Swirling Greyness
Copyright, as it relates to online publishing, is a fascinating issue to study. The chapter in digital history does an excellent at explaining the basic law and also identifying the grey area in which many digital publications play. Although Phil mentioned it in his presentation about his jazz project, reading about how Scott Alexander tightrope walks along the line of copyright infringement by having streaming audio makes one seriously wonder about copyright laws and how they are enforced.
I feel that understanding the copyright for images and audio is the most difficult. I feel that almost any image I can think of is available online somewhere for free. I would have a very difficult time in determining what was copyrighted and what I should feel free to use as I wish. I would be willing to (and intend to) cite where I obtained images, but I would not pay some annual fee to have a copy of a print on my website. The court seems to reverse its own decision so often that it is difficult to keep up. Tying in some reading from another class, Martin Sklar (in the awful, horrific, sluggish book The Corporate Reconstruction of American Capitalism) writes that in American Society, laws reflect the society and change in accordance to its needs as opposed to controlling the change of society. It is a nice notion, but I am not sure how much I believe in its truth. Society, in my opinion, pushes more and more strongly for free access and rights to everything online, but powerful lobbying interest (like the RIAA) have quashed a lot of the free sharing online.
Since I am already on the subject of the RIAA and mentioned Scott Alexander earlier, audio presents a whole different problem. Even if I pay for a download from Napster so I can use it freely (as all good Napster users do), can I only stream it from my website? Can’t people record that streaming audio as well? If I have paid for the song, is it mine to use as I see fit? All of these questions swirled around my head as I read.
One thing that Cohen and Rosenzweig did not address that I think is important is the use of television clips. People always (my lifetime) have been able to record television shows and share them with their friends. Now with things like TiVo and simple computer programs and hookups, people can record television shows to their computers. Would I be able to post clips online without worry? Undoubtedly, every popular television show and many unpopular ones will release DVD box sets. Clearly copying them would be copyright infringement, but what if I have compiled my own copies from personal recordings? Confusion abounds.
March 28th, 2006 at 2:34 pm
I agree, there are a ton of areas of copyright that appear to be vague. You brought up the interesting point about what to do once we have bought mp3’s—and with television now that we have the ability to purchase epsiodes off of itunes does that stop who we can share materials with?
I’m not a big fan of streaming audio–mostly depending on your internet speed sometimes streaming just doesn’t work.
March 28th, 2006 at 4:46 pm
I agree that copyright issues are especially complex when it comes to music and video. In my opinion, this is due to the fact that the major distributors of music and video have powerful lobbying group, and these groups have been effective in limiting the public’s right to fair use.
As one who is interested in the study of film, I get really annoyed by the anti-pirating measures that distributors take when producing DVDs. If I buy a DVD, I should have the right to copy at least a small clip or a still image from the movie in order to disuss it with others. It also annoys me that, even when I buy a DVD that not too many people are likely to buy (say, a B-movie from the 1940s), I have to sit through not only the standar anti-piracy warning but also an anti-piracy commercial before getting to the main menu. Measures like this are overkill, and the organizations that take such measures are big bullies infringing upon the public’s right for the sake of a buck.