Johnson-Eilola and Kohl et. al.

Johnson-Eilola in the text The Database and The Essay; Understanding Composition as Articulation ( a misleading and rather dry title, if you ask me) lay out what, I think, is the very purpose of our course in digital rhetoric: "I'm not arguing that this postmodern shift erases traditional texts or narratives. Instead, I'm trying to make clear that our traditional texts are changing, whether we like this our [or?] not. We must work to understand the transformations and fragmentations taking place so that we can work within them"(207). This change that J-Eilola is attempting to make clear is not a new one, nor one that shocks me as a reader. I'm less interested in the aspect of the essay where he segments and differentiates between kinds of writing, which to me, seemed to function as a weak attempt to strengthen his argument, and more interested in the implications of these shifts.

As a class, we've been able to look at various forms of 'text', and have gravitated around a similar conceptual pondering of "originality" in both creative idea and writing that J-E's Intellectual Property questions. He looks at this further, prodding into WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization)  , a new type of organized legislation that would "permit firms to 'own' facts they gather, and to restrict and control the re-dissemination of those facts. The new property right would lie outside (and on top) of the copyright laws, and create an entirely new and untested form of regulation that would radically change the public's current rights to use and disseminate facts and statistics (n. pag.)"(210). As an aspiring author, I see the implications of such law reaching far beyond 'facts and statistics'. One day, if WIPO were to come into effect, anything published online-- like the work on these blogs, or essays published in an online composition, even Facebook walls-- could, essentially, need to be patented. And this process is a business of profit like any other. There is a cost (of 1,330 swiss francs plus the filling fee of up to 2,300 francs- a sum equivalent to almost 4000 U.S dollars), naturally, to patent an IP with WIPO. Though, for now, Intelectual Property seems to be relatively restricted to larger scale, corporate business but that is by now means a guarantee.

While browsing to better understand the work of IP, I read from the Journal of Advanced Pharmaceutical Technology and Research that "IPR (rights) is a strong tool, to protect investments, time, money, effort invested by the inventor/creator of an IP, since it grants the inventor/creator an exclusive right for a certain period of time for use of his invention/creation"(Saha: Introduction). I wonder, what happens at the end of this period of time? Will we end up seeing Owell's 1984 republished under another name? Will all of language need to be locked down to a single 'owner'? Now that this claim game has begun, like everything else wrapped up under our umbrella of modernity, it will not stop. 

You can actually visit Johndon Johnson- Eilola's 'workspace' here where I found this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpbOEoRrHyU to John Oliver discussing some further implications of the HyperWorld we are now undeniably immersed in. This video is so worth the time, and really, a quite witty compliment to his text.

I've sort of ignored Kohl et. al.'s History Now; Media Development and Textual Genesis of Wikipedia and their commentary on collective, or collaborative, writing. The collaborative element of, to borrow Kohl's example, Wikipedia is interesting when thought of in terms of IP. Wikipedia functions as a site with no true ownership since the authorship is anonymous and constantly shifting (though the form and media PPR is attributed to Ward Cunningham) so it offers a unique opposition to the very core of IP. Reading History Now and discovering a bit of the foundations of Wikipedia made me smile. Key elements are 'openness' and essentially, simplicity of use. How often in a day do I "wikipedia" something (yes it's a verb-- much like 'googling') and thank my stars that in the first paragraph I can extract a meaningful understanding of a concept. In essence, what Kohl et. al. seem to be wanting us to understand, is that Wikipedia, and maybe even all collaborative texts, are the ultimate Hypertext. There are some kinks-- like contribution and scientific authority-- but those will work themselves out eventually.

Sometimes it scares me to remember we've only been at this for 14 years. What will happen in another 14? The post-modernity that Eilola talks of really needs to be redefined as we slip and slid through the Hypermodern world.
It's here. It's now.