Blogging it up lke a Fem

Current copyright doctrine believes that works should remain linear, hierarchical and controlled. The exclusive rights granted by copyright, especially and specifically the right to adaptation of a work creates a kind of authorial control not only over the work itself but also of the use of the work. The feminist perspective examines the role between relational webs of meaning rather than a linear ideal. Feminist discourse involves a non-hierarchical deconstruction of the copyright ideals of “work protection”. It lends its importance toward an acceptance of collaborative work maintaining the idea that a unified construction of a work designed and composed between more than one creator is a valid work form. Digital media holds this same sort of thought, a fluidity of titles between the “creator” (author) and the user (reader). Within the blogosphere the method of textual constructions is comprised of multiple contributors. The reader has a participatory role in the “progress of knowledge” which copyright laws frustrate and dampen with the rigidity of its boundaries. Feminist modes of thinking are deeply intertwined within this construction of work manifestation. It opens those borders and allows for a higher creative process without the fear of copyright infringement.
Intellectual property is the basis for copyright. Creating a defined ownership of a work for a period of time generates a patriarchal state of functioning. The authorial principle of “owning” ones work is geared toward an attachment of “commodity authorship”, work is then “property”. If the work is believed to lead to economic gain, then the law can protect this property. Copyright law protects and privileges work that is created by a single person, not allowing for the penetration of the feminist ideology of collaborative, relational cultural production (Hvizdak 118). The binaries established by copyright law benefit the patriarchal power structures. It separates the author from the user leaving the latter in a position of inferiority. The user is not a part of the collaborative process to generate new cultural capital. They are left outside of the process and subject to punishment by law if they use the copyrighted material in ways the law deems violating. This thought then signifies that culture and creation stem from a singular source, leaving no credit to the outside influences that allowed it to come to fruition (Hvizdak 119). But it also ignores the main fact that without an audience, there would be no purpose for the work nor would there be any economic gain from it either.
Blog culture perhaps represents the complete opposite of what copyright law attempts to achieve in “protecting” the ownership of work. In the formation of a blog it is evident that the posted piece is comprised of a multitude of outside sources. These sources are linked to the page and made visible; the user can visually see the “seems” of a fashioned piece and the notion that the ideas of the work deriving from a singular entity id shattered. This complicated the idea of creation established by copyright. Why then is protected? The answer is simply no one. Within the blog community there is no need to protect ones work since the cultural ideology of bloging comes from sharing thoughts with others. The option of “commenting” on a blogged piece allows for an instantaneous doctoring of the ideas. It is not a stagnant static work but one that is transient and fluid in its discourse within the community. The ideas are never limited because the opinions are not restricted. What starts off as a simple idea posted for all to see then has the potential to become something far larger and perhaps more important that initially assumed.
A blog cannot be popular and pure at the same time. A blog can either be pure in its content or become popular because of its ability to morph the original intent. In other words a blog ceases to be pure the moment it become popular. This is in complete defiance of copyright’s purpose. Copyright restrictions attempt to preserve the purity of a piece, in doing so it also blockades the process of thought. A blog is popular only if it is measured. Hit meters, being featured, being linked or in other words any comprehensible (visible, audible, feelable etc) result (as a cause of measure) that gives the visibility is a measure of popularity. The purity mentioned here can be seen as the preservation of the patriarchal power. In allowing for this sort of discourse that power is lessened and gives way to a more feminist mode of interaction, one that creates community and cultural capital that is boundless. It is this back and forth of thought, this blurred boundary between user and creator that helps to understand alternative ways of intellectual property systems.