Digital Freedoms and Intellectual Properties on the Web

My blogging for this term will be centred around the controversial topic of who owns what on the web, and the extent to which intellectual properties should be protected (or made available for free distribution) on the internet. I will be discussing a range of globally relevant topics, and exploring their specific relevance to the South African context. Some of the main issues which will come up are privatisation and patenting, the African Digital Commons, copyright on the internet, file-sharing systems and the sharing of intellectual content in online communities.

I will use case studies in most of my discussions, and will try to stay within South African produced new media. In order to make my blogs on this subject more personalised and unique, I will be relating the topics to specific real-life examples that relate to my own life at Rhodes University. For example, for my blog on patenting and privatisation, I plan to investigate the patenting of the hoodia plant, which is both indigenous to the Eastern Cape region, and is being used locally by women to lose weight. I will explore the sensitive issue of how indigenous knowledge (the anorexogenic properties of this plant) has been patented and privatised, and taken out of the hands of its original owners.

For my blog on file-sharing systems, I plan to conduct interviews with students who use programs such as Kazaar and DC+, as well as the owner of Roxbury, who has launched a campaign against these illegal file-sharing systems. This provides a platform to explore Youtube, Myvideo, Zoopy etc. In all of my blogs, I aim to discuss the legal and ethical considerations involved, in order to provide some insight in our own online media habits.