Copyright and Intellectual Property

 Greetings, my friends, and Happy Easter, Ramadan, Passover and Spring Rites! What a great year when all of these things are occurring at the same time. We're rounding the corner of the semester and looking at home plate. Today we're looking at Copyright and Intellectual Property from a digital perspective, so let's dive right in.

Ah, Limewire. I, too, joined those who didn't understand what in the world was going on back then. It wasn't until the push to shut down Limewire and Napster that I really became informed about copyright law and how it was beginning to interact in the digital world. The facts are there - the struggle over how to deal with digital download and intellectual property has been around for a while. Both of those articles have been around since 2012 and 2014 respectively. In fact, all the readings are a tad outdated - the other two are from 2012 as well. And ten years has changed the game somewhat.

The law still hasn't appreciably caught up with digital intellectual property, but it's doing a sight better than it was. File sharing sites are mostly extinct, though torrent sites are still alive and well if one knows where to look. However, harmful files are near-routinely found on such sites, so user beware. Also, it's mostly illegal - though the law doesn't know what to do or chooses bigger fish than an average user.

The most remarkable of these protests is in music. Weird Al Yankovic famously made a song, "Don't Download this Song" satirizing the artists who were pushing against the sharing sites...and then released it exclusively on those same sharing sites. His album sales jumped through the roof. That may not be universally true for artists - studies have found that the advantage of allowing file sharing is negligible - but by that same token, it's negligible. According to that study, it takes 5000 downloads per album sale lost. 5k. We haven't heard anything major from this arena in a while.

So let's talk about Intellectual Property and Fair Use. While yes, there are still Cease and Desist letters sent to some creators, in general people have figured out how to deal with intellectual property. Fair Use means that if something is used 1.) noncommercially, 2.) educationally, 3.) scientifically, or 4.) historically, it's under Fair Use. Also, if you use someone else's work (or many someones), in a "Transformative" way, it's considered yours, like mixed media or satire. That's extremely subjective, and can cause a lot of problems. Many of the content sites we have now solve this by just removing the audio instead of removing the whole video - TikTok and YouTube included. Unfortunately, this is done by very stupid bots, who may pick up on music that wasn't intended to define the video. 

It's a wild west world out there when it comes to navigating things. Some creators create freely, relying on monetizing sites instead of album sales, coming out of YouTube, TikTok, and SoundCloud. They want you to share. Many people prefer to try things before they buy them, and among Gen Z it's industry standard to check something out on Spotify, Pandora, or YouTube before spending the money to add it to your iTunes. On the other hand, those trying to make a living off their art get stuck behind paywalls and might not make it because there's so much free stuff out there...some of it good. 

The good news is that, from all my personal observations, the next generation is getting behind the middle-of-the-road ideas - that you should pay artists what they deserve, that if you like a song you should buy it, and that blatant plagiarism of good content is morally objectionable. The truth is that there will always be a group of people who just don't want to pay for things, and they will find a way to get them. That's why modern downloaders are called pirates. Their namesakes have been around for centuries. We'll just have to hope the majority figure out how to get what they want and do their best.

Well, that is the last of the topics. When next we see each other, it will be with my term paper presentation, and then one last wrap-up. I leave you with a snake in a bunny hat, because the nope rope is adorable. Happy Chocolate day!

I'll be in tow!



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Stress, Harassment, and Bullying in Cyberspace

Image
     Good evening, and welcome back! So today we're going to cover stress, harassment, and bullying when it comes to the digital space. This is a major topic for today's educators, especially those who are digital immigrants and struggle to understand these problems from the perspective of the digital natives they teach.      Some of the more prevalent thought and chatter has blamed cell phones and other technology for heightened levels of stress and bullying, particularly in students. The popular thought would say, if we don't know what they're doing, they're getting into trouble. While there may be some merit to that, the issue is far more complex than "just turn it off". For instance, digital natives have naturally adapted communication styles that align with faster-paced online presence. The idea of limiting online "screen time" is not actually beneficial to adolescents in any way other than limiting access to them. ( source ) On the other ha...
Read more

Net Neutrality

Image
 Well, it's a rainy Thursday in February. Peering out the windows, the world is white noise made of water while the tree branches beat a merry tune on the building. And here we are, looking at net neutrality, a particular hot button issue over the last few years.  Let's do this in layman's terms. The internet, at least since Net 2.0, has been a constant. You pay for access to whatever provider worked best for you, but after that you could go anywhere and do anything. Welcome to the Internet, as Bo Burnham would say. But there is a significant threat to this way of doing things.  Net Neutrality is "the principle that the companies who provide access to the internet (so-called “internet service providers”, or ISPs) cannot block or throttle internet traffic, or prioritize their business partners or other favorite web sites or services." ( source ) Comcast or AT&T, for instance, can't partner with Hulu so that it has the highest speeds and then throw Netflix b...
Read more

Online Advertising

Image
Good Tuesday Morning, if there is such a thing, and welcome back! So I just got back from New Orleans and I have to say, the weather up here is not my favorite comparatively. Speaking of things that are not in my wheelhouse, let's talk about ads. More appropriately, we're talking about online advertising and marketing strategies. Now, I am good at many things. I'm an author, a minister, a crafter, an artist. I can make beautiful things with my hands and my mind. I can sing, play the piano, operate a Class B vehicle, somewhat fly a plane, rewire a house, change the oil in your car, and format a manuscript to look like it was published in New York. I can write poetry, dance, cut your hair, and reassemble machinery. I can even help you do your taxes or pass the ACT. What I cannot do is marketing.  I do not understand it. I am terrible at it. Anyone who's read my novels, whether they knew me or not, have begged me for more. Anyone who's picked up one of my handmade boxe...
Read more