mdst_110 / 2007_fall / week_6


"y'all can't copyright no beats man. yo chuck is they crazy man?"
public enemy, "caught, can i get a witness?" (0.52-1.38)
from it takes a nation of millions to hold us back (1988)



agenda

keywords

berne convention, copyright, copyleft, derivative work, digerati, digital rights management, fair use, intellectual property, moral rights, patent, public domain, trademark, trade secret, copyright act of 1976; us code: title 17-copyrights


questions from lecture

1. why does siva oppose "the digital world" to "the real world"? what might make for a better opposition to "the digital world"?
2. which makes for the bigger cultural/economic/social paradigm shift: manuscript culture to print culture, or print culture to digital culture?
3. the us did not sign the berne convention until it became a "net exporter" of copyrighted works. however, the us did not sign the treaty until the late 1980s. if american culture had been exported worldwide since at least wwii, what was the wait for?
4. many companies choose not to enforce the copyright/patent rights that they possess because they see greater gains letting other companies use them. what implications does this have on the legal process of copyright enforcement? does it weaken the system?
5. do mlb and the nba deserve copyright protection for the use of their stats and scores? are the events of a baseball or basketball game better construed as facts or dramatic details?

questions from readings

siva vaidhyanathan, copyrights and copywrongs: the rise of intellectual property and how it threatens creativity

1. one of the first few pages of copyrights and copywrongs reads "© 2001 by new york university." what possible copyright issues exist now that large sections of the book have been made available to us free of charge?
2. do you favor 'thick' copyright protection or 'thin' copyright protection? what seems like a reasonable term for copyright: 14 years? 28 years? 75 years? 95 years? anyone want to abolish copyright altogether? can you see copyright being extended even further? how would "eternal copyright" change the way artists create new works?
3. do copyrights work to encourage new ideas, or do they restrict what an artist can do?
4. "...the law now protects the producers and taxes consumers. it rewards works already created and limits works yet to be created. the law has lost its mission, and the american people have lost control of it" (4). do you agree with this statement? do you foresee this situation improving or getting worse with future innovations? author, public, or publisher: whose immediate interests should copyright law favor?
5. should there be a distinction between individual and corporate authorship rights?
6. what do you think of the notions of authorship suggested by barthes and foucault?
7. should the principle of copyright generally, and fair use specifically, be subject to modifications to reflect the digital moment? if so, how should things change?
8. do you think that authors should retain moral rights over their work? do you think that copyright priviliges to extend to relatives or other appointed inheritors after the author's death?
9. does a distinctive rendition suggest as much artistry and originality as a distinctive composition, or is the latter somehow superior to the former? does the latter deserve more copyright protection than the former?
10. do you believe the public sphere to be sufficiently robust to effect change in the domain of copyright law?
11. after the last few harry potter books were released, children in various european countries have gotten in trouble for translating a copy of the novel from one language to their native country's and posting it online before a print version in their tongue was published. were they ethically justified in doing so? was the copyright holder justified in suppressing them?
12. how do patent, trademark, copyright, and trade secret laws affect your everyday life?
13. is copyright legislation too subjective (think: fair use)? is there any way to arrive at a more objective set of standards?
14. what are the ethical implications of making an idea public domain?

miscellaneous questions

1. after a patent has expired, and other companies are allowed to produce "generic" products that serve the same purpose, would you as a consumer find yourself purchasing the name brand or the cheaper, generic version?
2. what role does the black market have on media industries such as films, computer software, and music? do you think that the black market will eventually destroy these industries as more and more people use peer-to-peer networks? what are the implications for the economy and on creativity?