copyrights!
This week’s reading definitely provided a tremendous amount of information about copyrights. For the most part the government has increased copyright protections over time. Most importantly though, is looking at how these laws influence historians. And how copyright laws affect digital history. While historians like everyone else, whether writing an article or creating a website, are responsible for following the law. There are many ways in which historians can use materials without violating copyright laws. In their chapter in Digital History, Cohen and Rosenzweig do an excellent job of explaining copyright laws and how the apply to historians.
I really liked Digital History’s discussion of fair use. Cohen and Rosenzweig provide a number of thoughts on the issue of fair use, but at the end of the section they provide some excellent quotes on the importance of fair use. I particularly liked the quote from the Chicago Manual of Style (last paragraph), “the right of fair use is valuable to scholarship, and it should not be allowed to decay because scholars fail to employ it boldly.” I can definitely see their point about the importance of actually using fair use. The more people exercise fair use, the more standardized it will become. Thus, expanding the rights of users. Therefore, it is important for all historians to take advantage of fair use, because doing so will aid future scholars and users.
Another interesting point that Cohen and Rosenzweig bring up is how copyright issues tend to be different for historians. As historians, generally are not concerned with people stealing money from them, after all most academic historians are not dominating the New York Times bestseller list. Rather they are concerned with others stealing their thoughts. So after reading about authors and publishers being concerned about getting their fair share, we see a better side to copyrighting, the desire to just be recognized. Which is why Cohen and Rosenzweig are rather carefree in their thoughts on copyrights and fair use. Of course this brings up the issue of recognizing ideas as copyright and the debate between creativity being necessary to warrant copyright protection.
How much is protected under fair use? While Cohen and Rosenzweig give numerous examples of what they see to be fair use, it is still interesting to think about, how much is too much? I find it sort of comical. Certainly there is a need for copyrighting. At the same time, I do not have any problem with teachers providing copies of books, handouts, or even books on a website for students. Which is why I think it’s great that Cohen and Rosenzweig followed through with their beliefs and placed their book online. With the costs of higher education continuing to rise, the cost of text books just adds to list of financial burdens on students. Yes, there are a lot of books that are fairly priced and of course you can find almost any book you need through the library. However, course packs usually cost over fifty dollars and are just a collection of crudely copied articles or chapters. How much does it cost to copy these materials? Usually less than 10 dollars at your library copy machine, not that I would know. Anyway, the point is while it is great to protect the rights of producers, the rights of users seems to be often forgotten. While the materials in course packets should be copyright protected; that does not mean it is okay to exploit students. Students must purchase course packets from the college bookstore, as they cannot be bought elsewhere. This is just not fair. If users must comply with fair use, shouldn’t publishers have to comply with fair price?
March 28th, 2006 at 4:17 pm
I really liked Cohen and Rosenzweig’s discussion of fair use, too. After posting my own blog, I began to think about how bold shows like “South Park” and “Family Guy” are in terms of poking fun at individuals and organizations. A more cautious program might want to avoid any risk of a law suit, but these shows seem to be exercising their right to use satire.
I agree with your observation that copyright issues affect historians differently. It made me think about how copyright issues affect poets–and I include myself in this category. Since there is little money to be made in poetry, poets have lots of freedom in terms of incorporating other people’s words and ideas in their poems without crediting their sources. By the same token, most practicing poets are not too concerned with others “stealing” their poetry–after all, who would profit from it?
It seems the less lucrative your own work is, the less copyright issues matter.