Copyrights and Copywrongs

With so much changing in the digital world, it is important to understand your rights and responsibilities as well possible issues and restrictions, especially in terms of intellectual property. It is the duty of educators to modernize practice and to make sure students learn the proper laws and techniques, encouraging creativity while protecting the students’ work and the work of others.

Ransley in her TEDx Talk (2011) described how the Statue of Anne, 300 years ago, paved the ground for what we know today as the Copyright. The Statute of Anne gave authors the ability to control the distribution of their own work, who up to this point had been under the control of the publishers. The Statute allowed writers to better profit from their own intellectual property.

As an aside, it seems interesting how much of the modern music industry has reverted in that sense, where big labels are contracting the intellectual property away from singers and songwriters, into their own profit, leaving the musicians out to dry. Current examples are singer-songwriter Kesha going to court (Coscarelli, 2016) against her manager and Sony, and Taylor Swift re-recording her entire collection of works to gain the ownership of her own work (Tsioulcas, 2019). Up to this point, Ms. Swift’s music belonged to record companies, but her recently released album Lover (which I love…) was the first song she released that she owned herself. Taylor cited in an interview on Good Morning America (2019) that she thinks that “artists deserve to own their work.” Is the Copyright Office doing their job properly if these artist feel restricted from creating more material because of manipulative contracts by record companies? It seems the industry could use a refresher on the Statute of Anne.

Ransley continued to discuss in her TEDx Talk (2016), about how the internet can be defined as “all things, to all men, at all times,” citing how most ideas online are essentially copied. As such, leaders must make sure the proper sources receive credit, and at the same time are providing the opportunity to create.

So much change has occurred in the last 20 years, that there are many debates and reflection of modern practice when it comes to the protection and distribution of digital intellectual property. Even though copyrighting has been enforced since the 1800’s, the rise of the digital age has necessitate change such as the fair use act and more recently, creative commons. Examples of debates that are occuring due to expanding technology are Tepp and Oman’s (2015) white paper discussing the Hudson Institute’s proposal to separate the Copyright Office from the Library of Congress, and Ohler’s (2014) approach to digital ethics and the expectations of sharing material.

Digital media is mandating change in the way material is shared. As educators, it is important to keep up-to-date with proper practice, while remembering the original intent of copyrighting. Often governments and laws are slow to change, so it will be interesting to see who the agents of change will be for the digital world.

References

Coscarelli, J. (2016). New York Times. Kesha Went to Court Against Dr. Luke. Now, the Tables Are Turned. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/22/arts/music/kesha-dr-luke-lawsuit.html

Good Morning America. (2019). Taylor Swift says she'll re-record her old albums | Live on GMA. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=249&v=ellK-CXh7B4&feature=emb_title

Ohler, J. (2014). Two Camps When It Comes to Digital Ethics. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vCMqPOm9A0&feature=emb_title

TEDx Talks. (2011). TEDxGoodenoughCollege - Lettie Ransley - Copyright in the Digital Age. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmDeBYosaJU

Tepp, S., & Oman, R. (2015). A 21st century copyright office: The conservative case for reform.

Retrieved from https://www.hudson.org/research/11772-a-21st-century-copyright-office-the-conservative-case-for-reform

Tsioulcas, A. (2019). NPR. Look What They Made Her Do: Taylor Swift To Re-Record Her

Catalog. Retrieved from https://www.npr.org/2019/08/22/753393630/look-what-they-made-her-do-taylor-swift-to-re-record-her-catalog