Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Control of Cyberspace

The use of Harvard Yard is a perfect analogy for the control of cyberspace. By paving over the newly made paths of the students, they are "in favor of decentralized control by emergent popular habits," which is much like cyberspace. I believe that Michael Benedikt gives the best interpretation of cyberspace, being "a common mental geography, built in turn, by consensus and revolution, canon and experiment." There is no single entity controlling cyberspace, it is controlled by the social interactions of millions of independent individuals. The reason for no single entity controlling cyberspace is because it consists not only of material things but non-material components, such as relationships among individuals and the cybercultural contents of their heads. I believe that no single entity will ever control cyberspace because it is a form of world wide communication where millions of users have some type of say in control. Another great quote is by Douglas Rushkoff who speaks of cybercapitalism-" who's going to own the new electronic frontier?asked the squatter. Who owned the last frontier? replied the cattle baron." This quote goes very well with the question of control over cyberspace because no one has ever controlled cyberspace and no one will ever show control! With that there can be no use of copyright infringement in cyberspace because nothing is tangible. Copyrights can not be controlled because it is on a medium that has infinite information. 

1 comment:

  1. maybe it's, he who controls cyberspace, controls the world? or maybe control comes with the ability to destroy the network, or cause severe damage to it. interesting questions...

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