Derrida on his photo being taken--and a lot of reflections on authorship and IPR

I'll paraphrase (though it feels wrong to do so for someone who puts so much stock in the precision of his phrases) from the extra features on the DVD for the movie /Derrida/. He is asked why he forbade public photos of himself. He says that he felt the writing that he had been doing, the ideas he had been mediating, was focused on destroying the idea of the author as the locus of creativity. He felt that the photographic conventions of the time--which would usually include the author in a head shot or pictured in a library of some kind--reified this notion of the author and thus tried to restrict the publication of photos of himself. (He also confesses a personal "narcissitic anxiety" about seeing his image.) In any case, he never really stopped having this interdiction, but after a public appearance (in 1969, at some sort of conference on the state of philosophy which, at the time, was meant to be a political intervention of sorts) he realized it was impossible to control his image, or to enforce this rule, so he became more passive.

I don't know what I have to say about this, but I find it odd that this wasn't in the main text of the film since it seems rather relevant to it.

UPDATE
I watched the deleted scenes and this was actually included in one of the early versions of the opening credits. Some of the other deleted scenes--and even some of the clips used in conjunction with this one in the deleted opening--made it back into the film at other points, so the question still remains, but it is even more interesting to me that the filmmakers thought this was so central but ultimately left it out completely. I'm sure there was some aesthetic choice here--or theoretical--but it reminds me of the way many filmmakers end up cutting what they feel to be some of the most important or touching scenes of a film because it ultimately doesn't work. Though they are the ones making this judgement (in conjunction with their colleagues) it is perhaps poignant that this circumstance is represented in a film whose subject meditates on just this question of authorship. This question, it seems, is even more relevant to the question of the auteur of film than to the author of a written text, but perhaps this is just an assumption--one which the film of Derrida helps us to think about in the text.

The common discussion in this subject is that the text itself is not determined by the author, but exists in a sort of vibrating conversation between author and text and text and reader. This has often been extended to discuss the decentered subject as well, such that the authorial voice is always fragmented in itself. But this moment of editing that I note in the film points to another aspect, which I confess could be meditated on for hundreds of pages by these theorists and I'd be none the wiser since I have participated in this transaction with their works only a few times. Basically, it is this process of editing in time wherein the message one wants to protray, even the idea of truth that one has, changes from day to day. Certainly once the text is out there, in the world, one can't change it (except of course in blogging, where it becomes nearly impossible for earlier versions to not vanish down the memory hole) but it can be changed through the process of its interpretation. But even the text itself is, in my experience, a series of fragments pasted together by a series of authors who are also a series of critics of the earlier authorial iterations. (of course this is the kind of navel gazing that I completely despise even when I find it intriguing.) I suppose this is obvious to people who do the archival kinds of research on authors texts to see the earlier deleted versions--and one could say that it is the latter practice that makes the practice of having the deleted scenes and behind the scenes featurettes on DVDs sensible, that it is a form of making this kind of critical review possible for the average viewer.

I think I am talking about something more than this, however, in that even these point to a coherent authentic author--separated in time perhaps from these earlier versions, but, in the final cut, making a choice of what will be put in the final version. The deleted scenes are then justified, after the fact, from the perspective of this authorial voice (on the DVD in the form of director commentary) even if the individual speaking for that authorial voice doesn't necessarily agree with the choice or the justification. On the other hand, this isn't entirely true and is, perhaps, what I am getting at. We often hear this kind of disagreement such as when these filmmakers lament that a scene couldn't be included, but even though it was a choice they made, themselves, at a point in time (whether we consider them coherent, transhistorical subjects or not) the compulsion for this choice is often given to an outside entitity: an abstract notion of the aesthetic flow of the film; a higher ethic of how to represent the character or situation; a political decision for what the ultimate message should be; or even the disagreement among the filmmakers about the final document produced.

But though the filmmakers (or authors) might feel these outside compulsions, it is they themselves who are ultimately mediating them, interpreting them, screening them onto the film or text. And whatever we may say about the coherence of either the author or the text in philosophical terms, one must admit that, on some level, there is a text that is produced and which circulates: ultimately there must be someone who can take responsibility for this text, in legalistic terms. This is really the area that I am most concerned to reflect on, and in particular, the way that the notion of copyright or other forms of intellectual property also include the notion of responsibility alongside the already considered discussion of ownership.

On the latter topic, and in an almost absolute tangent, the first thought that comes to mind is the notion of taking hold of this ownership precisely to take the object out of circulation, such that the responsibility of the owner is both erased and is of erasure: in other words, that the owner (not, in this case, the author) has no responsibility for the effect of the property except for the responsibility of erasing its existence (or at least its legal circulation). This is most feared in the US context (perhaps overzealously) in terms of freedom of speech: once this kind of exclusive right is granted, can it be used to stifle not only present speech or the speech of the author by the author, but of past forms of speech which would be valuable to the public sphere and the present discussions going on within it. And certainly the possibility exists. But on the other hand, the fact that this happens in an era of almost complete mechanical and digital reproducability makes this less of a material concern and more of an ethical/political concern with how to legitimate the copy (or, more importantly, the information contained within it.) So, to go back to the case of the possibility of digital texts being altered or erased, one of the key tools used in making this less possible is the "screenshot," whereby the user takes an image of the hypertext page so that an unaltered copy exists. However, since it is a digital copy, and can be altered at will, the question will not be if one has a copy (though this will be important) but whether this image of the page ever existed or is in fact a falsified production motivated by some other agenda, a kind of black propaganda which can do little more than raise doubts.

Of course this is spilling over into the notion of how digital technology has little way of authorizing an original (a problem that seems to undermine my earlier statement that there has to be a coherent text created at some point. Obviously, I'm still thinking this through.) The problem that this poses for the public sphere is real, but it is one that the intellectual property owner is as concerned with since the depend upon the notion of a unique object in order to justify its sale--and to secure that, as it circulates, the value of that product flows back to the individual corporate owner. Dirivitive copies (which, I'll note here Coombe relies upon without a clear notion of there being an original) not only represent a loss in sales, but, in so far as they don't control the circulation, if a dirivitive copy enters circulation in the guise of an original, it alters the public perception of the original.

The latter problem is something I've witnessed first hand in the legal offices of Dickies. According to Dad, who works there, the concern there, while certainly with the actual lost sales, is also with the potential of further lost sales: if someone buys a cheap knockoff of substandard quality with the impression that they have bought an original pair of Dickies pants, their understanding of the brand is altered: they think that Dickies makes crappy pants. Thus, as I understand it, for the consumer who buys the knockoff and sends it in with a complaint about quality, the company will often supply them with an original in hopes that they will remain loyal. From this perspective, I can see the importance for both the consumer and the producer, that there be some form of responsibility for and method of authenticating the original product. On the other hand, the other thing that this office does is to police trademark infringement, again which I can see some reason for from the perspective of the original producer if the infringement is seen as an unsavory one; but on the other hand, it is something that is almost impossible to control and, in any case, is part of a cultural process wherein the fact of infringement is actually a sign of popularity and acceptance which can be of benefit to the brand identity (a point also made by Coombe and, incidentally, by the author of the book on Brand Hijacking, though Coombe makes the further point that the other author seems content to ignore, which is that, whatever the positive or negative connotations and values that get attached here, there is ultimately a corporate owner of this brand).

But both of these concerns are less a cause for stronger intellectual property rights than their result. For example, in either case of trademark infringement (where a knockoff product is sold under the corporate logo or when the corporate logo is altered in an unauthorized manner) it is unlikely that the average consumer will actually mistake the object for an original. Likewise, people who buy knockoff CDs or DVDs are unlikely to go to the copyright owner to complain or to think that any lack of quality is the result or fault of the legal owner. This is, for most cases, even more of a non-problem if the practice of infringement becomes widespread. In fact, it becomes much more of a problem for the consumer than the producer--a possibility that is highlighted in the corporate produced anxiety about re-importing prescription drugs from Canada (a practice which really should have the Canadians more upset than us since, as I understand it, the cheaper prices aren't because of the sale of generic or unauthorized knockoffs of the pills but because they are subsidized by the Canadian govt.) The idea that the clear property rights of the corporate owner are also the only form of responsiblity that they hold to the consumer is written into this anxiety (though I suppose it would be important to understand what the legal ramifications of this are: I often think it is a lot of extra work for the IPR owner to police these things, and that they would be better off if they just left it alone and concentrated on working in the context of widespread illicit duplication. But I am sure there is some provision in the law that makes them responsible for this police action, if only in an ideological fashion which would make it obvious that customers should channel their transactions through official formal channels rather than the unguarded informal channels where these illicit materials could possibly proliferate.

In these cases, the problem of the legitimate, authorized edition of the text, the pants, the pill, seems to make the strengthening of IPR important for both consumer and producer. But in the cases I was hinting at above--where the legal fact of these rights removes the object from legitimate circulation--the problems produced for the consumer (and for the non-economic citizen, subject, human, etc.) by these rights is much more dire. It is a possibility that, even in the age of digital reproduction, that it could have this effect in the areas of culture mentioned by most US critics, specifically the mass media. Most recently, this possibility was considered in terms of orphan works (where rights are unclear so films or media remain unpreserved for future generations) or works like "Eyes on the Prize" where the clearance for this becomes prohibitively expensive and thus the legal circulation is threatened. I experience this often on my searches in Amazon, where the fact of there having been a clear original text is of little value to me or the author since I can't obtain it: it's gone out of print and no one has renewed the copyright or reissued it. Thus I have to rely on the used versions, which I don't mind all that much, but it certainly belies the idea that clear property rights and a large mass market help to facilitate niche markets. When I have to pay through the nose for a used copy of a book that could be profitably published for much less by an enterprising press, the material foundations of this virtual market come back to the fore and the limits of clear almost perpetual property rights are revealed. In some ways I can understand it as the material requirements of printing a book are probably much larger. But the same thing happens with CDs which are no longer available.

I find this completely ridiculous and think it the ultimate argument against the notion that the free market relies on and functions best with strong property rights. This is even more the case for properties that would obviously have a market, but it is often the defense given of trading systems like the early Napster. Though these obviously traded in viable properties that are also avialable from the publishers, it is often claimed by the people who used these services the most, that much of the content traded, while it often had very clear property rights, was no longer available through a legal means.

In thinking about trading circles like this from a social perspective it also makes sense that this is the direction in which these kinds of circles would have developed. Though the record industry wants to make it seem like they have an infinite number of properties circulating which are all equally valuable, this is never the case. They are very focused on the moment and, though there are obviously exceptions and niche markets from which they try to mop up a few more profits, they are mainly focused on having the "next big thing" which also means that they have as limited an attention span as their ideal consumer. They produce a great deal of products in limited runs and concentrate on a few properties with the greatest potential for a strong performance. Even this isn't guaranteed, but it is predictable within a range that, for instance, a recent record by Janet Jackson or Brittany (sp?) Spears will sell well. After that limited moment, there is less belief in the existence of effective demand. The possibility that important cultural objects will simply disappear from the legal marketplace is even greater as the existing media conglomerates are basically piecemeal affairs, wherein the legal rights to huge swathes of properties are the result of mergers and buyouts and the legal corporate owner (in so far as this can be referred to with a singular subject) has absolutely no idea what they own, literally and more figuratively in terms of what exists as a potential market for a product. Thus the possibility that there is a significant, if not enormous, range of products these conglomerates own which are completely out of print and unavailable in any form--even works produced after the advent of digital technology, is completely logical.

If we add to this possibility the social economy of the music connoisseur the claims of Napster’s major users seem completely believable, even if they are legally inadmissible. For to be a true music fan it is necessary to not like what is popular at the current moment, or at the very least, to prove an awareness of a range of material that is somehow outside of the mainstream. Surely Napster and forums like this traded in these kinds of properties, but this activity was likely only a fraction of the infractions being committed. In so far as it was a community of music fans, the point would be to make available works that not everyone had heard or that weren't widely known or available through legal channels. In this case, part of what made it work was the process of valorization within the community which would make it most socially advantageous to offer up access to some of the most inaccessible of texts (both in the commercial and aesthetic senses). Thus the social process of legitimation for the traders would be based on who could produce (in the sense of the finding or making available of an existing text) these marginal texts. However, since it was technically free, there was both less risk involved for the potential tradee and more of a possibility that the advice would be taken. I can afford the very small risk of downloading the possibly marginally good song or album because all it is costing me is time. And because of this, I am more likely to hear more things and judge which of the critics I agree with the most in terms of their argument of quality. Thus, not only am I not having to simply take your advice about what you say is good, but, as if we were sitting in your home and you were offering up the song to me as something I might enjoy, I am taking little risk in listening, I don't have to pay you anything for this. As certain members became more likely to produce marginal texts which I enjoy and which we all agree are of good quality, a new economy of cultural legitimation emerges out of the fact that I am able to have that experience of sitting with the trendy friend whom I feel has outstanding taste in formerly inaccessible music or movies, but I am able to engage with those texts on my own and, potentially, to share them with others hoping that I will garner that social cache of the music connoisseur for others. To reiterate, many of these properties being traded, simply because of their marginal status, are likely of little profitable value for their corporate owners, evidenced by the lack of marketing dollars put towards creating the cultural value for a legally available property or, in some cases, the lack of the property's existence at all in the legal marketplace.

That this shows Napster (in its pre-trial iteration) represents a clear case of Market failure (i.e. where there could be potential demand for a wide range of products no longer legally available) is only half the story, and that it makes it more likely that the attempt by record companies to make a legal version of this will also remain unprofitable and never be able to match the popularity or cultural relevance of the illicit version. This has to do with the assumption that one can take this process of the social production of value and simply add commodification to it in order to create a profit. But since much of the value of this depended, for the consumer, on there not being the risk involved in spending money on something that s/he ultimately didn’t like. Also, in so far as it was possible to trade in works that were technically unofficial in any way—such as music one made in the garage or mash-ups and mixes of popular songs—a whole range of possibilities is removed for not only the social economy of distribution, but for the potential producer who must now still traffic in a separate channel. (I’ll admit here that I haven’t explored the new Napster enough and this second point may be irrelevant if it is still possible to upload your own works for free through the network. However, judging from the fact that this would require an almost impossible kind of policing in order to prevent possible infringement, I doubt it is an option.)
Thus it points to the impossible correlation of the actual desires of the corporate owner of intellectual property and the actual social network of cultural legitimation. In many ways, what it does—though far from completely—is to begin to reverse some of the trend Habermas notes in the Structural Transformation, namely, the transformation of the ideal subject of the public sphere being one of the consumer of culture rather than the producer of individual arguments and works. Though the Frankfurt School put most of their emphasis on the role of production, and many political economy of communication people tend to agree, the fact of the dominance of the industrial production of culture is hardly the source of the problem—or, if it was, it is hardly the problem any longer. It is mostly the monopoly of distribution networks that helped to catapult the corporations with proprietary access to these networks into the role of the gatekeepers of culture. And once they owned these, or were given government sanctioned monopoly licenses and, often, subsidies, it wasn’t all that important what they distributed and, in fact, they had a motivation to produce as generic and easily reproducible product as possible in order to ensure that the ownership of these networks produced the greatest possible profit (necessarily at the least cost.) The argument that this also produces the possibility of niche markets may be somewhat correct, but, like most of the possible benefits of the monopoly version of the US free market, this is largely an externality. For even though the possibility of gaining massive profits from a few blockbusters frees up some resources for taking some risks on the niche, the resources allowed for this will always be very limited and, almost by definition, the system will depend on this remaining only a niche. And, either way, this monopoly, industrial system of production and distribution makes it certain that the consumer finds the niche product in as great a proportion as the system itself finds it to be risky.

This reminds me of a comment made by Jeff Tweedy in the “Who Owns Culture” session he had with Lawrence Lessig and (I think) Steven Johnson. Tweedy said that the corporate control over intellectual property was predicated on them preventing us from knowing how bad the mainstream products are.

57:00 Tweedy: “I don’t think it is ironic at all that we are sitting in a library talking about this because it a library was a new concept, being developed today, you would lose everything in this library except for the books that were in print to sell. [in other words you could only have access to materials that were available on the market.] And that’s basically what these laws are trying to do and that’s, I think the collateral damage you’re talking about, [. . . ] To get rid of the peer-to-peer sites would mean to get rid of access to tons and tons of material that most people can’t get to. That is devastating to culture. And, also, it’s kind of asking artists to do something that’s impossible.” {here there is an extended and very quotable section on the process of culture as building on the past and—to come back to the point at the beginning on authorship—the point that Tweedy made often, which was that art is the process that happens between the artist }

Note from that recording: Lessig says 6th circuit appeals says you can’t sample even a millisecond of music @ 42:00

@1:18 Lessig: The United States has used its power to push extremely rigid IP laws on the rest of the world and they, for this reason and a hundred others, are beginning to feel an anger against us that I don’t think we can imagine disappearing in the next 28 years [not sure why this is the length of time but I think it has to do with the most recent extension of copyright protection which Lessig was discussing earlier in the program.] The Brazilian government describes the problem of proprietary software in this way: they say, [paraphrasing, but I’ll put in quote since it will make it more grammatically legible] “The United States says that we pirate over US$1 billion in intellectual property every year and we complain because we send over US$1 billion in licensing fees for proprietary software that we use. So we think it is a bad deal all the way around and our solution is to use free software. There won’t be piracy anymore since we’ll be using free software…
Finally the point I was getting to, Tweedy answering a question about distributing the band’s music via the web: “We’d rather have people hear our music: that’s the whole point. The whole point in making music is to have someone hear it. And I’d rather have someone hear it and decide they don’t like it than decide they can’t afford it. I think this brings up a good point. I think one of the reasons it doesn’t happen more often is because there’s lots of great music out there and there’s lots of bad music and I think a lot of the industry is really afraid of you figuring that out.” At about 1:24


On the other hand, the removal of these objects from circulation (an idea I was trying very hard to make in this, but which I’ve obviously missed completely here) is even direr in the possible appropriation of previously free forms of culture in one of its first meanings: that of the cultivation in the ground. Namely, this is the fear that the possibility of patenting the genetic material of seeds will make it possible for corporate agricultural owners to lock down the use of these materials. Of course even this fear is overblown by the mere fact that it is almost impossible to imagine the kind of state apparatus necessary to enforce such a ludicrous form of property rights, but the idea that it could be possible isn’t encouraging. I’ve rambled on enough for one afternoon.

Economist magazine to potential subscribers: "never lose your place in the world"

The catchy phrase comes to me on an Economist advertisement on a bookmark included in a recent shipment from Amazon. Thus the pun/analogy is supposed to be that, like a bookmark, which keeps you from losing your place in the book, The Economist keeps you from losing your place in terms of understanding what is going on in the world. In terms of the homology between these terms, the pun is meant to be about orienting yourself within a given space (that of the book or of the news of the world). Still, I find it sort of telling that they use this phrase because it also has multiple other meanings in this context, primarily because it is obviously focused on a certain clientele.

I am sure that the reporting done by the Economist is very good. And I am sure, in terms of the global coverage, it is much better than a popular weekly newsmagazine like Newsweek or Time. But the cost of a subscription to the Economist is far above any of these, on par with some minor academic journals. (Newsstand cost is US$254.49 and the discount of 61% makes the magazine about $100 a year.) But it is still basically just a news magazine, just focused towards people who have more of a concern with international politics, economics, trade and finance than with the basic news peppered with occasional celebrity profile or info-mercials about the must have products of the season.

Thus when I see the phrase, "Never lose your place in the world" I can't help but think of it in political/ideological terms as well. In this way, the Economist is basically just he messenger to the global upper middle class, delivering a warning/reminder that one's place (and the larger space of one's class) is never completely secure, that it must be renewed constantly. This is an important signifier, therefore, of the signified of the class conflict on a global scale and, in particular, of the especially important ideological component, of which the Economist is positioned as a key resource. Not only is it important and good to keep one's place (and the general order of places) but reading the Economist, with its neo-liberal economic, Political Realist, common sense is one practise that will help you shore this up for yourself on a weekly basis. For that, $100 seems like small potatoes (assuming of course that you already have plenty of potatoes to eat and aren't counting on using the burlap from the sack to cloth your children or provide some kind of shelter.)

Iraq war dead: 655,000

Washington Post - October 11, 2006

Study Claims Iraq's 'Excess' Death Toll Has Reached 655,000
By David Brown

A team of American and Iraqi epidemiologists estimates that 655,000 more people have died in Iraq since coalition forces arrived in March 2003 than would have died if the invasion had not occurred.

The estimate, produced by interviewing residents during a random sampling of households throughout the country, is far higher than ones produced by other groups, including Iraq's government.

It is more than 20 times the estimate of 30,000 civilian deaths that President Bush gave in a speech in December. It is more than 10 times the estimate of roughly 50,000 civilian deaths made by the British-based Iraq Body Count research group.

The surveyors said they found a steady increase in mortality since the invasion, with a steeper rise in the last year that appears to reflect a worsening of violence as reported by the U.S. military, the news media and civilian groups. In the year ending in June, the team calculated Iraq's mortality rate to be roughly four times what it was the year before the war.

Of the total 655,000 estimated "excess deaths," 601,000 resulted from violence and the rest from disease and other causes, according to the study. This is about 500 unexpected violent deaths per day throughout the country.

The survey was done by Iraqi physicians and overseen by epidemiologists at Johns Hopkins University's Bloomberg School of Public Health. The findings are being published online today by the British medical journal the Lancet.

The most disgusting thing about this study is that the war's supporters will not be willing to acknowledge its findings. It will be a biased study or it will include too many deaths caused by insurgents or it will be something that Saddam brought on them: none of it will be admitted as our responsiblity in anything but the most glowing of terms. On the other hand, even the senators and congresspeople who claim we need to get out are disingenous since we've already built one of our largest bases on the planet there. No, the 655,000 will be many times that when we are done with Iraq. And I don't think they'll be a whole lot better off. Maybe the fairies of freedom and democracy are just standing by to sprinkle their magic dust and make it all better.

On the other hand, the economic policies we're imposing alongside the military campiagn will likely gut whatever domestic middle class there was and this will leave little social buffer between a new, repressive central regime (likely of Islamicist bent) and rest of the coutnry, newly terrorized into submission. In other words, we'll have definitely created regime change, but not in the direction the moronic neo-cons throught we would. I have plenty of bad things to say about people who feel there are clearly defined, definite paths to economic and political development, but I'm beginning to think that people who think it just happens spontaneously are even more dangerous--particularly when they are handed the joystick of a hegemon and given free reign.

Infuriating and sad.