Copyright Laws Out of Date?

I can see the value to this on both sides of story. The original artist worked extremely had to create their original piece of artwork. For some it would probably break their heart to have someone come along and "destroy" it with their own edits. Then after the original is destroyed, the new piece is given credit to someone else. How is that fair? I mean you spend hours, even days creating something and all of a sudden it's seen to be profitable by someone else so they come along and change it?
However, that person doing the editing is an artist themselves. They can see a different side to the original art piece. They can make it be different that it is and maybe even convey a different message. How many cover song are their out there? They make the song a little different than it was. What about making a collage? I think the important thing is to give credit back to the original artist. I believe that is what the new copyright laws need to do. They need to protect the original artist, but also give the new artist rights to change the piece of work as well.
I wish I had the skill or know how to edit his work, because Steven Colbert's Report would be fun to edit.

The Long Tail

While reading the article I found it extremely interesting to think about what you can buy in a local store. I love finding music off the beaten path, but I see to find that when I go to a local store I can't locate the music I want. I am a bit technologically behind. I use a mp3 player that is easily six years old. I use a desktop to do my school work and my phone doesn't even connect to the internet. That being said I love to have connection to music not played on the radio. I hate hearing the same songs every day. I hate Nicki Minaj and all of those other artists referred to as music. So I prefer to listen to a cd with my music choices.
I believe since that article was posted it's becoming even less common for people to buy music in a store. Now people listen to Pandora.com at  home and have satelite radio in their cars. It has come to a point, where basic radio is rarely listened to. I unfortunately do not have satelite radio, so I have to either listen to a cd or listen to the radio. When I am at home I only listen to Pandora. They play music you like, with no talking, low ads and it's static free. I feel like that makes it much better.
No matter about the choices of online books, I still prefer to have a physical book in my hand. I do believe that Amazon.com is hurting the book industry, because it is much easier to find books online than it is in the store. A lot of what was said in the article is true. I believe we will continue to evolve multimedia, just like we have over the last century.

What is Podcasting?

"Podcasting is delivering audio content to iPods and other portable media players on demand, so that it can be listened to at the user's convenience." http://www.podcastingnews.com/articles/What_is_Podcasting.html
However after listening to the introductory podcast on iTunes I found that there is much more to podcasting. Anyone can create a podcast and call it that, a podcast. However one thing that I got out of listening to the Podcasting for Dummies podcast was that a podcast has to be about some sort of content. You cannot just ramble on about your daily life and call that a podcast. That would be considered an audio blog, because it does not have a set topic.
Another important part of podcasts is that they are not a one time thing.  You cannot make one podcast about a subject and be done with it. They must be part of a series. Much like a new tv show, their must be new ones for the listeners to tune into.
I personally do not like podcasts. I find that if I do not have something to watch I tend to lose focus easily. I have never liked talk radio. I find I cannot focus on what is being said. I hate sports radio the most, where they try to play a sporting event over the radio. Who cares about that awesome catch if I cannot see it? I do not know if there are others out there who feel the same way as I do. What about you fellow classmates? Do you like podcasts?
~Heather

Alright so here is my attempt a my second video blog. To film it we attached the camera to a tripod that was strapped into the backseat. It's not perfect, but it gave a decent idea of the town.
~Heather

So here is my first attempt a video blog. It was taken with a Nikon Coolpix in my bedroom so the quality really stinks. Oh well here is is.
~Heather

Kindle 2- Does it Cross the Line?

After reading the articles this week I think that the Kindle 2's text-to-speech is breaking copyright law. A person writes their books and gets the book copyrighted to be sold as an e-book. However, they are not being paid for it to be an audio book. If they wanted it to be an audio book they would have released it as such and have copyrighted the audio features of that audio book. I believe that Amazon has gone too far with their text-to-speech option. It would be one thing if people could record their voices reading a book and listen to that, but they are essentially getting an audio book without paying the audio book prices. That is not fair to the writer of the books.

Plagiarism and CCV

Many times when I am writing a paper I forget that paraphrasing also needs to have a citation at the end of a paragraph. I often find myself avoiding or not using paraphrasing so that I don't get into the very gray area of plagiarism. It is so easy to steal another one's ideas and take them as your own, but you need to remember the time it took for that person to come up with idea.
However what I find to be most difficult is what as accepted as common knowledge. Common knowledge is the idea that something has been around for so long that it no longer needs to be cited. If was the to say the earth travels around the sun and is a sphere I would not need to cite my source, because every human being now accepts that as a fact. However if I wanted to go into more detail about the size and/or function of the earth I would need to cite a source. This example is easily understood, but their are so many gray ares out there are difficult to understand.
I wish that the videos from Rutgers had gone into more dept about what do with facts that considered to be common knowledge. They talked a lot about using direct quotes and paraphrasing, but they left the areas of grey areas that most college students tend to get into the most trouble for. Feel free to correct me if you think that I am wrong about this.
~Heather

Draw Something

As I looked at the links for this weeks blog post I could not help but think of the game that my boyfriend and his best friend were always playing: Draw Something. It was a game in which they compete to draw pictures that the other one can guess. I would often help him come up with a way to draw the topic. Its similar to an electronic version of pictionary. I personally don't have a smart phone to make pictures with. The art I've ever created has been for this class. So far I am having fun doing so and I hope to continue to learn how to make more art forms.

Creative Commons

Creative Commons is a non-profit organization that protects people's creative piece while still allowing people to use them. Someone can create a piece of art and post it on the web. If they have a Creative Commons they can choose to only allow people to use it if they are not using it commercially. They can change their license at any time, which gives them the flexibility to find the license that works best for them.
Creative Commons is a great starting point for many beginner musicians. It protects their music, but also allows for sharing on the internet. This gets their music heard by more people. As they become more popular they may choose to get a copyright license or they may continue to allow their music to be shared. I think its a great idea for people to protect their stuff, but still allow for others to enjoy it.
http://creativecommons.org/about

The Next 5000 Days

As I watched that video of Kevin Kelly I took down two written pages of notes on things that he said in the video. Some of my notes are harder to follow, because I wrote them down so fast. However one thing I could tell based on my notes was that a lot of what he was saying has already come true. He was talking about how all of our devices will be connected to "the Machine." We now have smart phones, iPods with wi-fi, cars that have wi-fi. Almost all of our small devices can now connect to internet.
The other thing that I found interesting was when he talked about linking data to data and how it will be that one think will connect to another. Just this morning I signed into Facebook and a friend has posted up a link. When I clicked that link it asked "Do you want to sign in with Facebook?" I no longer have to make an account for every webpage. I can sign in via Facebook or Google. I am connected on the internet. Heather Lavallee is now hmlavallee@gmail.com or www.facebook.com/hmlavallee. I can be found on the internet and so can my information. Isn't that what's really scary?

The Cloud and Me

I do not go a day where I do not sign on to the computer. Whether it be to check my email, check Facebook, or now to check in with my online classes. I use the internet nearly everyday. I have family and friends all over the world and the internet allows for me to stay connected with them. I've used Facebook for about seven years now. I love the website and how easy it allows for me to stay connected with my family. My email allows for me to communicate with a wide variety of people at any time of day. I use sites like Flickr to host my pictures and Pinterest to search for new ideas. 
I can remember that five years ago, I mainly use the internet as a source for doing computer work. I also used it to talk to friends. However I did not spend nearly as much time on the computer as I do now. I feel like in the future I could become more dependent on the internet. I have found that I find it easier to email someone rather than to call them. I feel like the internet has hindered some of my communication skills over the years. I would like to think that I could get back to the way things used to be where I just use it for classwork, but I know that I would miss talking to friends and family and gathering new ideas for things to try.
~Heather

Introduction

My name is Heather. I am 23 years old. I live in Central, VT. I attended Castleton State College for three years in the education department. Due to many reasons I had to leave the school for several years (I last attended class in the Fall of 2009). I’ve decided to return back to school and I’m attending CCV part time so I can continue my full time job at CVS Pharmacy. I’m part of the education program.

I’ve decided to take this class, because it is a requirement. However I’m very excited to learn more about using editing software. I’ve take a computer class at Castleton (Intro to Computing in the Arts and Humanities). In that class we learned about Photoshop and the entire Adobe suite. I had a lot of fun in that class and I look forward to learning more about Multimedia in this class. I feel like being able to effectively use pictures, video and audio could be very useful in a classroom setting. I’m very comfortable with basic computer skills, but I’ve never using editing software, so I believe I could struggle with that.

I’ve never used a blog before, but I have read a few of them. I’ve also participated in online forums, so I feel like I should be able to handle those aspects of the class very well. This is my first online class so the time management may be an issue the first couple of weeks. Thank you for getting to know me and I look forward to getting to know all of you.