Cake or Death?

I have a logo! Thanks, Myke!

I’ve been thinking about copyright a lot lately. Philosophically, I believe copyright laws aren’t updated for what happens online; think about the Tumblr “reblog” button, for instance. It’s so easy to repost something, easy enough that it tricks you into thinking you have the rights to that content. (And maybe we should.) We’re constantly sharing music, photos, graphics, articles. I try to think about the content creator — would he or she want this being shared? — but I don’t and can’t always. Often, the need and desire to share or express something, using someone else’s work, outweighs those concerns. We’re collaborating, building community, connecting, and that’s a good thing.

I fully believe that once you put something out there, some piece of original content, you relinquish control. The only way to keep your work completely intact is to never share it, which completely refutes the purpose of creative work. You want to inspire, disgust, humor, confuse people with art — cause some emotion, any emotion — and sharing it is the only way to do that. Commentary and discussion become part of the package, making content even more valuable and interactive and dynamic.

But I can’t bring myself to give a Creative Commons license to my photography. I think what CC does is very interesting, and I see it as a possible solution to a lot of the legal action being taken in the name of copyright. I just can’t bear to think of my photos — one of the only purely creative things I do in my life — showing up on someone else’s blog, illustrating their words. I can’t imagine (and don’t expect) that person to understand what I saw and how I felt when I took a photo. But I know what’s behind the work: my life. And I’m kind of — how should I say this? — proprietary about that. I remember how a photo became an expression of love, the thrill of processing black and whites in the darkroom, the loneliness of walking around Baltimore with a camera on winter mornings.

Yet here my photos are, on Tumblr, on Flickr, and I love comments and favorites and likes and reblogs — who doesn’t? I’ve put them out there, and I know I can’t control what happens to them. I am sure they’ve been stolen, and I make no effort to track that down. (Or perhaps they haven’t been, and I’ve inflated my view of my work. This is very possible.) Frankly, it bothers me that I don’t practice what I preach. (Or don’t practice it when it comes to my own work, but practice it readily with other people’s.) But every time I try to change my copyright settings, I lift my finger off the mouse and browse on. I guess what I’m saying is: I’m only halfway there.

Levar Burton, in the Onion: “All I’ve done for 26 years is drive to work, clock in, read my lines, clock out, go home, and cry myself to sleep. Now I’m much older, a broken man, but I’ve reached the end of my terrifying journey. And do you know what’s at the end? Do you what’s at the end of the “Reading Rainbow”? A giant crock of shit, that’s what.

But you don’t have to take my word for it.”

(via crumbler)

From Mysterious Letters (via Idealist)

Despite being a chocolate purist, I have never heard a brownie described as a “bog.” I am intrigued. (via a City Paper review of Bohemian Coffee House in Station North)

A neighbor, reeking of weed, tears out of a parking space in his Porsche SUV, nearly running over another car, for the second day in a row.

I spend five minutes staring at a cigarette butt on the fire escape, wondering how it got right outside my window on the top floor, picturing a Dr. Evil smoking and staring at my shoe collection.

A text message arrives, informing me I’m late for happy hour, as I stand in the bathroom with a glass of wine in one hand and cleaning product in the other. I really want to clean that tub.

Awkward juxtaposition of the day.

There are some really, really interesting questions here, with different implications from all sides.

(via crumbler)

Sheep do designs!

When I turn my computer speakers up past a certain level, the drums behind me begin to play themselves. The light snare accompaniment to Jose Gonzalez’s version of The Knife’s “Heartbeats” is particularly nice.

“Mp3s have opened up vast new musical horizons over the past 10 years — how we discover it, the value we give to it, and how we see ourselves connected to other people through it — that both depart from and build upon the innovations that came before it.”

Pushing Daisies (via callmemellowyellow and ojacko)

“Starting on my 29th birthday, every day until I turn 30, I’ll take a photo of someone and have them tell me about their most-memorable birthday.”

Erin’s birthday was yesterday. Give her new project a follow and wish her a happy 29th year while you’re at it.