In class we have talked a lot about opensource media and the implications of knowledge becoming universally owned due to digitization. The idea behind opensource information is that it is passed along without individual ownership, meaning anybody can add to or change it whenever they please. This can be considered a beneficial or harmful concept, depending on the way you look at it. Consider the computer operating system Linux; it was created on the basis of free or opensource software, and has become one of the most widely used and widely praised systems out there -- because it was improved upon by so many people during its development. However, there are some negative phenomena that have arisen due to opensource sharing as well. For instance, Wikipedia (from which I, shamefully, have gathered the majority of my information for this post) claims to be "the free encyclopedia", leading us to believe that the information found on its one million plus pages is factual when in reality, there is free reign for anybody to come in and change it at random. If this is the case, how can we be sure that we are getting academic information? Where should the line between opensource and academic ownership fall? Is it fair to charge people for knowledge? This is where it gets fuzzy.
In ancient times, knowledge was shared orally, by word of mouth, along generations of people until the direct origins or owner of the knowledge became indistinguishaable. In such times of epics such as the Iliad or the Odyssey, it was difficult to trace the authors because they had be retold so many times and filled in where parts were forgotten to perhaps become something completely different from the original. These epics do have authors names put on them, but if they have deviated so much in their retellings from the original, doesn't this make them publicly owned knowledge? Only when stories and information began being recorded did concrete ownership come into being.
Gutenberg revolutionized the spread of learning and knowledge to the masses with his invention of the printing press in 1439 which allowed for the distribution of printed books. Therefore, information once possessed by a few became widely known to the general public, while the authors and publishers still technically retained ownership and thus profited from it. The opensource media that is becoming increasingly popular today severely decreases this profit margin. While sources like Wikipedia can be useful for everyday people who want to access information quickly and cheaply, it can be a hindrance. Because knowledge is becoming so widely accessible and alterable, the validity of such knowledge comes into question. If people besides academics are allowed to manipulate the accessible information in the media so easily, how can we pick out what is fact and what is fiction?
Being a student, I cannot say that opensource isn't a lifesaver. I am granted free information from plenty of sites that I can use to do my schoolwork -- and with the expense of copyrighted materials, I am very thankful -- such as this very same blog post, fueled by Wikipedia. However, I am more comforted using sources deemed "academic" so I know that they are reliable. I would never use Wikipedia for an essay or research paper because I dont know where the information is coming from. In this way, like many of my classmates, I may prefer paying for a scholarly source because I feel that it is more trustworthy. Maybe SOPA is a good thing, shutting down sites that illegally use copyrighted intellectual materials, that would certainly ensure that the available information maintains its academic integrity. Though would the enforcement of SOPA mean that any materials are left available? I would definitely miss the accessibility and have troubles completing my university assignments if this were the case, much less my favourite youtube videos.
All in all, it seems to me that information sharing is coming full circle. Way back in the times of the epics everybody had a claim to the stories and knowledge passed around, private ownership was hard to pin down. This is much like the digitization and opensource sharing we have today. Sure, there are people who have come up with the ideas first, but opensource allows them to be modified and substituted publicly to the benefit of the masses. Whether this is reliable or not is completely dependent on the source. Opensource media has revolutionized the spread of information today much like Gutenberg and the printing press in the fifteen hundreds by expanding our knowledge. There are certainly flaws in its mechanics and validity of information in some cases, it definitely increases access to everyday knowledge (warped or otherwise) to some extent, which is nothing to sneeze at. Afterall, without opensource, I probably wouldn't have even been able to finish this blog post.
Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannes_Gutenberg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Print_culture#Transition_to_the_digital_era
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Online_Piracy_Act
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux
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