Tag Archives: copyright

Clinton Speech on Copyright

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In a recent meeting of the Creativity Conference, made up of many industries involved with copyrighted material, such as the Motion Picture association of America, former president Clinton gave a speech on the future of copyright. Many people at the talk were discussing the prospect of making copyright laws stricter to combat the growing prevalence of piracy. Clinton however, took a different approach. He instead argued that copyright should be more flexible, where original creators are protected without ruining the chances for new material to be created. In his own words, “We have to keep struggling to find the right balance between creativity, broadly and quickly shared, and as widely understood as possible, and making it reasonably profitable for people to be creatives”. It is difficult to initially say who is right in this position. We have been discussing this matter as a class throughout the semester, and it is clear that there needs to be some balance. As to what is truly balanced remains open for further debate, which we should continue to do in the remainder of our class periods.

http://thinkprogress.org/alyssa/2013/04/26/1930001/former-president-clinton-calls-for-copyright-flexibility-crowdfunding-and-creative-sustainability/?mobile=nc

Kickstarter

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For those of you who know what Kickstarter is you’ll probably agree that it is a wonderful service. For those that don’t know, Kickstarter is a service that lets anyone post their idea for a project, invention, charity, whatever on the page and then people can donate money to see the project completed, usually with prizes for donating.

Kickstarter has been great for independent filmmakers as it allows common people to overcome the biggest obstacle in making films, money. This has lead to numerous mini-series on youtube and even a few feature length productions.

Recently Zach Braff posted to Kickstarter that he wan’t money to make another film which will probably be similar to Garden State. There is controversy however because Zach Braff has money. The Argument is that people would have to pay to get the film produced and then pay more to see it. Sound’s ridiculous right?

This got me thinking about ownership to the films creative rights should it get made. Normally producers provide the money for films to get made and they are then able to make a profit off of the film because copyright law grants them a certain percentage of the ticket sales depending on how much money they provided for the film. On Kickstarter though people are providing the same function a producer would except that unlike the producer they don’t get paid from the ticket sales and probably wouldn’t get credited in the film. So even though Kickstarter has fulfilled the producer role the “Producers” aren’t getting the reward they should from performing their function in the production of the film.

 

$ from tragedy

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“With tragedy comes exploitation” form the NY Daily News

After the Boston bombings last week, one man decided to turn a profit by publishing an ebook entitled “Boston Bombing (first photos). Amazon ebook technology makes it very easy for someone to copy pictures off the internet and assemble them into a makeshift format and charge $8.

This is exactly what a man, ironically named Goldstein, decided to do with 60 images from the Associated Press, Getty, and the New York Times. Amazon was notified and removed the book from its catalogue. Bob Carey, a teacher and former National Press Photographers Association president, downloaded the book so that it could serve as an example of the misuse of copyright material for his class.

Intersection of Perfomance and Art and Performance Art

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Why pay more for a concert when you can enjoy crystal clear music in the comfort of your own home? Anyone who has ever been to a concert, mosh, or other appearance of a favorite artist will tell you the experience is everything. The concert is an entirely different product than the music recording; the musician truly becomes an artist since she works with visual as well as sound media. Such is the case with a brilliant piece by the brilliant Amanda Palmer. Watching this video, I hope you’ll notice it is not your average straight song variety. She uses Gaga’s Bad Romance in a satirical performance which comments on Gaga herself as well as performance art in general. The fact that the song is not hers only emphasizes the other elements of the show that she had to plan and create. The choreography, wardrobe, sequencing, and original spoken parts are all products of Palmer, and come together to create a unique experience which is entirely hers. In this way, live performances would operate just like books under a copyright.

The Slow Death of the American Author

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On Monday, an op-ed article in the New York Times sported this ominous title. Written by a self-acclaimed “best-selling author” Scott Turow, the article made a case that now, more than ever, authors are under attack… from everywhere. Search engines, libraries, and even scholars are on the list of threats to the American author, but none more vicious than publishing houses themselves. Their weapon of choice? E-books. The six major publishing houses insist on limiting e-book royalties to 25% of net receipts. While more renowned authors actually have some leeway with this, new and “midlist” writers have no bargaining power. Authors are finding it harder and harder to sell their books, much less publish them. The worst threat e-books (possibly) pose is stagnating the writers’ profession. Without new authors, a generation of writers will be gone.

“Basketball Game”

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Although I did not make the trip to Bucknell, I was still interested in how the big game was going to turn out. And after a bit of internet searching I came across this website on which to “watch the game.” However, the viewing of the game was not your typical online viewing of a sport event. This website set up an animated basketball court with faceless, ghost like players that only appeared when a team was about to take a shot. There was no inbetween interaction among players. Needless to say it was very boring and not at all like watching the game online, let alone in person. Why was this allowed under copyright laws? If this was my first online viewing of a sport event, I would never again watch sports online; it was terrible. Completely changing the experience of the event, watching from this website did not do the game justice one bit. By only streaming the basketball game on CBS and abiding by copyright laws, it forced a majority of online viewers to stoop to watching this butchered version of the patriot league final. This is yet another instance of copyright letting us all down, harming instead of helping.

Blog Prompt – The Pirate Bay

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Recently, a situation arose in Europe involving the Pirate Bay, a website known for redistributing materials without regarding copyrights or authorship. A Swedish court had ruled that the website was guilty of making copyrighted work freely available without consulting the original authors. The result was a fine of 3.3 million euros. The founders of the website tried to have the European Court of Human Rights re-examine the case, claiming that the ruling was in violation of free-speech. However, this request was denied, with the reason being that the ruling in Sweden had already settled the matter. This relates to what has been discussed in class recently, specifically in Copyright’s Highway. Truly, the founders of the website were at fault here. Freedom of expression does not allow for the stealing of ideas.

http://rt.com/news/pirate-bay-case-rejected-strasbourg-240/

The Legacy of SOPA

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Though it may be an old issue, I think the would-be Congressional laws SOPA and PIPA have raised questions about how best to protect copyright. Surely these acts are dead, but corporations like the Motion Picture Association of America still need to find new ways to protect their economic interests in copyrights. Since most piracy online comes from independent users, a direct approach to monitoring and punishing offenders would be impossible. Instead, copyright laws attack the bigger, more visible targets. For example, SOPA would have shut down an entire site if it had been found to possess copyrighted material illegally (even though the users were responsible for putting that content on the site). With this maneuver out of the picture, it looks like copyright owners are going after internet service providers. One plan calls for providers to slow down internet speed or even cut service entirely from repeat offenders.

Another interesting part of this article: It looks like Google has changed its algorithm to force copyrighted material into low priority on searches. If I can’t find copyrighted material, I guess I won’t be able to infringe it. This caught my attention because Google was one of many sites to black out for a day in protest of SOPA. To see them now compromising with those who would have loved to see the act pass seems hypocritical.

Copyright School

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After watching the youtube videos in class on tuesday, I became curious about YouTube’s copyright policies. I have seen videos taken down before because of copyright infringement, but never really thought about what happened to the YouTube user who put the content up. According to an article on Politico, If a Youtube recieves a copyright notification about a user’s video then not only will the the video be blocks but the user will have to complete “YouTube Copyright School”.

What is “YouTube Copyright School”? This video:

Not surprisingly this video has over 3 million views. It has a lot of down ratings and comments have been disabled. After you watch the video you have to pass a quiz to prove that you understand copyright law. If you pass the quiz then you can remove the strike from your account.

What do you think of YouTube Copyright School? Is it the right approach?

 

Patents

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There seem to be three categories of intellectual property, as far as the law is concerned. Copyright is a law of authorship, trademark concerns commercial ventures, and patent law protects inventions. I have already blogged a lot about copyright, and once about trademarks, so let’s give patents a share. The Constitution requires that the government promote the sciences by a way we have since adopted as patents. In a similar way, copyright also encourages creation of the arts by offering many benefits to being a creator.  Unlike copyrights, however, a patent cannot logically forbid anyone from using a copy of the patented product. Inventions are meant to be used by the public, or by a manufacturer depending on what the invention is. Patents are perhaps less restricting elements than copyright; it protects royalties and such for the inventor, but it does little to limit the exchange of the invention. After all, even more than copyrighted materials or trademarks, patented inventions are meant to be used for the public good.