Bianca's Posts

The focus of my following posts will be around the topic of intellectual property. I'll be looking at how the free trade of ideas and media on the internet is changing the perceptions of "ownership" and "originality".

Creative Freedom Vs Copyright Law

As we become more immersed in the digital age, it’s no surprise that the way many view the Internet have changed over time. When the Internet was released for public use in 1995, it was viewed by some as a magical contraption that would change the way humans interacted. A lot of those people were right, but the changes were not as they had originally imagined. While the Internet has indeed changed the way people now communicate, with statistics showing that in “2007 more than 97% of all telecommunicated information was carried over the Internet” (Wikipedia 2011) all of the changes are not necessarily beneficial changes for everyone. Furthermore, many of these changes give rise to sticky questions associated with ownership of digital property.


With the increase of the use of the Internet it has become much easier to share media such as images, audio and video content. This may sound great to the creative arts communities, but this boundless freedom to share content quickly and easily does come with some perils. One of those perils is the conflict between copyright infringement and artistic freedom in all its forms. Lawrence Lessig’s book Code Version 2.0, which you can read online here: http://codev2.cc/download+remix/Lessig-Codev2.pdf; discusses these ideas in length, and is actually well worth the read if you have the time on your hands. His book explores the ideas related to the development of the Internet in an entertaining manner (no dry, dusty, boring writing that puts you to sleep here!). The particular chapter I will discuss though will be Chapter 10: Intellectual Property (pages 184 - 214). While Lessig’s discussion of intellectual property in this chapter is focused primarily around American laws, what he has to say still relates to the issue here in Australia.
The first gem I want to discuss from Lessig’s book is that ideas are “nonrivalrous”. This means that if I take an idea you have and build on it or change it in some way; it does not affect your ability to use or have that idea again. “Ideas, at their core, can be shared with no reduction in intellectual property” (Lessig 2006). Lessig goes on to point out that just because an idea is shared, it in no way lessens the original idea. This brings about some interesting ideas. If by sharing ideas, the author or their original idea is in no way lessened, then why shouldn’t content be freely shared? Why all this fuss about copyright? Shouldn’t all intellectual property just be free to everyone to do with as they want? It’s just plain greedy for corporations to insist in copyright laws that restrict use of intellectual property some might say. Lessig is aware of this particular perspective, but points out why this is an unrealistic viewpoint by giving an example of an author; if you just stole the author’s books, then what motivation would they have to write another book? It’s unrealistic that there is absolutely no copyright on intellectual property, and it’s too restrictive to have copyright laws that disallow people to remix or recreate existing material into new forms of media, so where does the balance lay?


One solution Lessig (2006) offers is the “fair use” - or “fair dealing” in Australia – practice which allows people to use sections (10% or less) of a given text without the permission of the author if it is to be used for “research or study, criticism or review, reporting of news, giving of professional advice by a lawyer or a patent or trade marks attorney, or parody and satire.” (Branch Head, Copyright and Classification Policy, 2009). Seems pretty straight forward doesn’t it? But Lessig raises another interesting idea to mull over. “Fair use inherently requires a judgement about purpose, or intent.” (Lessig, 2006). This raises the following questions: who makes these judgements to decide if the portion of original work has been used appropriately? How do we judge if an item has fitted the purpose or intent appropriately? It seems the simple answer to this question is the law courts. But as Lessig (2006) points out in his chapter, in general in the past, the law has turned a blind eye to the activities of the common person in regards to the use of copyright material. It has only been with the development of technologies that have allowed people to swiftly, easily and anonymously exchange media via the Internet that the law has begun to take a closer look at the activities of the common person, or as Lessig (2006) refers to them as “amateur culture”.


The freedoms gained by the development of new technologies have allowed amateur culture creativity to bloom. In a way you could say that the freedoms of digital technology have allowed amateur culture to analyse society, comment on it in creative ways and to remake or reforge our original ideas about the way the world works. Remixes, AMV’s (anime music videos) Machinima are but a few examples of how amateur culture is taking existing materials and reforging them into new and interesting ways, and it’s obvious that these forms of cultural commentary are becoming quite prolific. A simple search of YouTube is enough to demonstrate this. Searching for “mashups” turned up 44,700 results and searching “AMV” turned up an amazing 1,000,000 results! Even if you take into account some videos that may have slipped into these categories accidentally; that’s still a large number of videos all produced by amateur culture. If you’ve never been exposed to AMV’s or Machinima then take a quick peek at the videos I’ve linked below...

The video above is great example of an AMV: notice how the images have all been choreographed to the lyrics and music?

Below are some examples of Machinima...

This is a long and sophisticated example of Machinima. The video content is taken from the video game World of Warcraft and stitched together with music and voice elements.

This example is shorter and not as sophisticated as the previous example, but it still uses video content from a video game – Lord of the Rings Online in this example – and mixes it with music and text in order to tell a story.

A cool example of a mashup...

This is a pretty clever mashup. It takes the comedy film “Uncle Buck” and remakes it into a horror film.

Remixing...

Girl Talk, a famous remixer talks about remix culture and shows us remixing works.

These genres of art work don’t fall under the banner of “fair dealing” however, and so due to the video and audio sampling included in them, the authors of these videos become exposed to law suits for copyright infringement. “How do we guarantee free thought when the push is to propertize every idea?” Lessig (2006) asks, and it’s an interesting idea to consider. Should the authors of AMV’s, mashups, Machinima and remixes be prosecuted? Or does copyright law need to add another condition to its code that excludes amateur culture from prosecution as long as the material produced is primarily for entertainment or artistic value? Are our existing laws even up-to-date with today’s swiftly changing attitudes, values and beliefs brought about by exposure to ever new digital technology.
I’m no expert on the law, but it’s clear that changes need to be made to existing laws if we want to encourage the youth of today to continue to be part of a participatory society. I’ll leave you with one last quote from Lessig’s book that raises an interesting question for us all to ponder... “Because of the changes in digital technology, it is now possible for the law to regulate every single use of creative work in a digital environment…Is this consistent with our values?”


-Bianca Muoio

References

Branch Head, Copyright and Classification Policy. (2009, August 27). Australian Government Attorney-General's Department. Retrieved October 23, 2011, from Are there any exceptions to infringement: http://www.ag.gov.au/www/agd/agd.nsf/Page/Copyright_Copyrightquestions_Arethereanyexceptionstoinfringement
dyfrighuw. (2009, December 20). LotRO: The Story of Merddin. Retrieved October 20, 2011, from YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_iLK11rAKyw
HeardYouLikeAMVs. (2010, July 1). AMV- Around the World. Retrieved October 23, 2011, from Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfOWz_RJBz8
Lessig, L. (2006). Code version 2.0. New York: Basic Books.
Myndflame. (2006, March 13). Illegal Danish - Super Snacks. Retrieved October 20, 2011, from YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y25XCwOBSUQ
slizouch (2006, September 6) Uncle Buck Horror Movie Trailer Retrieved October 19 2011 from YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=kvkhvUzYKEI
5uperflyguy (2008, October 27) Girl Talk on the process of remixing culture. Retrieved: October 25,2011 from Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlPkIS-uNMk&feature=related
Wikipedia. (2011, October 21). History of the Internet. Retrieved October 23, 2011, from wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Internet

Sample this!

The article "Sample this! Authors say use of fair use is growing" examines the changing attitudes and laws surrounding remix culture and copyright laws. While this article does focus primarily on American copyright law and “fair use” – “fair dealing” in Australia – the article does raise a few important points relevant to all. The use of remixes and mashups is becoming a more frequent occurrence on mainstream TV as the mediums become a part of popular culture. They are most frequently seen as forms of parody or satire.


“America’s most acclaimed satirists turn out to also be our most powerful exploiters of “fair use,” the legal loophole that permits use of copyrighted works without the onerous and often expensive process of rights clearance” (Barnhart 2011) is actually not very accurate. Barnhart uses words like “loophole” and “exploit” to suggest that what TV shows like “The Daily Show” are doing is border-line illegal due to its use of copyrighted material. However, these shows are well within their rights to use small snippets of copyrighted material as long they continue to use the content for parody or satire. Barnhart (2011) does have a point however, when he says that many shows fail to offer the simple courtesy of mentioning where the original content came from. Perhaps fewer authors would be so annoyed if they were given some credit for the use of their work.

"Fair use on the rise: a timeline". Taken from here.


At the very end of the article Barnhart (2011) lists a timeline (that you can see above) that outlines the rise of fair use, the last two entries being the most interesting: “2008: The Copyright Office greatly expands the fair-use rights of librarians, scholars and digital artists.” and “2010: A court throws out Viacom’s $1 billion suit against YouTube for letting users post copyrighted videos online.” The 2008 entry is certainly good news for educators. If you do a bit more reading on the 2010 entry (here’s one article on it) you find out that the Viacom comment is a bit misleading. If you took Barnhart’s words at face value you might think that Viacom’s suit was thrown out of court due to changing attitudes towards copyright and fair use. However, after reading a little on the issue you find out that they tampered with videos posted on YouTube and other such cheap tactics in order to make YouTube look guilty.

References

Barnhart, A (2011) Sample this! Authors say use of fair use is growing. The Kansas City Star http://www.kansascity.com/2011/09/19/3153835/sample-this-show-authors-say-use.html
Lardenois, F. (2010) Judge Throws Out $1 Billion Copyright Suit Against YouTube. Read Write Web. http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/youtube_wins_case_against_viacom.php

How the Creative Commons is Changing Culture

Just when you thought that creativity had been strangled by the restrictive, complex and often confusing copyright laws of today, the Creative Commons comes to the rescue. This video outlines the achievements of the Creative Commons and how it provides alternatives to “stealing” copyrighted content for use in remixes, mashups and other artistic activities.


The growth of the use of Creative Commons by not just artists, but also professionals such as the CEO of Amazon.com show how the CCs are being embraced by more than simply the artistic communities on the Net. The CCs are becoming a tool that can help all kinds of people share their ideas and media online free to reuse for non-commercial purposes. It’s quite an exciting idea when you think about it – the free exchange between people scattered across the globe. Imagine what might come of such global collaborations!


Another exciting development for the CCs is that sampling licences can now be found on the CCs. The interesting thing about this new tool is that the sampling licences allow artists to use media found on the CCs - as long as it is only a portion of the original – in their remixes for both non-profit and commercial purposes.


While the CCs may not be the complete answer to the restrictions caused by the CopyRight, it’s a pathway that is helping people “free their work...so that it can travel freely across borders” (jeffreymcneill 2008). A great example of this is MIT and Rice University releasing their coursework online for free! Free university coursework alone sounds pretty exciting, but the interesting thing was that an academic program in Vietnam then translated MIT’s coursework and used it to teach the program there, making the knowledge available to people who would ordinarily never have access to it.


“The rules have changed, and it’s just the beginning” (jeffreymcneill 2008).

References

Jeffreymcneill (2008, June 20) Creative Commons Remix Culture. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIUonSEFbRg&feature=related Retrieved: 19th October 2011.

Times they are a Changin'

The days of chalk and talk are well behind as educators.  Some teachers may reminisce with fondness the days when students sat quietly and copied off the board, but if those teachers were really honest with themselves they would admit that “the good old days” were “good” for them and not their students. 

With the development of new technologies every day, new skills and teaching opportunities open up daily for educators. This has its good and its bad points.  Does it mean that as educators we should be learning new skills every day in order to keep up to developing technology? In some respects it does; which is an idea that probably scares quite a few teachers who are already quite resistant to new technology. But this time of swift change also brings along new and exciting opportunities for educators (look at this for a great example of this, I wish I worked in this school!).

Only recently I decided to personally try to “digitalise up” my classroom.  Since my grade 11 English class all has laptops I started with them. Traditionally, the subject English hasn’t had much to do with technology in my school, as I imagine would be common in a lot of schools in Queensland, so I was interested to see how my class would react to the task. I started by making their coursework for that term as a form of webquest instead of the traditional sheets and writing on the board (You can find the site I made for this exercise here). At first there were mixed reactions.  Some students were resistant to this new form of teaching. When was I going to just tell them the answers? What if they were doing it wrong? They were in grade 11, didn’t I know it was wrong to screw around and waste their time! I should just get back to the “real teaching” they cried; which quite frankly surprised me. I asked them what they thought “real teaching” was. They told me it was where I stood at the front of the class and told them things and they wrote it down so that they could write the correct answers in their essays. I asked them what were these “correct answers" and how did they know they were correct? They informed me the correct answers were whatever I wanted to hear, that’s how you get the highest marks after all isn’t it? To repeat what the teacher wants to hear. I guess I shouldn’t really have been shocked by such an answer, after all I had known teachers like that when I was at school. Hearing this from my grade 11’s – students who I thought by this age should have been questioning everything made me even more determined to continue with my plan.

Over the coming weeks my class and I learnt a lot.  The complaints didn’t stop – I won’t lie – but they did change in nature.  There wasn’t the “why won’t you just tell me the answer??” cries as much but rather “why won’t this stupid computer do what I want it to”.  By the time we got to the final assessment which was a feature article, the students were all keen to have a try at making their own websites on Wix (which led to a campaign on my part to get the website temporarily unblocked by Ed. Qld. When it was blocked mid-way through the project) so despite that we only had a couple of weeks to do it we gave it a try.  Not all the websites got finished, but (I couldn’t convince my HOD to let the students receive grades on their websites as well as their feature articles anyway) the students all agreed that the process of trying to make one was reward in itself (if you want to see some of them go here).

Since then the value of digital pedagogies has become something I value in my teaching. It’s so obvious how much the students enjoy tinkering with new technology and how much both them and myself learn from the process.  The other day my  grade 11 English class and I tinkered with bubbl.us to make a mindmap for major themes in One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest.  I hadn’t used the program previously, so we all learnt together. There were a lot of cries of “Oooo, look what I just did!” and “Wow, mine looks awesome! It’s much better than YOUR mindmap”. It really was incredibly rewarding to wander around the class and see all of the students engaged and having fun doing such a simple task. 

 Bubbl.us - making mind maps awesome!

Since I’d had such success with my grade 11 class, I decided to branch out into my grade 9 English class.  Their current assessment piece is to create an infomercial. They had the option to present it as a speech or to film it. After talking up the idea of filming and editing the film 99% of my grade 9 English class decided to film it.  We’ve had tons of fun filming, and editing the video content.  Students who up to that point told me the most they had to do with computers was to use word or PowerPoint are now using programs like HandBrake to  convert video files, Windows Movie Maker Live to edit their films and Prezi to make animated slide presentations to then be edited into their films. The best thing of all? I had a student tell me the other day that they couldn’t wait to come to English to work on their infomercial. A student eagerly wanting to come to English to do work! It’s not often you hear those words.

While I agree that the use of technology can have its downfalls such as cyber-bullying and misuse of technology, the benefits far outweigh the negatives in my opinion. The Internet and digital devices hold so many exciting new possibilities for educators. I’m happy to be a teacher in this “digital age”.