QotW3: Sharing, Copyright & Creative Culture

It Is Up To Us!

To all of you reading this entry, has anyone not downloaded any piece of information or any song illegally from the internet? I guess it is almost impossible to do so. With the vast amount of information that is up on the internet, obtaining them makes it just simpler by the day. All you need is a right-click and “save target as”.

“A copyright is a set of exclusive rights granted by government for a limited time to protect the particular form, way or manner in which an idea or information is expressed. Copyright may subsist in a wide range of creative or artistics forms or "works", including literary works, movies, musical works, sound recordings, paintings, photographs, software, and industrial designs. Copyright is a type of intellectual property.” (Copyright, 2007)

The most common form of copyright today is the peer-to-peer (P2P) sharing of files; mainly MP3s. P2P is “a type of network in which each workstation has equivalent capabilities and responsibilities. This differs from client/server architectures, in which some computers are dedicated to serving the others. Peer-to-peer networks are generally simpler, but they usually do not offer the same performance under heavy loads.” (Webopedia, 2005). When an artiste releases a music album and you only like a few songs, you are definitely not going to waste about $20 buying the whole album. What is easier than downloading them in a matter of seconds, and it’s totally free! Programmes such as LimeWire and Morpheus make downloading such files really effortless.

A case study done in Canada last year states that the apparent reasons for the dip in music sales are the lenient copyright laws and the online sharing of music files. “Net music sales in the country dropped by $23.36 million, or four per cent, to $608.71 million in 2005, according to the Canadian Recording Industry Association. While sales stabilized in 2004, they've been declining steadily for almost a decade. At the same time, P2P file-swapping continues to grow.” (Chartattack, 2006). Although Canada is the seventh largest music marketing in the world with a broadband internet penetration of only 25%, the Organisation For Economic Co-operation And Development has stated it as having the highest online piracy rate for the year 2004/2005.

Ever since the evolution of Discmans into MP3 players and iPods, P2P sharing is gaining its popularity and importance in the virtual world.

The main purpose of copyright laws is to “ultimately benefit the public by promoting "the progress of science and useful arts;" that is, learning and knowledge. The means of this promotion is in the creation of laws that give creators exclusive rights to their creations for a limited time.” (Ovalle, 2005). With these copyright laws properly in place, content creators can enjoy monetary gains, which in turn serve as an impetus for them to expand their creativity. Simultaneously, we, the public benefit since these works are available to us free-of-charge once the limited time has elapsed. However, we need to bear in mind that the copyright laws are naturally intended to rule out a balance between the interests of the authors and the interests of the public.

Copyright is nothing without its limitations, and some of the well-known ones are expiration, orphan works, fair use, and parody.

Expiration, “one of the most obvious and important limitations to copyright is that it is not perpetual and expires after a set amount of time. The length of a copyright on work created during or after 1978 is the life of the author plus seventy years. For works of corporate authorship, the term is 95 years from date of publication or 120 years from date of creation, whichever is shorter.” (PlagiarismToday, 2006).

Out of the four limitations, the most exploited one would be ‘fair use’. This is because, “there is no specific number of words, lines, or notes that may safely be taken without permission.” (U.S Copyright Office, 2006). Hence, using this to their advantage, the public copy almost everything and anything.

So is there anyway for both the creators and the public to be in a win-win situation? This is something that both parties need to figure out. Although a substantial number of people have been caught illegally downloading music, millions of others have been giving the slip. Trying to grab hold of everyone is almost impossible. Thus, creators and the public should work hand-in-hand to come up with a program that will take into consideration the interests of both groups. The more you upload, the more people will try to download them!

References

1. Carlos Ovalle. “Why Copyright?” (2006) From Information In Cyberspace. Retrieved February 1, 2007 from http://sentra.ischool.utexas.edu/%7Ei312co/2.php

2. Kevin S. Brady. “Copyright FAQ: 25 Common Myths and Misconceptions” (2004) From GoldenGate Internet Services”. Retrieved February 1, 2007 from http://users.goldengate.net/%7Ekbrady/copyright.html

3. “Remix culture: a rights nightmare” (2007) From Catapult. Retrieved February 1, 2007 from http://www.abc.net.au/catapult/indepth/s1645533.htm

4. Jessica Litman. “Sharing and Stealing” (November 23, 2003) From Social Science Research Network. Retrieved February 1, 2007 from http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=472141

5. “Peer-to-Peer Architecture” (2007) From Webopedia. Retrieved February 1, 2007 form http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/p/peer_to_peer_architecture.html

6. “Internet Piracy And Lax Copyright Laws Contribute To Lower Music Sales” (March 13, 2006) From Chartattack. Retrieved February 1, 2007 from http://www.chartattack.com/damn/2006/03/1311.cfm

7. “Limitations of Copyright” (April 24, 2006) From PlagiarismToday. Retrieved February 1, 2007 from http://www.plagiarismtoday.com/your-copyrights-online/limitations-of-copyright

8. “Fair Use” (July, 2006) From Copyright: United States Copyright Office. Retrieved February 1, 2007 from http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html

9. “Copyright” (February 2, 2007) From Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, Retrieved 13:12, January 3, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright