarily on filesharing, as it is something I have been somewhat
+involved in myself, and hence I have significantly more knowledge
+'from the inside.'
+
+I will begin by discussing traditional definitions of 'commodity,'
+and then move on to a very brief overview of historical trends in
+copying and music recording. I will also touch upon the printing
+press in order to discuss the creation and rationale behind copyright
+laws, which form a major part the present filesharing debate. I will
+then go into greater depth into the current practises of people who
+share music on filesharing networks, and the response by the recording
+industry, before embarking on an analysis of the meaning and
+significance of some of these new practises and dialogues.
+
+It should be noted that I'm speaking primarily of England and the
+United States of America, and the situation will be somewhat different
+in other parts of the world.
+
+
+The Meaning of 'Commodity'
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+The word 'commodity' has been used variously to talk about items of
+exchange. In the capitalist market a 'commodity' is defined as having
+several key features, from which are derived appropriate rules of
+trade.
+
+Commodities are also generally assumed to be rival and exclusive; that
+is in trading an item one loses access to it.
+
+The most important feature of a commodity is that it be comparable to
+another commodity, in order that their relative values may be judged
+so that one may establish an exchange value for the item. Indeed
+Kopytoff (1986) goes so far as to claim that wherever exchange
+technology is introduced which allows a greater range of things to be
+compared (such as for example money in newly colonised regions), more
+objects are commodified.
+
+Two commonly identified means of deciding on the relative value of a
+commodity are use value and exchange value. Use value is based upon
+the utility of the commodity, whereas exchange value is based upon
+the amount of labour that went in to creating it. (Sterne 2006: 830)
+Different systems of exchange weigh the relative merits of utility
+versus production labour to value commodities differently.
+
+Assigning value to works of art is of course a very difficult and
+personal task, revealing a great deal about the valuer as well as
+what is being valued. Several commentators have argued - Adorno and
+Horkheimer (1972) perhaps most strongly - that to assign an artwork
+an agreed-upon value in order to facilitate its exchange undermines
+both the personal and the transcendent nature of art, and inevitably
+devalues and debases it.
+
+
+The History of Recorded Music
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+While such concepts of commodity appear to map quite easily onto most
+physical objects, using such terms to talk about recordings of one
+sort or another is generally less straightforward.
+
+Indeed the technology of the printing press, by dramatically reducing
+the production cost of creating copies of written works, was an early
+example of the difficulty of reconciling ideas of commodity with the
+new properties of exchange enabled. To be more specific, by enabling
+near-perfect copies of a work to be made, the qualities of rivalness
+and exclusivity which were assumed of a commodity were altered. While
+the initial creation costs of a work remained high, the cost of
+subsequent copies dropped dramatically, making it economically
+feasible to make and sell copies of works in a far less centralised
+manner.
+
+In the free market the cost to produce something is the means of
+determining its exchange value, which becomes more problematic when
+means of mechanical reproduction become available. This is as the
+production cost differs very significantly between the item produced
+and its copy. Whereas the first work costs perhaps one year's salary
+for an author, plus the amount for the set up of the book in the
+press, plus the materials needed, plus the working of the press, a
+great many subsequent copies may be made for only the cost of
+additional materials and working the press again. The exchange-value
+of all subsequent copies is extremely low, but does not take into
+account the author's salary.
+
+Publishers chose to create a business model in which the initial
+production costs of a work could be compensated by subsequent
+printings, which would be priced a little over the exchange value
+which the free market would assign. However such a model was
+undermined if a competitor took a work which had already been
+paid-for and produced their own copies at a price closer to its
+exchange value. In order for publishers to ensure the feasibility of
+their business-model concepts of copyright were enshrined into law,
+removing the right of anybody but the author (or more typically a
+publisher designated by them) to print a given work.
+
+In so doing publishers legally repressed the new economic qualities
+printing presses bestowed on the written word - less exclusivity -
+and instead artificially mirrored the model of scarcity under which
+which the majority of the market operated.
+
+This way of business worked reasonably well, and when it became
+feasible to produce of mechanical reproductions of music, publishers
+adopted essentially the same model, using copyright laws to ensure a
+monopoly sufficient to pay back the initial creation costs.
+
+However this model was threatened somewhat by the introduction of new
+technologies which dramatically decreased the expense, size and
+difficulty of copying music to the point that many private individuals
+could do so themselves. Whereas previously making unauthorised copies
+had been limited to large operations, new technology now enabled a
+much larger group of people to copy and share recorded music,
+independent of any external organisation. While such home-copied music
+was generally of noticeably poorer quality than an officially
+sanctioned copy, widespread use made clear that for many the virtue of
+sharing music was worth some degradation in quality.
+
+Publishers were unsurprisingly hostile towards home copying of the
+work which they had released, invoking the fact that such activity was
+technically breaking copyright laws (though these laws had been
+drafted with rival businesses in mind), and arguing that home copying
+was causing a reduction in their sales of music which would result in
+a smaller number of musicians able to be supported by them.
+(Commentators such as Adorno and Horkheimer (1972) argue that a
+smaller pool of musicians would make no real difference to the quality
+of output from the publishers, as by their nature they homogenise and
+will only support acts which propound their world-view. See below.)
+Over time however the publishers found that there was no realistic way
+to stop home-copying, and resigned themselves to a position of quiet
+grumbling. People evidently still bought copies of music produced by
+publishers, due to factors such as increased sound quality and
+included cover artwork, and the belief that by doing so one was
+ensuring the continuance and success of the musician.
+
+With the new technologies of music compression, filesharing software
+and cheap internet access came a far more significant threat to the
+business model of music publishers.
+
+Computers on an electronically are primarily copying machines of
+anything digitisable - almost any task performed on a computer
+requires the copying of digital information across various parts of
+the computer. The measure of how quickly information can be copied
+between different parts is a significant measure of how fast a
+computer is said to be. And so it is when networking computers
+together, and as such a primary focus of network engineering is
+ensuring copying between computers is as fast and efficient as
+possible. Computer networks at their core are no more than
+geographically insensitive copying systems.
+
+By allowing anybody with an internet connection to share music with
+anyone else with an internet connection with no more effort than
+setting up a filesharing program, a global network of available music
+was created. Now anybody with internet access had free access to
+almost any piece of recorded music at near- or identical quality to
+the products of the publishers' copies. Moreover the process of
+acquiring music copies using internet filesharing was faster and more
+convenient than the traditional vehicles offered by publishers.
+
+The structure of the computer networks which make up the internet are
+by design decentralised and fault-tolerant, and as such top-down
+control or restriction of internet activities is very difficult. This
+is further compounded by its transnational nature, which renders
+national legislation on acceptable uses largely ineffective, as one
+may simply access the desired material on a computer in a country
+which has no such legal restrictions. Thus we get the well-known quote
+by John Gilmore: "The net interprets censorship as damage and routes
+around it." While early filesharing networks such as Napster were
+centralised and hence could be easily shut down by stopping a few
+computers, most are now designed to take advantage of the
+decentralised nature of the internet, and thus remain active
+regardless of the status of any particular computer in the network.
+
+
+Filesharing: Individuals
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+The first point to note regarding the practises of individuals is the
+enormous popularity of filesharing as a means of acquiring recordings
+of music. Despite appeals and threats from music publishers the usage
+of filesharing networks is commonplace among those comfortable with
+technology. Included among these are many artists signed to record
+labels, though many others reject filesharing citing reliance on a
+business model which would be undermined by their doing so.
+
+The importance within filesharing networks of making newly downloaded
+music available for at least a few days is very frequently emphasised,
+though technically it's very rarely enforced (not least because it's
+very difficult technically to do - as the networks have been
+engineered from the ground-up to facilitate the free copying of data).
+The process of only keeping a downloaded file available until one's
+own download is complete and then immediately removing access to
+others is strongly frowned upon, and referred to as 'leeching'.
+
+Some commentators have suggested that such emphases can lead one to
+fruitfully consider treating filesharing as a gift economy (Barbrook
+1998), but as Zerva (2008: 16) points out, the typically very diffuse,
+vague and anonymous social connections between exchange partners
+renders such a frame of analysis inappropriate.
+
+That copyright law is being broken is very widely known by
+participants, but evidently is not regarded as a valid reason to
+change their habits. Indeed many who are more deeply involved in the
+filesharing community have vocally opposed (with varying degrees of
+sophistication) current copyright regimes as inappropriate and
+inapplicable in the era of the internet.
+
+Probably the largest and best organised of such opposition groups call
+themselves the 'free culture' movement. Inspired heavily by the 'free
+software' movement before them, at the centre of their beliefs are
+that it is an ethical imperative to allow the sharing of digital work,
+and in many cases also explicitly allow others to use one's work in
+their own creations. This is accomplished through a series of
+copyright licences (this again is an innovation first used in the free
+software movement, by which one allows redistribution of a work
+providing certain conditions are met.), the most popular of which are
+produced by the Creative Commons foundation, and allow several choices
+as to how one's work may be used. Some of these licenses, referred to
+as 'share-alike' licenses by creative commons, and more broadly as
+'copyleft' licenses, actively encourage the sharing of a work, by
+allowing one to modify or incorporate the work into their own work
+however they choose, providing that the resultant work is also
+released under the same sharable license. This effectively turns
+copyright law on its head, and has hence been described as "a form of
+intellectual jujitsu." (Williams 2002)
+
+
+Filesharing: The Publishing Industry
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+The response from the music publishers was unsurprisingly less
+enthusiastic. After cutting the head off Napster only to find a
+hundred new networks spring up, the publishers started an aggressive
+campaign to sell the idea that music recordings ought to be treated as
+any physical commodity, and moreover that copying a recording was no
+different to stealing from a shop. Indeed the rhetoric of 'stealing'
+and 'theft' was employed a great deal by the industry, in an attempt
+to ensure that any discussion of filesharing would be framed in terms
+implying that recordings were no different from physical items.
+
+When it became clear that a significant number of people were not
+swayed by their advertisements, and filesharing networks were
+technically nigh-impossible to dismantle, the Recording Industry
+Association of America (RIAA), soon followed by the British
+Phonographic Industry (BPI), started the highly controversial practise
+of suing individuals who made their copies available on filesharing
+networks for copyright infringement. With estimates of numbers of
+people sharing copyrighted material reaching the millions it was clear
+that the lawsuits were not intended to directly target each individual
+offender, but rather scare enough people into stopping to make the
+filesharing networks less attractive and useful. Indeed it appears
+that industry hoped that by targeting prolific 'seeders' (that is
+people who share a large amount of content) they would change the
+economic situation to one in which the best path for the individual
+(according to classical game-theory) would be to only download what
+they needed and share as little as possible, hence initiating the
+conditions for a tragedy of the commons type scenario. Thus far
+however such tactics have primarily served to provoke resentment
+towards the industry, thus for many adding the motivation of fighting
+a system seen as destructive.
+
+Industry groups have also lobbied for and won significantly more
+stringent copyright laws, such as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act
+(DMCA) in the USA and the European Union Copyright Directive (EUCD) in
+the European Union. One of the major features of such laws is to make
+the breaking of copy-protection measures on digital copies illegal.
+Copy-protection is as mentioned above a very difficult thing to
+institute on computers, whose basic design is to copy data. As such
+the recording industry found that any copy protection scheme they
+added to their copies was quickly dismantled, so they turned instead
+to the courts in an attempt to dissuade people from breaking the
+protection measures. These too appear to have done little to stop the
+breaking of copy-protection, but have further incensed and solidified
+many against the recording industry and their lobbyists.
+
+In their public statements recording industry bodies have repeatedly
+appealed to the need to buy copies only from publishers, as otherwise
+musicians can not be paid. Leaving aside debates about the percentage
+of profits which major record publishers pass on to their musicians,
+in repeatedly justifying their position as enabling musicians to be
+paid they strongly implied that no other business model was possible.
+Therefore, the argument went, if one wanted a society with full-time
+musicians there was no choice but to treat recorded music as a
+commodity and reject filesharing.
+
+Such lack of imagination from the record publishers is not very
+surprising, as conservatism towards new technologies is entirely
+natural, and of course they have a great vested interest in the system
+as it existed before (Mokyr 2002: 220). However a large variety of
+alternative business models have been suggested by others which
+attempt to work with the new features of recorded music on the
+computer network, rather than against them, and as such become more
+profitable the more music is shared (at zero cost). Suggestions
+include various donation / microdonation schemes, embedded
+advertising, and using recordings as a loss-leader for live
+performances and merchandise.
+
+
+Analysis
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+Adorno and Horkheimer (1972) argued that the 'culture industry'
+represented a major homogenising and pacifying force to culture, thus
+for the first time in history neutralising the power of art to
+"protest against the petrified relations under which people lived"
+(Adorno 1991: 2) and thus ensuring the continuance of the existing
+system of inequality. Moreover, they claimed, the power of the
+industry was inescapable, as it tended to subsume and pacify elements
+of protest and define the frame of cultural discussion, as well as by
+more direct means such as wielding massive top-down power over the
+processes of production and distribution.
+
+The argument follows that the primary role of the culture industry is
+to keep all members of society accepting of the political and economic
+systems of inequality - or at least too apathetic to do anything about
+them. Its role then was largely to facilitate the smooth running of
+other major areas of repression, with which its leaders are intimately
+connected (Adorno & Horkheimer 1972: 4).
+
+However if this were the case one would have expected the 'culture
+industry' to respond very positively to the phenomenon of filesharing,
+as it allowed for the far wider and easier dissemination of the
+normative ideologies embedded within their recordings. After all,
+while such technology makes it easy for any copy of music to be widely
+distributed regardless of source, in practise a significant majority
+of copies available were originally produced by the 'culture
+industry.' (Sterne 2006: 831)
+
+One must therefore conclude that while the wellbeing of the wider
+systems of power may well be an agenda of the culture industry, of
+higher priority is its own profitability.
+
+A point that should be emphasised is the political power which the
+music industry still wields. In being the source for the majority of
+music in a culture, with its inevitable ideological payload, the
+influence the industry has on the minds of listeners is still
+enormously significant, regardless of whether they continue to enjoy a
+monopoly over distribution.
+
+Kopytoff (1986) defines commodity in opposition to the singular.
+Copies of music on a filesharing network could then be considered
+perfect commodities. However using the calculation of exchange value
+based upon the level of sacrifice necessary to acquire a copy one sees
+the exchange value drop to zero, (Zerva 2008: 14) in which case copies
+could be considered to fall well outside of the realm of commodities,
+which at their core are tradeable.
+
+What such definitional confusion flags up is the inappropriateness of
+trying to fit music copying into categories of commodity, which were
+created for items with quite different economic properties. In
+particular, the meaning of exchange - of voluntarily losing access to
+one thing in order to gain access to another - is changed, as in the
+world of the computer network one need not lose access to anything in
+order to gain access to another.
+
+So if exchange value drops to zero for recorded music in the age of
+filesharing, how may one determine relative value? An easy answer is
+to turn instead to use value, that is the value derived by each
+individual of actually listening to the music recording. Obviously
+then values will differ for each listener, which is no problem as
+value-judgements are no longer necessary for successful exchange.
+
+One could then argue, as Sterne suggests (2006: 831), that music
+before recording technologies were available was valued according to
+the effect on an individual upon listening, that is to say on use
+value. As recorded music became easily available, tied up in physical
+items tied to the wider market, music was valued more in terms of
+exchange. And now as filesharing once more removes music from the
+realm of the market by virtue of changing the rules of its exchange,
+focus again is on use value. A somewhat analogous process is claimed
+by proponents of free software, where the process of decommoditisation
+is seen as "more about clearing away a temporary confusion, than it is
+about some strange and amazing departure that's suddenly occurred."
+(Moglen 2007)
+
+One should take care not to overstate the ephemeral nature of digital
+copies of recorded music. Sterne points to the continuance of
+collecting and stockpiling more music than one is able to listen to as
+evidence of a sense of ownership and possession of one's music files,
+in the same was that one does in the case of physical objects.
+(2006: 831-832)
+
+Determining the extent to which the new technology associated with
+filesharing is a factor behind new political ideas is of course
+impossible, but one may usefully discuss the political tendencies
+embedded in the technologies.
+
+Earlier distribution technologies had quite different qualities. For
+example the limited bandwidth available to over-the-air transmissions
+(e.g. radio and television) made the establishment of a governing body
+to decide who could broadcast on which frequency (if at all) quite
+necessary and natural. Decisions about how to make such choices often
+involved money, and as such large entrenched interests had another
+advantage over smaller organisations in doing business and spreading
+their particular viewpoints over the airwaves. The decentralisation
+and allowance for modular growth offered by the internet has
+significantly reduced the need for such a governing body. Of course
+many argue that stronger governance of the internet is important, the
+difference being that it is not necessary to the successful
+functioning of the network as a whole. Recent discussion of laws
+regarding 'network neutrality' however illustrate the limits of such a
+view, as most people connect to the internet via an internet service
+provider, who *could* artificially alter the operation of parts of the
+network to their customers.
+
+Central to general computing, compression technology and computer
+networking has long been the striving for faster copying of anything
+digital, utterly regardless of concepts such as property rights over
+certain digital data. As Sterne puts it "The primary, illegal uses of
+the mp3 are not aberrant uses or an error in the technology; they are
+its highest moral calling ... These are the instructions encoded into
+the very form of the mp3." (2006: 839) However one needs to be careful
+with such statements, as they tend to carry an air of technological
+determinism which denies individuals agency and ignores instances of
+difference.
+
+When disembodied from their physical forms and instead made to take
+digital forms, ideas of copyright and commodity have often been
+questioned. The first industry to be exposed to the power of computer
+networks as a distribution and indeed creation channel was computer
+programming, which was the sphere in which the radical take of
+copyright 'copyleft' (see above) was envisioned. The place of software
+was reconsidered and concluded not to lie in the commodity realm, but
+somewhere quite different: "The technological information about the
+terms on which we and the 'digital brains' exist: that's not a
+product. That's a culture." (Moglen 2007)
+
+In many quarters the same is now being said about music, and the place
+of the record publishing industry is being recast by those engaged in
+file-sharing, from the purveyors of culture to an entity which seeks
+to profit by restricting access to a shared culture.
+
+
+Works Cited
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+- Adorno, T (1991) 'Culture Industry Reconsidered' The Culture
+ Industry: selected essays on mass culture (Adorno, T), London: Routledge
+- Adorno, T & Horkheimer, M (1972) 'The Culture Industry:
+ enlightenment as mass deception' Dialectic of Enlightenment (ed.
+ Adorno, T & Horkheimer, M), New York: Continuum
+- Benjamin, W (1936) 'The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical
+ Reproduction' Illuminations (Benjamin, W) London: Pimlico
+- Barbrook, R (1998) [The Hi-Tech Gift Economy](http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/631/552),
+ First Monday 3: 12
+- Kopytoff, I (1986) 'The Cultural Biography of Things:
+ Commoditization as Process' The Social Life of Things
+ (ed. Appadurai, A), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
+- Moglen, E (2001) [Liberation Musicology](http://www.thenation.com/doc/20010312/moglen),
+ The Nation: March 12
+- Moglen, E (2007) [How I discovered Free Software and met RMS](http://www.linux.com/feature/114303),
+ Linux.com interview
+- Mokyr, J (2002) The Gifts of Athena: Historical Origins of the
+ Knowledge Economy, Princeton: Princeton University Press
+- Sterne, J (2006) The mp3 as cultural artifact, New Media & Society,
+ California: Sage
+- Williams, S (2002) Free as in Freedom: Richard Stallman's Crusade for
+ Free Software, California: O'Reilly Media
+- Zerva, K (2008) File-Sharing versus Gift-Giving: a Theoretical
+ Approach, Proceedings of 3rd International Conference on Internet
+ and Web Applications and Services
diff --git a/writing/index.ttl b/writing/index.ttl
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..889fa28
--- /dev/null
+++ b/writing/index.ttl
@@ -0,0 +1,28 @@
+@prefix rdf: <http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#>.
+@prefix bibo: <http://purl.org/ontology/bibo/>.
+@prefix dc: <http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/>.
+
+<http://njw.me.uk/pubs/consent> a bibo:Article;
+ dc:title "Issues of consent in human-animal sexual relations";
+ dc:date "2008";
+ dc:isPartOf <urn:issn:17552273>;
+ dc:license <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/>;
+ bibo:status <bibo:status/forthcoming>;
+ dc:creator <http://njw.me.uk/card#i>.
+
+<http://njw.me.uk/pubs/copyme> a bibo:Article;
+ dc:title "Technological change and the consumption of music";
+ dc:date "2010";
+ dc:isPartOf <urn:issn:20411405>;
+ bibo:volume "1";
+ bibo:issue "1";
+ dc:license <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/>;
+ dc:creator <http://njw.me.uk/card#i>.
+
+<urn:issn:20411405> a bibo:Periodical;
+ dc:title "Anthropology Reviews: Dissent and Cultural Politics";
+ bibo:uri "http://www.ebslondon.ac.uk/ICES/research/publications/anthropology_journal.aspx".
+
+<urn:issn:17552273> a bibo:Periodical;
+ dc:title "Learning and Teaching (LATISS)";
+ bibo:uri "http://www.berghahnbooks.com/journals/ltss/".
diff --git a/writing/makevideo.txt b/writing/makevideo.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3f882c0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/writing/makevideo.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,4 @@
+make video
+=======================================================================
+
+### Video editing using make, ffmpeg and imagemagick
diff --git a/writing/unburn.txt b/writing/unburn.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9fdd9ab
--- /dev/null
+++ b/writing/unburn.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,76 @@
+Unburn
+=======================================================================
+
+### How and why to eschew feedburner
+
+Feedburner is fucked up. It is a way of proxying feeds through their
+centralised service for purposes of surveillance and advertising. It
+is owned and operated by Google, so it's very likely that the data
+collected about your reading habits is linked with the existing profile
+Google has on you.
+
+## Background
+
+Feeds are not supposed to be like this. The web is not supposed to be
+like this. The web is decentralised. Feeds make it easy to quickly
+collect information from many different places together.
+
+The decentralisation of the web makes it difficult for someone to
+find out all of the different websites you visit (except by
+internet service providers and those with influence over them,
+though this can be defeated using [Tor](https://www.torproject.org).)
+This makes practical surveillance of your reading habits difficult.
+Decentralisation also creates a resiliant infrastructure which is very
+difficult to censor.
+
+## The problem
+
+Feedburner seeks to disrupt this in the name of profit. It offers
+website owners a way of sending all requests for their feeds through
+a central website. In exchange they offer website owners the ability
+to inject advertising into feeds and view more information about the
+readers of their website. Feedburner collect and analyse information
+about each readers' habits, which they use to better divert readers
+attention to the commercial, either directly through their own
+adverts, or by selling detailed reader profiles to anybody
+willing to pay.
+
+To summarise; feedburner surveils your reading habits, sharing them
+with anyone powerful enough to pay, undermines the censorship
+resistant infrastructure of the web, and interrupts your reading
+with adverts.
+
+## The solution
+
+Fortunately it is quite easy to defeat the redirects to feedburner.
+
+Firstly though we need to find out which feeds are redirected through
+feedburner. This script will print any url from the file 'urls' which
+currently goes through feedburner:
+
+ #!/bin/sh
+ urlfile=urls
+ sed -e '/^#/d' -e '/^$/d' < $urlfile | awk '{print $1}' \
+ | while read u; do
+ fb=`curl -s -I $u | grep -c feedburner`
+ test $fb -gt 0 && echo $u needs unburning
+ done
+
+Now you know the feeds to deal with, you can go ahead and unburn them.
+
+The key is to claim to be feedburner to the website, and it will
+dutifully let you through to the real feeds. Do this by setting the
+User-Agent string to 'feedburner' in your HTTP request.
+
+If using a newsreader which supports Snownews extensions, this is easy
+to integrate. Create a simple shell script called unburn.sh:
+
+ !#/bin/sh
+ curl -s -A 'feedburner' "$1"`
+
+Then replace the url entry in your newsreader with
+`"exec:sh unburn.sh http://feedurl/"`
+
+Other newsreaders will have different procedures, but the same
+principle applies; just set the User-Agent header string to
+'feedburner'.