Essay

The Question of Authorship

The amount of content posted on the Internet has undoubtedly been amplified infinitively. As users of this great tool, we can both find and post up whatever we wish, albeit following and agreeing, even if it is without our knowledge, to the laws that govern the Internet. Later in the essay I will elaborate on these laws and the institutional framework that is found on the Internet. For now, I want to introduce the two main ideas that drive this theory of authorship that I have formed and that are up for discussion.

First, there is the idea that authorship, as we know it, and based from websites such as Twitter, Texts From Last Night, F My Life, and Before I Die I Want To, is collaborative – no longer indefinitely attached to a single author. Secondly, when all is said and done and posted on a blog or website, we must ask ourselves and really think this question through: to whom does the content belong? It is here that the element of anonymity that we find comforting about the Internet can lead to ambiguity about possession of authorship regarding Internet content. There are rules that have been intricately established about printed media, yet there is a gap between the application of those rules to print media and when they are applied to Internet media.

Let’s focus first on the idea authorship that is constructed in the aforementioned websites. There are at the very least a couple of different author functions at play. We have both the lone author and the collaborative author. The solitary author can be defined, for the use in this argument, as the person who is responsible for physically coming up with the content and posting it up online. The collaborative author is not so much a conscious choice that a person makes but it is formed by the mere set-up or goals of the website.

Let’s take for example, TextsFromLastNight.com. The website displays a collection of quirky, often inappropriate funny texts that people have sent. The website’s content is made up of these individual texts, yet it is having all those individual texts all collected in one place and even having people respond (by voting Good Night or Bad Night for each text), that gives the lone author the role of collaborator too. Without all those texts gathered on one single website, it definitely would not have the same impact or the attraction and popularity that it has.

Anyone can submit a text just by typing the text into a box on the margin and clicking “submit.” All that a person would need to provide is an area code from which the text was sent, that way the author remains anonymous in the sense that there is no proper name attached to the text. An interesting aspect of this system of submitting content is that anyone can submit anyone’s text per se. You might not necessarily be the person who sent the text but maybe you were the recipient of it, thought it was funny, and decided to post it on the website. There are quite a number of ways that the construction of authorship can be argued. In this context it would be wise to think and draw upon the author-function to realize a construction of authorship. In his essay “What is an Author?” Foucault introduces and characterizes the author-function.

A great point is brought out in his essay; the author function is not “universal or constant in all discourse.” This brings a new twist to our search for a definition of authorship in websites that rely on user generated content. For certain kind of texts, such as stories, poems, and scientific papers, a definite name is needed to provide any kind of credibility and reliability behind the text. That is certainly not what we are seeing on these collaborative websites. The fact that it’s a different kind of text, more of a leisure candid content, that is being displayed may allow for the absence of an attached author’s name. Somewhere between the line of written literary texts and online published content we have accepted this non-existence of the author function and the text itself can stand alone with a level of credibility.

Perhaps this is possible because in websites such as Twitter and Texts From Last Night we are not seeking for substantial content and we take whatever is given to be true. If we assume this, then it allows for the lone author to post up texts and for these to live freely on the web without questioning of validity. It also allows for the free interaction between different people to post up content and respond to each other’s content without seeking credit for the creation. People are constantly willing to post up their mishaps on FMyLife.com and they are not seeking the credit for the title of author. The reward lies in contributing to the site, having other people comment on your anecdote and maybe even to the extent of being relieved by having the ability to vent a frustrating or embarrassing moment to a community that is willingly reading about it.

The Rules, The Laws

Along with having to consider the new possibilities of construction of authorship on these types of websites, we also have to think about the laws that protect these websites and rules and regulations cited. We already have laws that cover the grounds of ownership and copyright that applies to the realm of written texts. We must think of the revolutionary change that the internet has brought and seriously consider whether or not we must rethink the laws that we have – are they too outdated from the kind of media exchange that is thriving on the internet? As text evolved throughout history, so have the copyright laws and terms of use, is it time for new laws to accommodate this content that is a product of “hybrid creativity.” Certainly we must acknowledge the gap that exists when we try to apply the same rules to a whole new game.

Many people do not even give a second thought to what is going to happen to the text that they have created and contributed to the websites. Yet if one looks for the framework of laws that is set up and has assigned the rights of the content – it can be found. It’s interesting that in many prefaces to these Terms of Use the users of the website are held responsible and have “agreed” to the terms even if they have not read or reviewed them. This is the greeting that we find when we look at the Terms in Texts From Last Night.com

In his book, Remix, Lessig brings in the idea of hybrid creativity. This is what we can think of when we think of what is happening with the kind of websites such as Before I Die.org. It’s a project that someone came up with – collecting pictures of people and their ideas, and yet it is the subjects themselves who allow for the ultimate realization of such project. The laws that assign power over the content should be able to recognize this collaboration and not be so black and white about who owns the final product.

The new framework still has many elements of the laws that we find for printed media – for example, there are clear terms of User Conduct and there are very specific terms when it comes to the fact that most of these sites don’t hold themselves responsible for the content and do not monitor the content that is submitted and displayed. It is clearly specified though, as in Texts From Last Night.com that any material found on the website cannot be quoted, reproduced, or displayed without the permission from TFLN. An email must be sent asking for permission, even if it is for a text that you yourself submitted to the site. Lessig would see the outrageousness in that.

Conclusion

We have seen how through websites that encourage and are made up of submissions from website uses we are treading on new ground and must define – or even remix – our definitions and theories of how authorship is constructed and then assigned. We really must think too about the value that authorship has in this new media world on the Internet. For example, do I as a contributor to Twitter not mind updating everyone on what I’m doing throughout the day – so long as no one is monetarily making profit from my Tweets?

There is also the new legal framework that these websites are constructing which can be overwhelming with the jargon and it seems that there is so many guidelines and terms that protect website creators and gives them ownership of the content that is displayed. This is in contrast to the idea that maybe we don’t put such a great value on whom authorship belongs to because if there was little or no value – then why do these creator’s of websites and their companies go through so much trouble and draw up long Terms and Conditions to make sure that there is no possible way that you could regain authorship of the content that you post it once it’s up on their website? Theoretically you could, but let’s be realistic, it’s probably such a long and expensive process that needless to say, we would not even try to fight the battle.