Friday’s Endnotes – 03/26/21

By , March 26, 2021.

A Collective Made NFTs of Masterpieces Without Telling the Museums That Owned the Originals. Was It a Digital Art Heist or Fair Game? — “By minting versions of historic works of art [in the public domain] on the blockchain, Global Art Museum was ostensibly creating a new way to own masterpieces housed in some of the world’s most famous institutions. On OpenSea, the company listed digital files of artworks from the Rijksmuseum, the Art Institute of Chicago, the UK’s Birmingham Museums, and the Cleveland Museum of Art. The gems of each museum’s collection appeared: Woman in Blue Reading a Letter by Johannes Vermeer, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte by Georges Seurat, George Washington at the Battle of Princeton by Charles. The backlash was immediate.”

Houdini and the Magic of Copyright — “Magicians do not always reveal their tricks, even when they register their copyright claims. The legendary Hungarian immigrant Harry Houdini registered three of his famous illusions as “playlets,” or short plays, with the U.S. Copyright Office between 1911 and 1914. The playlets were registered as dramatic compositions, which have been eligible for copyright protection since 1856. Houdini’s deposited playlet scripts are now held within the Reader’s Collection, Library of Congress Copyright Office Drama Deposits.”

Court Hears Arguments in Canadian Pirate Site Blocking Appeal — “[Internet Service Provider] TekSavvy went up against major media companies including Bell and Rogers in Canada’s Federal Court of Appeal this week. The Court, which has to decide whether the country’s first pirate site blocking order can stay in place, heard arguments from both sides and intervening parties including the Canadian domain name registry.”

Throwing Good Money After Bad: How Canadian Universities Wasted Millions by Not Securing a Copyright Licence — “Beginning May 21, the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) will hold initial hearings in the cross appeal by York University and The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright) of a recent decision by the Federal Court of Appeal (FCA) in this long-running case. York is contesting the Appeal Court’s decision upholding the 2017 ruling of the Federal Court that York’s fair dealing guidelines failed to prevent—indeed tolerated if not encouraged—infringement of copyright. For its part, Access Copyright is appealing the FCA’s ruling that the ‘mandatory tariffs’ certified by the Copyright Board of Canada for the use of any material in its repertoire by unlicensed users are not, in fact, mandatory, allowing York to opt-out and not pay the certified tariff despite making widespread unlicensed copies of published works.”

Friday’s Endnotes – 05/02/14

By , May 02, 2014.

The Internet and IP Rights: Friends or Foes? — Check out this video of law prof Adam Mossoff at the Hudson Institute this week discussing the intersection between the internet and intellectual property rights like copyright, patent, and trademark.

Aereo at the Supreme Court: Ruling for Broadcasters Won’t Harm Cloud Computing — “Delivering on-demand streaming of copyrighted programming for a fee is the quintessential public performance. The fact that Aereo streams broadcasters’ content over the Internet after pulling it down through thousands of small antennas that make thousands of user-specific copies is irrelevant. Aereo’s retransmission of this content is what matters. Indeed, that is what Aereo does.”

Aereo impacts all creators, not just broadcasters — Speaking of Aereo, over at the Copyright Alliance site, I expand upon a point I made during a panel on Aereo at last week’s Fordham IP Conference. That is, while there are many side issues in the case, the one the Supreme Court is tasked with resolving has to do with the public performance right, which affects all copyright owners. That fact has gone largely ignored.

WIPO issues study on voluntary copyright relinquishment and open licensing — The report looks at the ability of creators to dedicate their work to the public domain in nine different jurisdictions around the world.

Why I Teach Plato to Plumbers — “Why shouldn’t educational institutions predominately offer classes like Business Calculus and Algebra for Nurses? Why should anyone but hobbyists and the occasional specialist take courses in astronomy, human evolution, or economic history? So, what good, if any, is the study of the liberal arts, particularly subjects like philosophy? Why, in short, should plumbers study Plato?”

Friday’s Endnotes – 01/17/14

By , January 17, 2014.

The Jenna Marbles Paradox: Why are YouTube Videos so Terrible? — “When content is 100 percent advertising supported and there is no paid subscription component, the quality of the content never rises above mediocre. The content may be cute, it may be controversial, it may generate lots of clicks but it will rarely, if ever, be good… In other words, Generation C and the rest of the watching public are being shortchanged because their entertainers are motivated by bad incentives.”

How Technology Killed the Future — Media theorist Douglas Rushkoff discusses “present shock,” where the exponential amplification of the now by digital technology has drowned out context and progress. “Terror and rage replace our ideological goals; we end up reacting only to the latest crisis. And, because of what we can find (and what we can say) on the Internet, we react with a false confidence in our command of the facts. Just because we can all blog in the same size font doesn’t mean all of our opinions are equally valid or informed.”

Chaos and Growing Expense… all for a $13 Refund — After the school cancelled its relationship with educational licensor Access Canada, students at the University of Toronto got access to a lot less materials, with far more headaches, and Canadian authors and publishers lose the ability to be compensated for their work. But, according to the U of T’s student newspaper, at least students save $13 a year.

Design Pirate Cody Foster Threatens Whistleblower — Talk about pushing your luck. The admin of a Flickr account who posts catalog photos of Cody Foster products alongside pictures of the original designs that Cody Foster allegedly copied, without permission, received a cease and desist from Cody Foster for posting the catalog photos without permission.

The Siren Song of Efficiency in Music Licensing — Bartlett Cleland on the danger of letting “efficiency” override the fundamental economic principles of copyright. “Think of it this way: Property development could be more efficient if they did not need to worry about whose property they wanted to build on. They could identify the very best place for their development and break ground. But most of us understand how damaging such an approach would be to property rights, and hence to the economy. Intellectual property is no different.”

Kids and Kopyright

By , November 08, 2010.

Media Law Prof Blog points out a recent paper that examines the attitudes and beliefs of youngsters about copyright: Youth, Creativity, and Copyright in the Digital Age, by John Palfrey, Urs Gasser, Miriam Simun, and Rosalie Fay Barnes. The abstract reads:

New digital networked technologies enable users to participate in the consumption, distribution, and creation of content in ways that are revolutionary for both culture and industry. As a result, “Digital Natives” — young people growing up in the digital world with access to the technologies and the skills to use them in sophisticated ways — are now confronting copyright law on a regular basis. This article presents qualitative research conducted with students age 12-22 that explores youth understanding, attitudes, and discourse on the topic of digital creativity and copyright law. Our findings suggest that young people operate in the digital realm overwhelmingly ignorant of the rights, and to a lesser degree the restrictions, established in copyright law. They often engage in unlawful behavior, such as illegal peer-to-peer music downloading, yet they nevertheless demonstrate an interest in the rights and livelihoods of creators. Building upon our findings of the disconnect between technical, legal, and social norms as pertaining to copyright law, we present the initial stages of the development of an educational intervention that posits students as creators: the Creative Rights copyright curriculum. Educating youth about copyright law is important for empowering young people as actors in society, both in terms of their ability to contribute to cultural knowledge with creative practices and to engage with the laws that govern society.

The paper is worth reading and should prove valuable to other scholars and commentators for its research. The conclusions of the authors shouldn’t be too surprising to many of you, but it is useful to have confirmation of the assumptions of attitudes about copyright law among young people. In addition, the authors provide quite a few interesting quotations from “Digital Natives” which adds depth to the qualitative findings.

Among other things, the researchers found that confusion about copyright starts with the very basics: what does copyright ‘mean’? “Many of the young people we spoke to confused copyright with notions of plagiarism or patent protections; for example, one high school student wrote: ‘[copyright is] protected by law so you can’t steal ideas.'” Anyone familiar with copyright law won’t be surprised by that finding, as conflation of copyright with patents or plagiarism persists in any age group. 1Though it is interesting to note that some of the youngsters seem to have a firmer grasp of secondary liability than grown-ups: said one high school student interviewed in the article, “if the government has a problem with people stealing music, why don’t you shut down LimeWire? Why are you going after people downloading from the site?”

Perhaps the confusion between copyright infringement and plagiarism — issues that are distinct but overlap — isn’t really a big deal. Of greater concern is the increased number of the younger generation who see nothing wrong with copyright infringement or plagiarism. As Jonathan Bailey has pointed out, the number of students who view plagiarism as “serious cheating” has decreased in the past decade.

Along with the basics, confusion over copyright specifics is prevalent in younger generations too. Again, this shouldn’t come as a surprise since such confusion is prevalent among the population as a whole. Last week, a minor scandal arose on the internet after an exchange between a writer and the editor of Cooks Source magazine after the writer discovered the magazine had reprinted one of her articles without permission. 2Vega, Tanzina, A Social Media Firestorm About Apple Pies, New York Times, Nov 4, 2010. In a rather condescending reply, the editor, although claiming over three decades experience in the publishing industry, incorrectly told the author that “the web is considered ‘public domain.'”

The authors present several ideas for increasing copyright literacy among “Digital Natives.” One of the challenges of copyright education is the disconnect between the law and what is considered socially acceptable behavior. The ease with which content can be distributed and accessed online, even on legitimate services like YouTube adds to the challenge of helping young internet users distinguish between what types of uses are allowed and what types of uses are not.

However, the authors note that the focus of any copyright curriculum should not lie solely on copyright as mere restrictions and prohibitions. More important is educating students about copyright’s goals and purposes of encouraging creativity and art. Showing how copyright protection helps artists, and how “Digital Natives” can work within the copyright system to become the next generation of creators, will achieve more than presenting copyright as a set of rules aimed at punishing young people.

Although the authors of this article show some skepticism toward industry copyright education efforts, I’d like to point them out. The RIAA has a section devoted to tools for educators on its web site, with different programs for elementary, high school, and university students. The Copyright Alliance Education Foundation presents a comprehensive array of related educational programs for teaching copyright to young people, as well as educators themselves, on its site.

I agree about the need for increased copyright literacy among young people, whatever the approach. I believe, however, as pointed out in a previous post, that there is an even greater need for increasing literacy about the law in general — and not just for young people.

References

References
↑1 Though it is interesting to note that some of the youngsters seem to have a firmer grasp of secondary liability than grown-ups: said one high school student interviewed in the article, “if the government has a problem with people stealing music, why don’t you shut down LimeWire? Why are you going after people downloading from the site?”
↑2 Vega, Tanzina, A Social Media Firestorm About Apple Pies, New York Times, Nov 4, 2010.