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Mann, Larisa --- "Decolonizing Networked Technology: Learning from the Street Dance" [2012] ELECD 700; in Pager, A. Sean; Candeub, Adam (eds), "Transnational Culture in the Internet Age" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2012)

Book Title: Transnational Culture in the Internet Age

Editor(s): Pager, A. Sean; Candeub, Adam

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9780857931337

Section: Chapter 13

Section Title: Decolonizing Networked Technology: Learning from the Street Dance

Author(s): Mann, Larisa

Number of pages: 28

Extract:

13. Decolonizing networked
technology: learning from the street
dance
Larisa Mann*

13.1 INTRODUCTION

The presence of globally networked technology ­ mobile and smart-
phones, digital cameras, video game players, personal audio recorders and
players, and computers that connect to a global communication network
­ is increasingly a fact of life for people all over the world. Since these
technologies are widely used to create, copy, and transmit creative works
(music, text, images), they all implicate copyright law. Thus, copyright has
emerged as a key force shaping the use of globally networked technology
and the increasingly digitized culture that such technology enables. This
chapter examines the use of globally networked technology in and around
the Jamaican street dance, a site of Jamaican popular music-making. It
will explore the dangers and the advantages that the increasing ubiquity of
globally networked technology holds for Jamaican musicians, who must
navigate an infrastructure of internal and external techno-colonialism
when seeking access to new opportunities for personal and community
advancement.
The Jamaican example matters for several reasons. First, Jamaica
has developed a vibrant music industry that enjoys international stature
without stringent local copyright enforcement.1 This makes it an inter-


* The author is indebted to the colleagues, mentors and editors who gener-
ously gave their time to assist in improving this chapter, including Prof. Sean
Pager, Prof. Esther Kingston-Mann, Brady Kriss (Esq.), and Kendra Salois, and
to the Center for the Study of Law and Society at UC Berkeley Law School.
1 Jason Toynbee, ...