2.2 Don’t touch that! Copyright, ownership and institutional control

Week 4 focuses on Copyright and Fair Use, looking at the history of Copyright and the affect of technology and regulations on new works.

The following questions were raised:

• What happens to copyright in new media environment?
• What are the material and ethical implications of filesharing?
• What are the benefits of copyright?
• Why do you think it is that these ideas of ownership appear to apply to particular types of media?
• Are there other ways of thinking about copyright that should be considered?

There was also a discussion on RIP: A Remix Manifesto, two particular points that stood out to me where:

• The documentary relies a lot on the work of Girl Talk–do you think he is an original artist? Why or why not?
• When writing an essay, we can manipulate Shakespeare or an academic source for example, as long as we cite and reference them. Why can’t this principle relate to other types of texts we may produce?

What happens to copyright in new media environment?

According to Collins (2008) new technologies have blurred the way in which media is produced, with consumers now being able to create new media from “artefacts culled from the (copyrighted) media landscape” (Collins, 2008) these forms of new media are considered as piracy by the copyright holders and the creators are usually issues with a take down notice or law suits (Collins, 2008).

What are the material and ethical implications of filesharing?

Filesharing requires the users to have a digital copy of the file they want to share, they also need a have software that allows them to send this material, this could be FTP, Peer to Peer networks (e.g. Napster) or even email. While this is a fantastic way to distribute content, the ethical implication is that you are in fact committing a crime of piracy (unless the work is yours or you have permission from the creator to distribute the content).

What are the benefits of copyright?

Copyright allows you to protect your original work and stop others from using it without your permission, the benefit of this is that you are credited for the work you have produced, and this credit is usually in monetary form.

Why do you think it is that these ideas of ownership appear to apply to particular types of media?

Not to sound cynical but I believe that these ideas of ownership only apply to media where the copyright owners feel that they would lose money by allowing people to sample this work or that they stand to gain no monetary offset from the new media.

Are there other ways of thinking about copyright that should be considered?

As  Lawrence Lessig suggests in his 2007 TED talk, Copyright should be split into two different forms. The first form should be if you distribute full or sections of work with out permission from the copyright holder then you are a pirate and in breach of copyright law. The second form should be if you use a percentage of the work for a remix, mash-up or to build upon an idea or support an argument and as long as credit is attributed to the artist and copyright holder then you are not in breach of copyright law and can freely use this material (Lessig, 2007).

The documentary relies a lot on the work of Girl Talk–do you think he is an original artist? Why or why not?

To me Girl Talk is an original artist, while he is taking a sample of some ones work it is only a fraction of the song, he then takes this 2.5 seconds of music changes the pitch and tone and them remixes it with other 2.5 second tracks of music. What he is doing here is no different to artist such as Elvis who took his influence from blues music and who also remixed “Hound Dog” a track that was originally recorded by Willie Mae Thornton in 1952 (Dahl), so if Girl Talk isn’t an original artist neither is Elvis and many other iconic music legends.

When writing an essay, we can manipulate Shakespeare or an academic source for example, as long as we cite and reference them. Why can’t this principle relate to other types of texts we may produce?

I personally think that as long as credit is given to the source material then we should be able to use 10% of it just like we do with written text. The reason why I don’t think this is in play can be traced right back to when copyright all started. If they had said at the time, you can take “intellectual property” and build upon it as long as you give credit to the original owner then we wouldn’t be having this issue now.

References:

Collins, S. (2008, Dec.). Recovering Fair Use. M/C Journal, 11(6). Retrieved from http://journal.media-culture.org.au/index.php/mcjournal/article/view/105

Dahl, B. Big Mama Thornton. Retrieved from http://www.allmusic.com/artist/big-mama-thornton-p553

Lessig, L. (2007, March). Laws that choke creativity [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/talks/larry_lessig_says_the_law_is_strangling_creativity.html