I am happy to say that Keith will be translating Saito’s book into English with a publication set sometime in Spring 2011.

Cover art by Murakami Takashi.

Listen below, or use the direct download here (22 minutes 13 seconds).

In the last week of January, an interesting conversational thread broke out on the Association of Internet Researchers mailing list regarding a video about scholarship in the “critical commons,” on the debate between digital humanities and media studies. The video follows below, but judging by the preview image it might not be exactly what you expect:

Professor Charles Ess reacted to the video, writing:

How profoundly disappointing, if not on the edge of insulting. If (a) you know German reasonably well, and especially if (b) you’ve seen the terrific film, Der Untergang, that is ripped off here – it doesn’t strike me as funny at all. (emphasis mine)

Jeremy Hunsinger, who had circulated the video to the mailing list, responded:

It is actually just a spin off of a meme that uses this clip from that movie, there are probably 30 or so different re-texts and mashups i’ve seen of this clip. The joke, i think, of the meme is that it never ever comes close to the German, nor is it ever supposed to, nor is the content really supposed to be evil or really related to the clip, it is a play of contrasts and a play of hyperbole. I think you hit it on the head, it is supposed to be contrary to intentions, that’s sort of its point. … however, i’m pretty sure that neither german, nor evil is supposed to be the point here. (emphasis mine)

Before elucidating the above situation (the entire thread of which can be viewed in the AoIR archives here), I want to take a step back to examine the idea of “meme” — a unit of cultural information — once more. We’ve encountered memes before at the Consortium, particularly in Henry Jenkins’s white paper, If It Doesn’t Spread, It’s Dead, written by Xiaochang Li and Ana Domb Krauskopf, with Joshua Green. On his blog, Henry briefly explains the history behind the idea of memes and its confusion with the buzzword “viral”:

Talking about memes and viral media places an emphasis on the replication of the original idea, which fails to consider the everyday reality of communication — that ideas get transformed, repurposed, or distorted as they pass from hand to hand, a process which has been accelerated as we move into network culture.

However, I would point out that the replication and transformation of ideas are part of a dependent relationship that informs us as to the lifecycle of an idea.

I have written before about comprehension of memes, particularly those that replicate online, over at The Department of Alchemy. Back in April 2009 in my article, Internet Culture Research: New (?) Thoughts on Memes, I wrote about the origins of understanding culture through evolutionary steps, as positioned by Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene (1976):

To elucidate the construction of the metaphor [of biological processes], Susan Blackmore, in her paper Evolution and Memes: The human brain as a selective imitation device, writes, “As Darwin (1859) first pointed out, if you have creatures that vary, and if there is selection so that only some of those creatures survive, and if the survivors pass on to their offspring whatever it was that helped them survive, then those offspring must, on average, be better adapted to the environment in which that selection took place than their parents were… If you have the three requisites – variation, selection and heredity, then you must get evolution… This [evolutionary] algorithm depends on something being copied, and Dawkins calls this the replicator. A replicator can therefore be defined as any unit of information which is copied with variations or errors, and whose nature influences its own probability of replication (Dawkins 1976).” Quoting Dawkins, Blackmore names the element of transmission shared by genes and memes: they both replicate with variations. Replication with variation is then how Dawkins explains his concept of the evolution of culture, how ideas move, the meme: “The new soup is the soup of human culture. We need a name for the new replicator, a noun that conveys the idea of a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation.”

While Henry dismisses the term “meme,” I embrace it, because its use particularly emphasizes the origins (past) and potentialities (future) of an idea. Understanding ideas as memes helps us construct family trees for those ideas, but it also helps us understand how we understand ideas.

Henry argues that spreadability adds value to an idea by allowing the idea to inhabit different contexts. He states:

Rather than emphasizing the direct replication of “memes,” a spreadable model assumes that the repurposing and transformation of media content adds value, allowing media content to be localized to diverse contexts of use.

However, I argue that the referential knowledge inherent to the subcultural network behind Internet memes allows for an increased understanding and application in new and different contexts.

Returning to the video above: While Ess’s reaction to the video should not be discounted, it is somewhat misinformed. As Hunsinger correctly explains, the video comes from an evolutionary, memetic chain of similar videos, which place subtitles over the iconic scene from Oliver Hirschbiegel’s Der Untergang (Downfall; 2004), a film that depicts the last days of Adolf Hitler in Germany. The meme, however, evades the historically dramatic tone of the film in favor of a number of comedic situations. The succession of these videos has been dubbed The Hitler Meme (or “Hitler finds out”) in the Know Your Meme database (which archives Internet meme phenomena for a general audience; for a more subcultural approach, Encyclopedia Dramatica explains the Downfall videos here [NSFW]).

The origins and history of the Hitler Meme are fairly vague. Last week, I spoke with Jamie Wilkinson, lead researcher for Know Your Meme, who sent out a call to find the first iteration of the chain. Based on this original scene…

… the earliest-uploaded step turns out to be the Spanish-subtitled “Sim Heil: Der untersim,” uploaded to YouTube on 10 August 2006, in which Hitler complains about “the lack of new features in the demo trial of Microsoft’s Flight Simulator X” (Know Your Meme).

The video was later uploaded with English subtitles by the same user on 30 August 2006, but was eventually removed due to a copyright claim by Constantin Film Produktion GmbH (Downfall’s film studio).

As the Spanish video’s description states, the Der Untergang spoof started as a joke (“Simplemente una broma en forma de video”), like most Internet memes. And like most jokes, one must understand the references to comprehend the humor. However, as more and more Downfall videos were created, the joke evolved into a two-fold structure: the joke portrayed in the subtitles, and the video as a joke in itself. To exemplify the binary, two videos follow:

Hitler gets banned from Xbox Live, currently the most-watched Hitler Meme video on YouTube, with over 3.5 million views.

What does Hitler think of the Downfall meme?, a meta-commentary on the Hitler Meme with a Hitler meme video

The Hitler Meme has already gained widespread attention, appearing for example in Wired Magazine (Hitler Remixes Are Big — on YouTube) and the New York Times (The Hitler Meme). But what value does it hold for us trying to understand the Internet’s influence on producers and consumers?

First, we can look quickly at the appropriation of the footage from Der Untergang for a very different purpose. It might be understandable that these videos are instances of fair use, but according to the YouTomb archives, Hitler Memes have been removed from YouTube by Constantin Film Produktion GmbH over 50 times. Perhaps the uploaders of the parodies did not file DMCA counternotices, or there might be moral ambiguity in the fair use of this material (even though there seems to be a trend in online comedy toward associating humor with Hitler, typified by Godwin’s Law).

Second, even though “a dramatic recreation of Hitler’s last stand is not exactly a laugh-out-loud subject,” the director of the film, Oliver Hirschbiegel, has reacted to these fan(?)-producers of his work, positively. Very recently (15 Jaunary 2010), the Vulture section of New York Magazine Online reported that Hirschbiegel approves and supports these mashups of his film:

“Someone sends me the links every time there’s a new one,” says the director, on the phone from Vienna. “I think I’ve seen about 145 of them! Of course, I have to put the sound down when I watch. Many times the lines are so funny, I laugh out loud, and I’m laughing about the scene that I staged myself! You couldn’t get a better compliment as a director.

One of the director’s favorite parodies, about Michael Jackson’s death.

As for the idea of such a serious scene being used for laughs, Hirschbiegel thinks it actually fits with the theme of the movie. “The point of the film was to kick these terrible people off the throne that made them demons, making them real and their actions into reality,” he says. “I think it’s only fair if now it’s taken as part of our history, and used for whatever purposes people like.” He adds, “If only I got royalties for it, then I’d be even happier.”

These reactions from the director seem to go against the actions that his film company have taken in having videos removed from YouTube, but it’s a particularly interesting relationship of producer-consumer that is particularly heightened because of the ease of access to video editing and sharing hubs online.

Third, and probably most important, the Hitler Meme videos represent a convenient entry point for Internet culture to merge with communication and media studies in the academy.

Let me reiterate two points that I made above: 1) Memes help us understand how we understand ideas; and my main argument, 2) The referential knowledge inherent to the subcultural network behind Internet memes allows for an increased understanding and application in new and different contexts. To expound the first point, let me approach the latter first.

The confusion behind comprehension of Internet memes tends to be that they belong to an informational subculture of digital (mostly) youth inhabiting spaces such as 4chan (an anonymous imageboard) and Something Awful (a popular forum). Unlike some subcultures in which participation is through the association of fashion or philosophy (eg., goth subculture), this online subculture thrives in information appropriation, management, and consumption. It is, basically, a media subculture. And in consuming an infinite amount of media, authenticity in the subculture amounts to recognizing references made to these multiple films, games, music, celebrities, etc.

As a subculture, it makes sense that an outsider will not be able to understand references made within the subculture. Again, we cannot blame Ess for missing the purpose of the Hitler Meme, having never experienced the video chain before. As he explains:

it seems that for at least a few of us, the effort at humor doesn’t work.

The Hitler Meme particularly makes immediately association with the meme a bit difficult as well, since it deals with potentially objectionable material (unlike LOLcats, for example). Before a memetic video titled “Hitler’s Ultimate Downfall” was removed from YouTube, it was initially blocked in Germany and Poland, among a few other countries (YouTomb).

And as Professor Christian Fuchs writes of his viewing:

probably another influence here is that my cultural background is the german-speaking world, so i tend to view all media content related to the nazis with great care.

But as with most Internet memes, especially since they promote humorous situations, the association of the new meaning connoted by the meme tends to be displaced from the original meaning of the appropriated media. In his close reading of the video, Fuchs writes:

The video is making two false analogies. The Nazis would today probably support Internet censorship, Internet surveillance, etc. And actual Nazi groups are trying to use the Internet for their own propaganda, but most of these sites work in a traditional way without much employment of “social media” and “web 2.0″. One can argue if this video is funny or distasteful – these are unnecessary moral discussions, but one thing is for sure: the clip is unintelligent.

However, Hunsinger points out that a close reading is the wrong approach, and retorts:

The clip has nothing to do with Nazi’s or evil or censorship. The meme is playing purely off the emotional portrayals. … It is the reproduction and reconstruction of those meanings in relation to the emotions that make this work. … As I indicated, some people might not be ideal for this meme, audiences differ. However, if you are going to read the meme, you should try to do it justice within its own genre, that is my basic argument.

Let me return to a question posed earlier. Now that we have established that the sequence of videos based on Der Untergang holds meaning for a specific digital subculture, what value does it possess? I mean to draw a line between meaning and value, because to the latter I attribute a sense of beneficial worth. People can associate with Internet memes, but what can they derive from them?

To set up an approach for answering this question, I will return to an article I wrote previously for the Consortium, which contains notes from a talk I attended by MIT Media Lab professor Judith Donath (Human Signaling: Competition and Cooperation in Everyday Communication). In this presentation, Judith explains that these small and subtle subcultural references and jokes, in memetic fashion, create structural meaning beyond the simple meaning that one video or picture might hold. Primarily, she uses examples from the LOLcat phenomenon, which are various pictures of cats with short captions attached to each photo. While the picture-phrase combinations can vary, a handful of these combinations rely on a certain grammar to connote meaning (and I do not mean the childish wording that LOLcats tend to promote). Instead, I mean the repetition of specific phrasings that in themselves are smaller memes in the LOLcat meme universe. Anil Dash, in his article, Cats Can Has Grammar, points out a few of these:

• I’M IN UR X Ying your Z. This construct, based on i’m in ur base, killin ur d00ds has morphed into a catch-all structure for annotating cat pictures.

• Invisible Item. Variations on the seminal Invisible Bike, these are images of cats, usually in midair, with captions that prompt us to fill in imaginary objects or actions that complete the scene. There’s something brilliant to these images, speaking to our mind’s ability to intuitively extrapolate unseen details.

• Kitty Pidgin. And finally, the newly dominant lolcats, of the family I Can Has Cheezeburger? These seem to be spawning nearly infinite variations, and have exploded in popularity since being named “lolcats” instead of the more general “image macro” or “cat macro”.

NOTE: The third bullet here does not represent one of the structural meanings; instead, this kitty pidgin is the “childish wording” to which I refer above.

With “I’m in ur X, Ying your Z” and “Invisible X,” as Judith explains, each of these jokes becomes a phrase with embodied meaning. It is a structure through which we can understand not just a joke but also a way of comprehending a context. For example, a common image macro (the form of a LOLcat) is the “You’re Doing It Wrong”:

The image with the phrase is a joke in itself, but it also contains a structural meaning of an ironic situation that appears to be correct from another (albeit incorrect) perspective. Explanation: in the above picture, the soldier is fighting with a weapon and holding it like a bow, but it is obviously a gun.

Pushing the structural meaning of the meme to another level, then, is the following iteration:

By applying the meme to the protest image above, the author gives value to the You’re Doing It Wrong structure. And our understanding of the image is mediated by the meme: while the protesters believe that they are correct, the author illustrates a particular political statement against their beliefs.

Now, while the subcultural joke is still present, the meme provides another way of approaching the picture’s context. Perhaps not for people outside of the subculture (although this particular instance is fairly easy to understand). Therefore, to further illustrate my previous point, this meme increases our understanding (and possibly appreciation) of the political statement for this picture now that the meme is applied to a new and different context.

The Hitler Meme is a bit more difficult to comprehend, evidenced by the email thread. However, it is fairly simple to understand when we examine the narrative of the video rather than its content. Without explaining the actual content of the video (since it obviously varies with each parody), let me do a close reading of the structure of the Hitler Meme:

- actor sets up situation, which superior seems to understand
- superior confirms that he understands
- actor(s) introduce problem that contradicts superior’s understanding
- superior suggests his frustration in extended silence
- superior explodes in confused anger
- superior realizes he cannot overcome problem
- superior accepts problem

This is a fairly simple narrative structure that introduces a problem and illustrates its embellished reaction (helped in particular by the exaggerated body language and facial expressions). Each Hitler Meme video establishes a problem with a (usually hilarious) tirade about a (sometimes banal; occasionally significant) crisis. Regardless of the quality of the issue at stake, the Hitler Meme presents a joke (basic meaning) whose structure dictates further meaning when applied to multiple contexts.

Finally, then, what is the value of the Hitler Meme? We can see that memes can be used to emphasize certain aspects of an issue (eg., the irony of the gay rights protesters). Coincidentally, a fairly recent use of the Hitler Meme has been used at a local university, which also happens to be my alma mater.

At the start of the fall semester of 2009, Boston University announced that it would be downsizing students’ print quotas. Reducing the quota from 500 pages to 100 pages, both students and professors raised protesting voices all around campus. Boston.com reports (BU limits paper route for students):

While the university has encouraged professors to move their readings and handouts online – which means students would be responsible for printing them out – it has limited undergraduates to printing 100 free pages per semester. After that, it’s 12 cents per page, even though the Kinko’s on campus charges 10 cents a page. Graduate students get 500 sheets; and law students are allocated 1,000 sheets.

Boston University’s student-run Daily Free Press (Faculty members frustrated by print quota changes) also writes:

[S]ome faculty members have also experienced trouble adjusting, especially given the late notice of the change, they said. Others, meanwhile, said they had not noticed any impact from the reduced print quota. “I haven’t changed that much,” Writing lecturer Amy Chmielewski said. “I still have my students print out the readings. It’s under 100 pages, so it’s still cheaper than textbooks.” President Robert Brown apologized for not telling faculty members about the change earlier, which would have allowed them to adjust students’ access to material, according to an Oct. 14 Daily Free Press article.

In the midst of the turmoil, one exemplary reaction surfaced on YouTube: Der Printergang (uploaded on 14 October 2009). The video references buildings across Boston University’s campus, a handful of the University’s colleges & students, and even Boston College’s lower printing prices. The video ends with Hitler’s words of hope: “I don’t have term papers for another few weeks. There’s still time for a printing injection.”

The use of this meme in the Boston University printing crisis works extremely well, and the video was passed around across students networks on Facebook and Twitter rapidly. Eventually, by Internet or word of mouth, the video made it to multiple university administrators (on which the Daily Free Press also reports). Dean of Students Kenneth Elmore reacts on his own blog:

Students, as Nazis, concerned about University print policies and residential computer labs – I know it’s over the top, and I do get the point – ouch! Heard the word on the street about this video throughout campus, including conversations with administrators and faculty. I refrained from replying to folk with DM and e-mail links so I could think about it before I passed it on or made comment. Don’t misread me – I’m not a killjoy; I love a good remix; I live for decent satire; I adore commentary on things going on; and, I think human around race, culture, and ethnicity, when done right, is some of the funniest stuff I’ve heard. My gut told me that this time I needed to move on. Not sure we’re at a point where people portraying Nazis makes good satire. Reminded me of the unease I felt this summer with the Nazi commentary and remarks embedded in some conversations and demonstrations about health care. Maybe we should be over it. Maybe I’m just part of a generation that’s needlessly sensitive about these images and what they have implied – perhaps it’s time for us to grow up and appreciate humor.

Even in this situation, the video’s content is questioned. However, the video-as-meme lends particular emphasis to the situation. Yes, the video is certainly humorous because it is quite exaggerated, but the anonymous uploader of Der Printergang uses this meme to point out the relatively outrageous problem (and the heightened reactions that are fairly appropriate) to an audience of students, most of whom would understand the memetic reference and appreciate the criticism of the school.

Memes tend to be jokes, first, but they represent a valuable example of networked knowledge online. Although most memes do not escape the subcultural barriers of small Internet communities, a few do make an impact on the real world. Of course, many Internet memes are simply humor. But the evolutionary structure of some memes create a strong cultural value that acts as a grammar for information networks.

Girl Talk, or Gregg Gillis, the engineer-turned-DJ (though he’d rather call himself an artist), remixes clips from a variety of popular songs to create new songs clips of songs glued together by a common BPM. Honestly, it’s nothing special, but there’s something appealingly freakish about it that I’ll keep his MySpace page on loop for a good hour at work. It’s like the nineties joined up with the 00s and drove a car through the panoramic window of my storefront. It’s music improbable to dance to yet so possible that I find myself dancing anyway. You can actually buy Girl Talk’s latest album, “Feed the Animals”, for any price.

Well, Girl Talk’s been all the… talk… on the Students for Free Culture national mailing list for the past week or so. The issue: Girl Talk’s defense of fair use to create his music without having to deal with musical industry copyrights. Tech Dirt explains Girl Talk’s theory: Girl Talk uses a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license for Feed the Animals, even though the songs on the album were made by using hundreds samples from other artists. Gillis claims his songs are fair use on the basis of being transformative and because the clips used are very short. TechDirt mumbles about the definition of transformative, but Girl Talk is furthering the production of a newly popular, cultural, musical genre and form: remix, also known as the mash-up. The New York Times uses the term collage, which I find fitting.

The problem I have with Girl Talk with regards to copyright license: the copy.

In one interview, Gillis explains the effort required to put together one of his CDs, Night Ripper.

Pitchfork: The samples are very specific– when you listen to a song for the first time do you know which lines you want to pick out immediately?
GG: Sometimes. Anyone can make a mashup in 30 seconds but that record took me– outside of collecting the samples– at least a year of putting everything together. It’s always just trial-and-error, I get all the loops and mix-and-match them on my computer.”

Girl Talk mixes hundreds of fragments of songs together — a process which has been thoroughly documented on Wikipedia, such as on Feed the Animal‘s page. The wonderful power of the Internet has even provided the initial play times of every sample included in each track. This last point is the key to unlocking the copy. Well, no, I would consider it to be more the tumblers of the lock.

The ultimate key that moves those tumblers is the creative environment, specifically software. Special thanks to Tim Hwang for helping me realize this (look out for future related awesomeness on his part). The improved availability of software and ever-lowered ability requisite of the user to operate said software will complicate copyright beyond anything we’ve seen yet.

To explain my idea, I’ll ask a simple question: What if you produced an exact copy of a song, but without actually copying and pasting the original music?

By this I mean creating a cover of a song, entirely self-produced, but one that exactly (read: PERFECTLY) matches the source material. Of course, such a dream is impossible: no garage band will ever replicate the exact twang of a Hendrix guitar or a flawless warble akin to that of Johnny Cash. When we use our own instruments, musical covers will remain covers, ever removed from the classic prototype that retains the value. And according to copyright law, royalties are due to the original musician if you decide to market a cover song.

However, what if you’re provided with the materials, so that you avoid having to reproduce anything? Here’s where the trouble lies.

Girl Talk licenses his latest work with a Creative Commons license that prohibits others from garnering money from the retail of his music. I cannot download his CD and sell it to another person. However, assuming that Girl Talk’s claim to fair use upholds, then I also may use fair use to put any clips of music together to create another song. If I decide to choose the same original songs as Girl Talk to create the same tracks on his CD, then I have not copied or reproduced his work as long as I have personally toiled to put together each song.

Props to the new genre of remix, because musical recognition is simpler than ever before. The recirculation of cultural works (read here: music) into the mainstream (or even tributaries of popoular culture) certainly seems beneficial to a generation branded as “unable to create any new meaning.” Girl Talk mirrors the Internet: he’s making ideas available. If a young kid of this decade listens to Feed the Animals, he’s likely to miss most of the references to the popular songs of an older generation. However, Girl Talk refreshes the material, while at the same time refreshing the genre. Yet even if Gillis were not indirectly advertising music from the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s, technology has kept up with the pace. A program called Listen on the iPhone will analyze a piece of music and identify the name of the song, its composer, and the track’s album.

With new technologies, composition is also easier than it ever once was. Given the availability of open source software (eg. audio programs like Audacity) and the ease-of-use provided by these new software, it does not take much effort to (re)create Girl Talk’s music while avoiding literally copying and pasting it. In fact, I could probably spend much less time producing my own songs compared to Girl Talk’s “at least a year,” since I have a storyboard for each song on Wikipedia, samples available on Pandora, free editing software available online, and the optimum cheat sheet, Girl Talk’s compilation. If Gillis had decided to sell his CD for the ’90s average price of $12, an unemployed, middle-school-based teenager could spend an afternoon recreating the music, possibly even extending the production to suit his own needs.

This post has been about copyright, but instantly the issue has evolved into a debate over intellectual property. Does Girl Talk have legal rights to protect his idea to mash together a bunch of previously-released songs (down to each second that he switches to a new sample on each individual track)? Or do we have to start from the beginning by ruling Girl Talk’s appropriation of songs as illegal?

Compared to composing an academic essay, obviously we cannot copy the words of another person and claim it as our own. The MLA would kick our ass (I mean, that’s why we’ve been writing citations pages, right? because we’re afraid?). However, I can write a book while quoting other people and still sell my book without paying royalties. If we read music like words, Girl Talk has already plagiarized, although he has created a new idea out of it. So, by creating my own (identical, but personal) version of Girl Talk’s music, I am plagiarizing from the artists’ original songs from which I take the samples, but am I also plagiarizing Gregg Gillis?

Or, to spin these questions another way: what if an eight-year old kid did all of this? Well, not entirely similar, but we’ve already seen some teeth bared.

Looking towards the near future, on Thursday and Friday of this week, I’ll be over at Harvard attending Berkman@10, a conference on the future of the Internet, hosted by the Berkman Center for Internet and Society (Harvard Law School). I’m glad that the summer is finally starting. Although I have to continue searching for jobs, I’ll be living at Harvard (while volunteering for another consecutive year at Harvard-Radcliffe Summer Theatre), preparing panels for Otakon and Connecticon, and organizing articles for this blog.

In terms of this post… I took more extensive notes at the event and will post them below. At the moment, I’m still ambivalent over the issue of liveblogging. I recently came across some liveblogging over on a post on Sam Jackson’s blog (about the college admissions process and his experiences at Yale), and I am still irritated with the compositional style. For now, I’ll be “note-ing,” I suppose. And by that, I mean I’ll simply copy and paste my unformatted, transcribed notes, unedited from the time written. I suppose it would be easier on you readers if I were to organize my note structure so that you could derive the maximal message from these briskly-typed words and erratic punctuation. If I agree with myself in the near future, I will. For now, my notes…

Notes from “RIAA Presentation w/Q&A” at Boston University

(G) Mitch Glazier – Executive Vice President, Government and Industry Relations
(L) Jonathan Lamy – Senior Vice President, Communications
(P) a professor at the College of Communications (whose name I didn’t record)
(Q) questions from the audience

G: music industry: in place in history of great transition: have to implement enforcement program against individuals (unexpected, didn’t ‘want’ to do it); position: if have to do it, done in way that’s fair/effective

worked on: judiciary committee: has jurisdiction over intellectual property issues; about same time: Napster commercialized; misimpression: enforcement is what we do; 3-5% of time spent on enforcement;

RIAA: tradegroup: represents major record companies and labels; federal/state/artist/industry relations; only a few artists make the money that people associate with top artists; creators: make little money, rights they have to make this amount: important; advocating for those rights: then becomes important
also run Gold/Platinum Record program
on lobbying side: tradework: to make sure artists have access in new markets, work against piracy of American products abroad

L: job: put happy face on unpleasant task; how we got to where we are today in terms of lawsuits: we didn’t want to do it, reluctant: came to point 2002/04: industry had lost 1/3 of revenue, had to lay off thousands of people; pursued Napster/Kazaa, some success: piracy still prevalent; penetrated public consciousness
also: educate: younger kids; try to offer music in legal ways: 3-4 years ago: crit: industry: not moving fast enough; now: untrue; marketplace will only work if distanced from methods to get music for free;

G: record company: used to be marketing/distribution company; now: not distribution company (Apple, Amazon, Microsoft); record companies: good news: more people innovating, RIAA: can only license them to do it; licensing: can’t control it; biggest complaints: not against music or record companies; used to be: intellectual property: used to be niche piece of law, now: comm/IP law: blended together; business models that work in legal standpoint: must be created
in standpoint: must find new business models while keeping law
effects of lumpy period: lawsuits

Q: why aren’t going after companies (ie. Kazaa) instead of individuals:

L: we are: lawsuit against Napster: successful; Kazaa: settled; Grokster: went to Supreme Court in 2006: court ruled in RIAA favor: BearShare/eDonkey, etc: worked out deals; lawsuit: pending for Limewire;
answers: 1) it is preference for what want to do

G: users: who are actually stealing; right/wrong: based in individuals; pulling down estimated $10 mill/month; users: benefitting as time goes on; going after services: absolutely necessary: but not going to solve problem by itself
any other industry in US: if had lost 1/3 industry in 5 year period: would have been widespread panic

Q: fair/efffective/reasonable: damages: can exceed $750/song; legitimate purchases of media: when downloaded: not intentional act; fair to be punishing them? tendency of individual to share; where is the incentive for the RIAA to seek a new business model; overall question: why make media?

L: not money making exercise: lose money in lawsuits; how to manage program w/ effective deterents but with sense of reasonableness about it; allow people to settle; up to $4/5k if case goes far; minimum under law: $750 per infringement: will use that amount even if user has thousands of songs;

G: do want deterrents; this IS theft: we and artists view this as theft; coming up w/ reasonable way to enforce: kind of anomaly; have to respect fact that people are in certain income bracket/demographic; when RIAA goes looking on public networks: don’t know who person is, just have number; if have lawsuit: against number; may know if at university or organization or commercial organization (.uni, .org, .com); don’t know who in household could download it, just IP at a computer;
tactic: send letters to universities before have to deal with IP addresses: to settle before we have to approach you directly

Q: don’t always specify damages: $220,000 situated by jury in Jamie ~ case

L: RIAA: didn’t ask for specific amount, left it up to the jurors

G: watch interviews w/ jurors

Q: jurors didn’t just come up with a number

L: judge gave them range under law, jury decided based on variety factors

P: bad experience with jury duty: don’t entrust your case to a court jury

Q: look at statistics for piracy; bulk: occurs overseas; what is RIAA doing to pursue these interests?; why haven’t seen same sort of enforcement in sp. China?

G: time spent in China; IFPI in London: part of big national group; ARIA: RIAA equivalent in Asia; spend so much time through lobbying and trade pressure: to put intellectual property provisions in government

L: RIAA/U.S. just sued China, we’re threatened trade sanctions; China: focused on image; huge: censorship issues; dealing with market where only 2% of artists can be shown; benefit of US: intellectual property engine: produce most information that people want; problem: rest of the world: the user, US: the owner; short-term: when trying to bolster economy: doing it on counterfeiting: works; long-term: will fail

Q: lawsuits: not moneymaking exercise; do you make money off of lawsuits, where does money go?

L: back into program

Q: not given back to artists

G: doesn’t even pay for program

Q: large sums of money made/lost: whatever profit goes back into simply RIAA or record labels

L: not profit, helps pay for program, doesn’t cover cost of program

G: program: not self funded; RIAA: subsidizes the program

Q: how do companies generate revenue? ie. Limewire

G: changed business model; a lot of people pay Limewire $29 for use of limewire client with no advertising; used to sell upgraded version: no advertising, no software client (aka spyware client); spyware: bugs, privacy issues, also responsible for crashing computers; Limewire: new business decision: instead of making money simply through advertising, switched to offering ad-free version for a fee; millions: pay $29 to exchange files w/ other people w/o burden of advertising; now how they mostly make their money; past: banners, spyware, & alternate version; now: from $29 program

Q: give us timeline of how to find someone illegally downloading, send out notification, when it gets to person, when people go to court

L: daily basis: online investigative team: anonymous sweep: can’t target any university or particular person; once evidence is collected: ie user uploading # of songs: after weeks: new wave of prelawsuit letters: will be included in that wave; entity: will show IP: letters sent to IT person at university: forwarded on to student or faculty: given 20 days to contact RIAA and hopefully resolve problem: from when letter is sent (not received); encourage university to forward letters: why deprive student opportunity to settle?; if not heard from, RIAA goes on john doe front: look at IP, try to subpoena university to find person’s identity; if letter is still ignored: will file named complaint: filed in federal court that says you’re sued;

Q: when would the settlement be off the table?

L: original settlement: 20 days to contact; after next letter: original settlement is off the table; costs more money to go to court

Q: why 20 day period?

G: have to pick period: talked to universities: what’s process, how long is reasonable to be forwarded

Q: IT guy: student doesn’t even start clock; time period in past: 30 days starts after student gets letters; BU needs time to
last set of letters: came with 20 day period w/ no explanation; wanted to push back to 30 days: needed time to find student, contact parents/lawyer, etc; can time period change back to 30? because once period is gone, settlement is off the table; w/ short window: doesn’t give student enough time to consider settling
how long does it take at BU? — goes through IT, general council office, dean of students office (who sends out actual letters); students receive letters; emails/phone calls exchanged for technical & legal questions; BU: tries to do it as fast as possible; 2-4 days before student even hears

L: wants contact information for BU IT guy

Q: “worst company”; angered people; lost fans for musicians; what is endgame? where will you be in 10 years?

G: multiply new marketing strategies & business models by 10 or 100: so many new ways to approach situation; endgame: business models that come from consumer demand, that match technological capabilities that mirror those available in the market; working with licensing & distribution partners: necessary;

L: before began litigation: P2P traffic: growing; now: flatter: partly reflection of RIAA’s action; now: public awareness of what you can/can’t do; legal marketplace: grown: 2/3 years ago: revenue streams: zero, now: 25%; legal marketplace: given footing to succeed; had nothing happened: P2P piracy: more significant; people: not buying based on perception of RIAA

Q: detection methods: not stated by partners

G: how to discover violations: P2P open network: advertising infringement to rest of world; would they explicitly state their methods? crawler technologies;

Q: education: most people not education about copyright law, even lawyers: not educated; how will consumer know if website is properly licensed? how many people know how to share their songs, etc legally?

G: P2P: legal technology; not that itself, but if you’re abusing technology to achieve end; media & even academic articles: question: whether or not business model of these companies: “legal”? surveys done by RIAA: people said: looks like it was legitimate; general confusion about if OK to take files/someone else’s work; consumers: duped; [section 106/107 of copyright act]

P: question of whether P2P was legal: debate: substantial non-infringing use? judges: 3 said yes, 3 said no, 3 said maybe;

L: no dispute over law that is clear; we’re enforcing our rights based on law; what we’re bringing lawsuits about is clear-cut: pure old copyright law; no court: has rejected any cases

G: 1995: intellectual property treaties; US: signed onto treaty: demand that countries signed: making available right; US: took pronounced position: don’t need to amend laws because have already right of publication; publication/distribution: synonymous?

Q: clarification: how you determine if you were actually infringing; ie. wireless routers; UMG v. Lindor

L: not interested in suing someone not liable for their actions; want to determine actual infringer

G: also don’t want to provide game map for beating the system; ultimately: important to enforce rights against the correct person

Q: digital marketplace correcting itself; cooperation with users; DRM & the future of linking to music

G: most of linked sites now: licensed sites; future of digital marketplace: will exist of many sites/services by small innovators and others who achieve licensing & who work to distribute with creators in an official way;
record companies: own the copyrights
notice of takedown: website or service is free from liability, until receive notice: then lose immunity & can be taken down for liability

Because of academic and extracurricular duties though, I had to skip out on all of the events Friday and Sunday (and, to be honest, Saturday morning, because I overslept). However, I did attend two very interesting panels on 1) Chinese religion versus secularization, and 2) comic and animation culture in Asia, presented by Professor John Lent. I was drawn to Lent presentation and it proved to be worthwhile. He went over a broad range of animation and its history in Asia, surprisingly with little inclusion of Japanese animation, instead focusing more on Western, Central, and Southern Asian comics.

I really want to the conference next year and dedicate a good amount of my time toward… being present. I think I’ll also try to prepare two white papers, because a lot of students presented small talks, panels, and discussion seminars based on personal research.

Last Thursday (10 April), I biked myself breathless after work over to MIT’s Bartos Theater to attend a panel discussion, hosted by the MIT Communications Forum, between Yochai Benkler and Cass Sunstein (heralded also by Henry Jenkins) entitled Our World Digitized: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. The talk focused mainly on the positive and negative consequences of the digital age when global and communal populations converge in Web 2.0.

I really liked the panel, although it began with a very philosophically-styled debate between Benkler and Sunstein. Also, the former is much more suited to talk to an audience (sorry, Sunstein, but you’re such a lawyer, and hence sound like one). Sunstein seemed to focus more on the “bad” and Benkler the “good,” but both agreed on the positive connectivity present in the WIkipedia system. The main concern, said Sunstein, will be group polarization: a clustering of like-minded individuals that will further a predisposition or agenda (eg. Democrats and, say, pro-choice) so much so that it becomes violent and harmful. However, both agreed that the Internet will run its course based around two schemes: clustering and, the virtue, curiosity.

At both events, I dragged along my clunky PowerBook G4 to take notes (I might add quickly that most of Mac laptop users at both events were using the modernized MacBooks and it makes me a bit envious). Instead of notes, though, I considered liveblogging both events.

Liveblogging basically means to type and publish during the event. From what I’ve read, the purpose has been to beat other journalists to the digital press. The blogger does not simply play the role of transcriber, but should feel free to comment on subtleties of the event (eg. the speaker walking up to the podium) and to include an immediate subjective analysis.

I want to highlight the key word in my description of “liveblogging”: immediate. Again, the purpose appears to be to publish an account of the event as soon as possible, to gain the most attention from the reading audience. However, many nuisances crop up in relation to liveblogging’s immediate nature.

I believe the first difficulty to approach is how to define the relationship of journalism, or the role that journalism plays, to the general public. The blogger’s primary concern is one of objectivism. The journalist acts as intermediary between the incident and the audience, and at most times provides an objective reaction in layman’s terms. Basically, the journalist recounts to the public, word for word (or, that is the ideal situation). However, the journalist should strive for objectivism, to allow for his or her audience to overlay reaction, opinion, and subjectivism on its own.

I don’t think that liveblogging satisfies the necessity of objectivism. Blogging, inherently, consists of some element of the subjective. Ultimately, opinion and reaction fuel what is known as the Web’s blogosphere, to create a continual dialogue amongst users. Also, the second by second time limited environments in which these writers work do not allow for any sort of instantaneous judgments. Liveblogging eliminates the need to step back from the event, consider the content, and proceed to analyze.

Where does that leave me? For one, I had no need to beat anyone to the chase; so, really, what was the point of liveblogging? Essentially I just took notes, plain and simple. An interesting experiment: noteblogging. No grammatical priorities, no authorial input. Only what the writer took away from the event.

Well, I definitely take exhaustive notes. I’ll post both events’ at the conclusion of this post. But in conclusion: liveblogging is fairly worthless. I’ve read a few over the past week and honestly the sacrifice of style to make a deadline isn’t worth it.

Print & Film Cartoons: Nearing the Vanguard of East Asian Popular Culture
John Lent

International Journal of Comic Art

Q: why should animation & comics be studied academically?

Comics: ‘national book’ Philippines (komiks)

Jap manga: selling in billions every year; why do we have audiences for these media?

Stereotype; academic snobbery to not study comic/animation media

Trends seen in Asian comics/animation in last 20 years

Japan: 1.5/2 billion comic books sold; 45% of printed material in country
dozens of magazine prints that circulate 1 million copies / week

comics/animation: as economic export

Japanese comics: moving into Taiwan/Korea 30/40 years ago, pirated versions

Reaction against Japanese comics abroad
Cartoonists: quit drawing because of double standard: National Compilation and Translation Institute; gov’t (ie. censorship): letting in Japanese comics, clamping down on Taiwanese comics
Origami Fighters: artists: claimed not influenced by manga: not violent enough, no nudity/sex

South Korea: censorship of Jap comics; Jap cultural products banned from S.K.
1992: interviewed head of ethics commission: how can you censor something that’s not supposed to be here in the first place?
Jap manga: republished by local publishers: anything that identified ~ as Japanese: removed/edited (ie. Japanese –> Korean background)
1994: group campaigning against Japanese comic books; upset: Jap comics have such influence in their country; influence = taking away from Korean market;

Korean comics: hard to see difference between Jap/Korean comic books
characters in Korean comics: softer, more emotional (Westerner wouldn’t pick up on ~)

Hong Kong comic book industry: thriving in ’90s

Japanese comics: impact on SE Asia:
too many people look at negative side of influence
Jap comics: revived comic book industry
US: comic book industry in trouble
influx of Jap comics: helped revive it
modern: everyone drawing everything in same style, same content

Indonesia: reasons why own comics didn’t do well: economics (cheaper to import Jap comics than create own, local comic had very narrow repetoire while Jap comics covered so many stories/characters, Indonesia: social issues that were taboo that couldn’t touch even in comics)

Malaysia/Singapore: not comic book tradition until manga imported, same for animation on television
Lot: made own popular comic in Malaysia: based on own childhood in Malaysian country: keeps traditions alive in own comic books

Sri Lankan comics

Impact of Jap comics throughout Asia

Next: growth, changing status of industries in Asia
new companies
globalization
commercialization (merchandise)

governments: getting involved: to expand markets (not just interested in domestic market)
South Korea: 1994: gov’t: realized most important/profitable cultural export: animation; produced much of America’s animation
gov’t: ’94/’95: pumped a lot of money into animation
Seoul International Comics & Animation Festival ’95
set up Cartoon Network on TV
feature length films
started to expand education in animation/comics
’93/’94: 1 or 2 year technical animation colleges; within 5-7 years: number grown to 150 universities, tech colleges, even 6 high school (full animation/comic art departments)
gov’t: changed status of industry: had many tax breaks

Gila Gila 1978: 1st of humor magazines in Malaysia, then boom followed for these magazines; Gila Gila: top circulated magazine in area (more even than women’s magazines)

Singapore: number of types of comic book publishers
independent companies
companies that obtain rights from outside
publishers with own publication programs/directions to produce original titles (eg. Asiapac Books)
internet publishers

Philippines: 1 of strongest traditions of comics in Asia ’60s/’70s: of 150/160 movie titles published / year, 50% of movies animated
many artists: wanted money, better market: worked in US for DC/Marvel comics

Taiwan: modern industry: in some trouble now; 8 major companies down to 6; staff numbers cut
businessmen: looking for short term gains: so won’t pump money into comic industry
comic artists: not making deadlines, slowing down production

India: moving up in industry: Branson (Virgin): helped Indians start up lines of comics (eg. uses Indian characters/content; global collaboration between international film makers to find stories; seek talent among all creative fields to help create comic book stories)

worldwide: comics/animation: suffer from lack of good stories (also relates to film arena)

why do companies go into animation?
survival strategies:
not just thinking about comic books
expect to make money from lines of merchandise
exist just to recreate japanese comics or import them directly
also could be: wishes to have characters/stories adapted to film, video games, etc.

comics of Asia: multitude: genres, sizes, &c.
normal size, pocket size: for people to transport (eg. during traffic)

comics: reinvented themselves through Internet
webcomics
use on mobile phones (eg. buy pornographic/racy comic in private)
graphic novel: taken off in last decade, esp. in US
other genres: Korea: educational comics (used to study for exams) [Japanese: become them, eg. economic simplified in comics version]
underground comics

4) more recognition/prestige given to animators/comic artists in Asia

5) role of women
years ago: only in Japan as cartoonists
now: even in Pakistan: popular female artist
images of women: changing as well (past: put into demeaning roles)

in China: 2 golden ages of animation; 2nd: ended in 1988
positive aspect: had time and money to produce whatever needed

ended w/ animation: tadpoles searching for mother frog, watercolor animation
Part 1: http://youtube.com/watch?v=_6zK6Y0uUGk
Part 2: http://youtube.com/watch?v=t3oAOvfrBf8

Our World Digitized: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
Yochai Benkler (B), Cass Sunstein (S), Henry Jenkins (J), [audience (Q)]

S: grade for internet: C-; “brilliant insight & cruelty”
later says: harsh: against realistic ideal;
if you have freedom of choice; can select options liked best, can go home;

B: what is the degree of engagement?
production of common experience: in old mass media: through gov’t/ advertisements –> dependencies
what is an elite? democracy: better now: greater number of people (millions) that can affect agenda w/o dying out

J: digital enclave:
babble hypothesis: are we in danger of excessive fragmentation?

B: most productive tool to map discourse on net: link analysis (who links to whom, what shape does the network take); looking at data: not seeing ‘daily me’ but structured public sphere; shallow network; really what we have: reproduction of mass media: small number of sites being used/looked at;
what we have: google news, social networks, filtering systems, clusters of communities of interests; more fragmented than mass media: yes; better environment to discuss: yes; more communities to obsess: yes; not a utopia, but fragmentation: not imminent

S: group polarization: bring like-minded people together: more in line w/ each other than before meeting in group; Internet operating in this fashion: does not create valid ‘democracy’
linking practices: D/R: cross-linking between each other to high degree: purpose?: to criticize other side
sites cluster, individuals cluster

B: How should we feel about the net as a platform for the public sphere?
practical purposes for politics, for one
What is the arc of culture that is bringing us to the degree of polarization that splits parties (ie. ’94 election) –> NOT the net, alternative cultural models have to exist
how we are in our conversation when we talk politics: we hang out with friends, when w/ people whose views are on other side: might skirt issues; we talk w/ people with whom with agree; arguments: are definition of who we are
we largely cluster & talk w/ each other: say how right we are, how wrong they are, occasionally listen to the other side

S: Jane Jacobs: serendipity of cities: person/building/~ that stuns you: something foreign to your preexisting experience; in cities: surprise of city: will alter you: what you’re interested in, what you care about, your aesthetics, your political views
- if people find someone who agrees with them: find them smarter/more likeable
- judgment: depends on what our norms are

YouTube: exemplification of great American city
negative: how many people keep looking over and over of online media in aversion of ~ candidate
empirical hypothesis: will go online to find information that reinforces own judgments

J: Wikipedia: what is says about civil society & collaborative production of knowledge

S: participation: not as huge as portrayed, but: occurs among everyone
can’t understand Wiki: w/o understanding that everyone has bits of knowledge that others dont’: comes together in aggregation of information/knowledge
best positive: everyone gets a free encyclopedia
for Wiki to work: norms must be in play: to prevent cruelty/lies to destroy enterprise
hierarchical system on top of collaboration that provides a safeguard

B: no disagreement
first few years: info: largely relevant culturally, then permitted
take issue calling it hierarchy: then Wiki gov’t: democratic, through people who volunteer, of people w/ consensus/agreement
Wiki: so good but so imperfect at the same time
human cooperation/collaboration: Wiki says it’s feasible –> so much so: inconceivable
need new model of cooperation: builds over differences even when some people have more sense of trust

S: vandalism: very high
hierarchical administrators: higher in hierarchy, but mainly: have norms, ie. dignity esp for biographies of people

J: models of citizenship, motivation for participation; educational implications?

B: if you think you can affect the agenda, you walk through the world observing things as arguments rather than simply complaints as people who “can’t do anything” –> kibitzing; better than sitting in front of TV & just cursing
young peoples’ use of media: not political? kids: play: practice things they’ll do as adults; play: not just acquisition of skills; kids: growing up looking for things: attitude of seeking
education: if we begin to use affordances of technology to bring into classroom meaningful projects: teach you how to seek information, build networks

S: along certain access: consumers: choose what we want, hope: we’re not just passive recipients of information
citizen v. consumer: for democratic purposes: norms of consumer: differ greatly from those of citizen
Google: culprit for not defining between citizen/consumer

Q: tools that allow exchange of information affect us? how new tools in future will change exchange, in terms of polarization?

S: people hardwired: 1) cluster w/ like minded others, 2) we’re curious
virtue of internet: potential to work against clustering and toward curiosity

B: basic question between tools we adopt & how we change/adapt
also: humans: very plastic: we’re in constant conversation with what we want and what we’ll adopt

Q: cooperation

B: what makes collaboration successful?

Q: of unexpected results: shared communities: as the grow

S: society: need is greater for degree of common experiences

Q: success of Wiki; other Wikimedia: not as successful

S: LostPedia: ex. of where collaborative production will work: because of intense interest: community that has good norms, intense interest; but: what niche is it fulfilling?
q: why would people want to participate in niche information gathering; to trigger norms of collaboration: have to have sense of ‘giving to people’

B: need subcluster of people who are motivated/passionate of subjective news reporting that is not professional: may not tap well into Internet’s much more objectivity

Q: objectivity; potential for highly polarized space; larger environmental issue: in US: D vs R: binary opposition

S: biparty system: does it necessarily ensure polarization? no; w/ environment of multiple parties: mutual action to form gov’t, but majority: think they are better than other parties; in dual party system: some of other side are better than us, we are better than some of them; not winner take all system: total inferiority of the other, not us versus them

B: two-party system: has eliminated left & right and left the middle standing; in US: everyone close to center in terms of the range; squishes together the program instead of greater polarization

Q: in favor of polarization/clusterization

S: empirical work: supports: if likeminded people listen to same people, will be less active in politics; appreciating it: feel more engaged: but pacifying effect
societies: benefit from 1st order diversity & 2nd as well; 1st order: optimal diversity in 1 area: everyone exposed to multiple points of view; 2nd order: diversity across: ie. economics department across universities: society benefits from greater stock of arguments created by polarization

B: ambition that is more substantiative: whether or not you have commitment to the whole

Q: network space vs. real space: small number of people wield huge range of influence: crosses over into the real world: ie. Anonymous

B: new possibility to act maliciously: more scary: should cause us to think of new set of accordances as a bad thing? no.
fear of the freedom of the net –> freedom of the city: still a bit scary

S: some blogs/sites: permeability/networkedness: very destructive to real people

Q: virtual worlds: where we can see people: how it will affect citizentry?

B: “you really feel like you’re in it”; Second Life: trying to see degree how visual perceptions trigger certain responses

follow up Q: real interactions: face-to-face: changed?

S: doesn’t really matter much; no differences yet

For one, the Boston University campus is littered with electronic swiping stations, to ease the use of Convenience Points in its dining facilities (eg. Late Night Cafés, the George Sherman Union food court) and local shops (City Convenience). These purchasing outlets also account for cash and credit/debit cards. I want to focus on the latter of these here, and bring up the case of Boston’s CVS convenience stores. Each CVS has adopted card swiping machines that also allow for “touch-and-go” technology. Citizens Bank has specifically led a push for this sort of technology in their debit cards, with its PayPass program, where an individual may purchase an item at CVS, tap his card on the electronic reader (instead of swiping the card, inputting a PIN, and signing a receipt), and leave. The ease of use would be astounding if BU implemented the technology. Drawbacks? Yes. Cashiers would no longer be able to check if the ID being used correlated to the face of the individual using it. I don’t mean to abase cashiers, but checking IDs does not occur one hundred percent of the time. Citizens, though, does not assume that cashiers will check the debit card’s user. Responsibility remains tied to the owner of the card.

My purpose for this article, of course, it to respond to another article published in the Daily Free Press (Boston University’s student-run independent newspaper), entitled “Points could fund cab fare: student proposal.” The author, Lisa Merolla, describes the BU Student Union’s attempts to propose the ability to pay for cab fares with BU Convenience Points. Apparently Boston College currently possesses a similar system, though it remains fairly unused.

Over the past three years, I have not witnessed much advancement in the implementation of the Terrier Card’s abilities across campus. Yes, we have new swiping machines installed in the dining halls. It certainly is nice to be able to order Domino’s pizza or other entrees from Papa John’s early in the morning. However, as Merolla writes, “Some students said they would rather use their Convenience Points for more dining options.”

I agree. I lived in Danielsen Hall (check a BU map if you don’t know where the dorm… oh, wait, many BU maps don’t include Danni on its East Campus side*) for the duration of my first two years at BU. Each day I would cycle past Bruegger’s on the way to class in the morning. Last year, I passed by UBurger on my way home. Noodle Street. Lolicup. T. Anthony’s. Enough restaurants line BU’s campus that I am surprised the administration has not attempted to implement the inclusion of Convenience Points as a possible way to purchase food as these, may I say, delicious dining establishments.

* Disagree? Visit the Ziskind Lounge on the second floor of the GSU and search out the scale model of BU’s campus.

Dear Boston University,
You spent money to take a line out of our logo. Congratulations. You have united us all, by making each department’s letterhead the same. Wow. Just like before you changed the insignia. To unite us, why don’t you bring together the student population on an issue that people love to indulge in on a daily basis: food.
Sincerely,
Your Tuition-Paying Student

I don’t mean to judge *hacking cough*. What I mean to emphasize, though, is that the electronic ID of a college student in Boston carries a lot of weight. So I propose a radical step forward into the future of the university experience (and maybe someone in the School of Management can actually pull this together, since I’m just a lowly English major): the AcademiCard.

OK. Lame, you say. I spent about three minutes thinking up names for this thing. Don’t bash it yet (you should have accepted the CharlieCard already).

Boston and its outlying towns contain a good number of colleges and universities: Berklee, BC, Boston Convervatory, BU, Emerson, Emmanuel, Harvard, Lesley, MIT, Mass Art, Northeastern, Olin, Suffolk, Tufts, Wellesley, Wheelock (I’m skipping a dozen at least too). BU, let’s not unite the campus, but all of Boston. If you’re a sociable college student, I will assume that you have visited at least one of the formerly-mentioned institutions. And you’ve wanted to buy something. Of course, you lost your wallet at the frat party the night before, but thankfully you kept your ID in your sock, so you can get back into your dorm when you return home. So, for example’s sake, you’re stuck at MIT, with a BU ID and a growling stomach. You meander over to the Student Center, hop into LaVerde’s, and… your face drops. They only take MIT TechCASH.

Or, in the wonderful world of tomorrow, they accept the AcademiCard.

Imagine taking the #1 bus down Mass. Ave. to Harvard U, because you want to shop around the square for a few Christmas gifts. Your cousin goes to XYZ Community College, but you feel like giving him the chance to show off in front of everyone at the family reunion with his new Harvard University sweatshirt. AcademiCard, thank you for being so convenient. Buy clothing in Harvard Square, get lunch at the Subway on Northeastern’s campus, then come back to Shelton Hall, swipe in, and run up the stairs to pass out on the bed after an exhausting day of EASE OF USE.

The AcademiCard doesn’t have to remain limited to college campuses either. BU’s South Campus boasts an Economy Harvard next to a Dunkin’ Donuts. Why not be able to use your card there? (P.S. — MIT students can use TechCASH at Economy.) If you feel like walking down to Newbury Street and hopping into Urban Outfitters with those new friends you made over at Emerson, everyone can actually buy something with their respective cards.

Wikipedia tells me that more than 250,000 college students converge on Boston and Cambridge each school year. That’s 250,000 young adults that could start their own small economy. I submit: stop wasting time on creating individualistic privileges that not many students will use anyway (the cabbies deal with enough drunk kids every weekend, and we’re trying to make students use cabs more?). Universities have to look at the big picture. From a bird’s eye view, our schools are within minutes from each other. Why can’t we converge? We could pull an Internet and connect every college student via a series of tubes. No, scrap that. But I like the idea of a card (AcademiCard, or whatever you want to nickname it; we could even introduce uPoints) that is practical because it takes advantage of common sense.

If anything, BU, just rebuild the Taco Bell under Warren and let us use our Convenience Points there, please?