Berkman Center
The Berkman Center collaborates with people from many different fields, such as researchers and pioneers, to come up with a center that includes everything about cyber space. The mission of the Center is to further study about cyber space and to help “make it happen”. People at Berkman Center do many things. They gather people together, they report and give updates on new projects and progresses. The Center also collaborates with Opennet Initiative to allow access to factors involving internet censorship. With the Opennet Initiative, internet censorship around the world is documented. The fascinating feature, with Global Voices, is translating blogs from all around the world to English, so it is easier for people to be heard. This is really interesting because a blog is centered on opinions and having the access to view opinions of people around the world is rare. The Berkman Center does just that. The Center also brings people who are interested in cyber space together and give them more knowledge on a weekly basis. With Youtube, people in general can view what the people, like Ethan Zuckerman, are doing in the center to help benefit the public. According to the video, people are engaged in these talks that are given every Tuesday, and also available online, in ways that are beyond expectations. Entrepreneurs and activists use these talks to benefit themselves in their own ways. The Berkman Center is an excellent passage for people to gain knowledge of the internet and the cyber world.
The video in the official website about the music industry is an example of the benefit. Kristin Thomson, an artist, discusses the change in the music industry. In the past decade, music has changed dramatically. The technology today and the services provided online help artists to “create, promote, and distribute” their music. It is beneficial to artists obviously because their music can get to a bigger audience and the public in general. The changing question is whether this change affects artists and their revenues. The project is called “Artists Revenue Stream”; the project focuses on how much an artist can make a living. Different people from different areas within the music industry were interviewed, from songwriters to artists themselves. Interviews were the easiest and more accurate way to figure out how much money they actually earn. How people in the music industry actually make a living depend on what they do. There are various things to be done. The composers write; they make a living from copyrights and licenses. Composers use publishers to connect songs to artists and publishers get money from that. Although publishers are not necessary in the process, it is easier for composers, but they might lose some revenue. Recording artists earn a living through recording labels, which earn a large share of wholesale revenues and copyrights. Recording labels are responsible for getting music out to radios to commercials, helping to promote recording artists’ songs. Once again, it is possible for artists to go on their own, but it is extremely difficult to be successful.