The topic that I am proposing for my final project, the Remix Hypertext, has its roots in Marcus’ expertise displayed in Little Brother. The majority of the novel depicts Marcus conducting his business on the Xnet, the cyberspace he created which could bypass the rules and regulations of the Internet and make him practically invisible to others, in his case the DHS, at the same time. He could bounce around several WiFi connections that were available around in homes around his own without being caught or kicked off of the network. By the looks of it, he was able to download music, videos, and other easily accessible tools for free via the Xnet (things that would obviously cost money otherwise). Today’s average “cyberspace” does not have those types of capabilities, per say, but can do much of the same. My topic will focus on the issue of piracy and more specifically, why the majority of high school and college campuses reserve the right to punish their students if they are caught on the campus’ WiFi connection. I figured that this would be a great topic to research because it is the center of the plot in Little Brother, being that Marcus spent most of his time on the Xnet or on his ParanoidXbox trying to gain access to the Xnet to communicate with his web of trust. It is also a topic that I don’t think many people have really researched too much although many would like to know the answer to the question. Why has downloading copyrighted material from programs like LimeWire become illegal? Illegal wouldn’t actually be the correct term to describe what LimeWire actually does. With experience with the program, I can safely spell out several things. This program is available on the Internet for a direct download from the a website made by the company. It is defined as a “file-sharing” program that allows people from all around the world to upload their music, videos, images, program files, and documents to a public domain and allow others to download it. The music and videos are free so we have don’t have to resort to paying money for them in the iTunes Store if we don’t want. So if millions of people are using LimeWire around the world, why hasn’t iTunes lost money in the department of music and videos (albums, films, short-length shows, music videos)? Something’s got to give here. When you start the program for the first time on your laptop or computer, it makes you agree to not selling the material to third parties before actually being able to start installing it. Of course, there is a small contingent of people that press “I Agree” just for the hell of it and go against the rule, but let’s face it, that will always be the case. But, what is most important of all this is to understand that if other people are willing to share their files online that they may have paid for already, they are promoting camaraderie on the Internet. The Internet cyberspace is connected by millions of webs of users that share their files with one another through it. The real question among all of this information is, when did it not become ok for students to use programs like LimeWire on high school and college campuses? We agreed to not sell the material to third parties, we just want it for ourselves and don’t want to pay for it. That is perfectly legal. My research for my Remix Hypertext will look into this. For this project, I am thinking of creating a narrative video with my own voice (containing things that people can access through this program) about LimeWire and its capabilities and hope to answer the “why” question. It is important for students to know why campuses don’t allow them to use programs like this. No matter what rules the program makes you follow before installing it or how trustworthy you think you are, there must be some method to the madness. You want to know the truth? Stay tuned!