This weeks topic is basically about copyright and owning history and ideas. I found this topic confusing for the most part because of how technical it can be. This is also a very controversial topic; who, if anybody, own historical events, documents, and artifacts. While watching the videos and reading the texts, I found a commonality in it all. The issue of ownership is more a legal issue than an ethical or logical one. Let’s say I have an idea, but I do not copyright it or patent it, another man has the same idea some time later and makes money off it, he DID in fact copyright the idea. Who owns the idea? Even though it was my idea originally, it doesn’t really matter because I never had a copyright on it.

This idea that ideas can be owned kind of splits me down the middle. Some ideas I agree deserve credit and the money, however there are just some concepts an ideas that just don’t make any sense to copyright. Let’s say my brother want to have a lemonade stand to make some extra money, and makes his own lemonade. He did not invent the concept of a lemonade stand nor did he invent lemonade, so is he in violation of copyright? These are the situations where this whole topic just confuses me. Usually when I write papers I source literally everything I see, to avoid plagiarism. So I guess my confusion leads me to the topic of my blog, are my ideas really mine?

I randomly clicked on some sources to check the validity and I found them to be quite credible. They showed different points of view on the company as well as the sport of MMA in general. The discussion part of the Wiki page is lacking in my view, although its easy to tell that experts are the ones who verify the validity of the content. I really dont see as much discussion as I thought I would. The history of the page is very impressive. I just skimmed through it and noticed that the page is updated frequently. The most recent update was June of this year. It was great to see the evolution of the page and see how informative Wiki can really be.

I am going to discuss the rise of MMA as a mainstream form of entertainment. Using the UFC as my main example.

What caused the rise of MMA, specifically the UFC, as a mainstream form of entertainment? What trials and problems might have tried to prevent it from happening?

Out of all the sources we had this week, the video caught my eye. The evolution of a Wikipedia page about something so minuet was actually pretty cool. As cool as this is, it does call into question the integrity of the actual information that is being edited and added. Since it is such an obscure topic its not as important as other wiki pages, however what if important pages such as pages about historical events or public figures were edited by mis-informed people. The interview about photoshop also was very interesting to me, especially when Hany Farid said, “you don’t need Photoshop to editorialize. We can go back to Mao and Stalin and Castro and Mussolini, and all these guys. All the dictators doctored photographs in order to effectively change history.” It just shows the fact that editing media and information was not a new concept that developed alongside the growth of the internet and other forms of technology, rather it was only increased and in some ways common place and assumed as the internet grew.

The contribution of multiple people to a source of information, such as a Wiki page, is a good thing yet a bad thing at the same time. The good is that you get multiple perspectives and sources of information contributing to make a single source which can be accessed on command. However, the danger with that is that not everyone is equally qualified to provide information on a particular topic. So when researching, the safest thing to do is consult multiple topics in order to get a general feel for the truth. Using “appropriate” sources is essential to add credibility to any work. In closing, just because there is a lot of information, does not mean it is all true.

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I watched the video on the “History of the Internet” and i was actually very engaged in it. It made me realize just how difficult it was to create, and yet how easily it is to use in the modern age. The most interesting part to me was that the internet was created by the joint efforts of multiple countries, in particular England and France. The joint efforts of all three created the main source of information and communication that we use today. I also enjoyed how the creation of the internet was happening around some of the major events of the Cold War, such as the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Sputnik Launch. When you learn about the period in history its like the creation of the internet is eclipsed by those events, yet the Internet seems to be more important and relevant in today’s society than both of them.

1) The Social Impact of Music in the 1990’s

2) The Social Impact of Professional Wresting in the 1990’s

3) The History and Impact of Social Media (i.e. Myspace, Facebook, Twitter)

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