More on Copyright: Protecting Innovation

27 Mar

Posted by Agnes Varnum as Policy, Technology

My time working with the Center for Social Media included many discussions with lawyers. What any lawyer will tell you about copyright law is that it was actually implemented to protect innovation! The idea was that you give innovators a period of time to make money off of their work and they will thus be able to create more. Fair use is an exception to that bundle of rights that allows quoting, etc. when necessary to make new work. And the law specifically exempts ideas and facts from protection so that many people with the same ideas and facts can go out an make lots of new things.

The terms of copyright protection were short and required registration and renewal, but over the years, corporate interests have led to extentions in terms beyond reasonable lifetimes, elimination of renewal requirements, etc. They continue their assault by suing or threatening to sue anyone and everyone. Documentary filmmakers understand this state of affairs and have claimed that it hurts production of new work, skews how our history is shown in our media, as well as how our reality is viewed when there is the near constant need to edit out copyrighted material from taped reality.

Media artists should know that the battle over copyright doesn’t end at media. There is an eye-opening article in Business Week about how the invention of new technology has been stemmed because of fears of litigation. What kind of technology do you not have because content owners threaten new business ventures? FAIR USE: Protecting Innovation by Gary Shapiro.

Tags: Policy, Technology

2 Responses

Agnes Varnum

March 29th, 2007 at 8:59 pm
1

That’s great Chris. I’m sure there are educators reading this who will be interested. This is a continuation of the work I’ve been doing, and I’m so glad that Temple is involved. Thanks for sharing it!
Chris Boulton

April 12th, 2007 at 10:58 am
2

Hi Agnes!

As you know, Fair Use is also important for educators, at all levels. In that spritit, I wanted to let your readers know about an exciting opportunity for one lucky academic to study this stuff in depth:

TEMPLE UNIVERSITY POST-DOCTORAL RESEARCH FELLOWSHIP
The Temple University Media Education Lab is seeking a research fellow for the 2007-2008 academic year to collaborate on research related to copyright and fair use issues related to media literacy educators.

The research fellow would work collaboratively with faculty at the Media Education Lab and the Center for Social Media at American University on the preparation of research reports based on extensive interview data with media literacy educators. The research fellow will also contribute to the development of publications for scholarly, peer-reviewed journals. This opportunity would be ideal for an individual with interests in law and policy, K-12 education, media studies and media literacy. PhD in media studies, education or sociology preferred. Salary: $40,000 plus benefits

Please send resume, writing sample, and names of three references to: Professor Renee Hobbs, Temple University School of Communications and Theater, Media Education Lab,1A Annenberg Hall, Philadelphia PA 19122. Application Deadline: June 15, 2006.