Remix
Where do you draw the line?
@creativecommons - "The Internet has encouraged a whole new class of creators. Copyright law was not written for those people." : from The Stream interview.
Still have questions? Stanford has a detailed explanation and further details. Check it out here.
There are four things to consider when determining if something falls under Fair Use.
1. Purpose and Character Is the use for personal gain? profit? Is it for educational, transformative, or private use?
2. Nature of copyrighted work - Is the copyrighted work published or factual?
3. The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation the copyrighted work as a whole. Are you using a line or a chapter from a book? Are you using a clip or entire film?
4. Effect of the use upon the potential market for, or value of, the copyrighted work. Will the original creator affected by the remix? Will the reputation of the original creator be affected? Will it financially affect him?
Fair Use
Fair use - "The legitimate freedom to take and to transform creative works, subject to a very complicated set of rules and restrictions that define what that freedom is."
Past court rulings are often used as guidelines as to where to draw the gray area line. It is important to remember that ALL of these four parts are considered when looking at fair use. For example, using an entire song for the background of a video I put together does not immediately mean I have committed a copyright infringement. All of the other three criteria are also taken into account. Therefore, breaking one criteria will not necessarily end your fair use rights.
Public Domain
Once something is in the public domain, there are no property right restrictions on it. It can be remixed and transformed in any way and without any permission. The public owns these works now, not the original creator. How does something get into the public domain though? There are two common ways for something to end up in the public domain. The first is simple; things that property laws don't apply to are in the public domain. For example, property laws don't apply to ideas, facts, short phrases and more. The other main way something ends up in the public domain is if the copyright has expired. All property rights prior to January 1, 1923 are now expired, and the works are in the public domain.
Dr. Lessig, a professor at Harvard Law School, nails this question perfectly. "[It should] make sure that artists get the return that artists need, while also assuring that culture in general is able to build upon and share the creativity that that the internet is now demonstrating is so important."
- Lawrence Lessig in an interview with The Stream
What exactly is copyright law meant to do?
Is adding an Eminem song to the background of my non-profit video blog of me talking about my life a copy right infringement? I did not compose or distribute it, and I certainly can't keep up with the lyrics if I were to try to sing it. Does Mr. Slim Shady care though? After all it's free advertising. Free advertising is something ... well something you just can't buy.
As Dr. Lessig says in an interview on The Stream, "Copyright Law is extremely difficult, and it certainly was never created for fifteen year olds trying to create and share their work." College students are not fifteen years old, but I believe the idea still applies. Not only is Copyright Law written in a drastically different time period, it is not written using language the everyday person can understand. Few people, let alone college students, have a definite grasp on Copyright Law.
What about intellectual property? Intellectual property is a term that has recently been blown out of proportion. For example, Ford Motor didn't invent the assembly line, interchangeable parts, or the automobile. They did, however, combine all of these things together to produce the first commercially available car the public could afford. The automobile wasn't Ford's "intellectual property", but he combined this idea with other existing ideas and concept to create a system that would revolutionize the world. The concept behind intellectual property is not to limit the spreading of ideas, it is to protect inventors. Part four of Ferguson's web series explains this thoroughly. His entire series, including part four, is found on the Why Remix page.
Copyrights and patents were made to “encourage the creation and proliferation of new ideas by providing a brief period of exclusivity.” They gave a small window to cover initial investment costs so an inventor could profit off an idea or invention before it was released into the public where it can be transformed and combined into a new product. The focus was on the "Common Good," not the individual. The original copyright Act of 1790 has the title “An Act for the encouragement of learning" and the patent Act of 1790 is titled “An Act to promote the progress of useful Arts." These acts were created to help creativity, innovation, and ideas flourish. Today, however, they are used to protect intellectual property far too extremely and for far too long. They do little besides hinder and stop the growth and development of ideas and creativity, which is opposite to the original goals.
Intellectual Property
Plagiarism damages the integrity of a composition and unrightfully steals credit from the original author who invested time and resources into the original work's creation. There is no way to get around the fact that using another's work as your own without proper academic citation is morally wrong (Rife 180). Therefore, remix may initially seem to be the product of plagiarism. In reality, however, this is far from the truth; remix is far from plagiarism when performed properly.
Consider the composition of an essay. If an author were to use information from a source to demonstrate a point and not cite the source, this would be plagiarism. Not only would he be plagiarizing, but how novel of an idea will come from a composition using only one source? While this type of composition undoubtedly occurs, this is not the format of proper paper composition. When done properly, the writer pulls together a variety of sources, extracts only the pertinent information, and creates a unique and well supported argument or idea. It is the way the sources are synthesized together, and the way the author carefully picks which points are relevant or not relevant from a wealth of possibilities that makes a composition well written. The same goes for remixing. Remixing is not about stealing ideas. It is about combining them. Proper remixing requires the creator to scour through possible material and isolate and utilize the best information. Remixing in this aspect is as much "copy, paste," as writing an essay is.
Despite this, some remixes are not well constructed. Chapter 10 of Perspectives On Plagiarism And Intellectual Property In A Postmodern World points out that the Web 2.0 is designed to be filled by user-created content and not content created by the site manager. In a space like this, content is shared, viewed, and remixed at an incredible pace. It is easy, too easy, for a user to use content they do not legally have access to. When this occurs, it is difficult, if not impossible, to stop it from spreading. The result is that intellectual property is stolen, and the original author's authority over his work spirals out of control.
What is to blame? The new Information age? The Web 2.0 sites? The composers? Plagiarism like this has no agent to blame except poor communication. Often, the users of these sites does not even consider what they are doing a form of composition, and consequently they do not consider citing sources. Just as in education, the solution is not suppressing the dawn of the Information Age. The answer lies in expressing the importance and value of acknowledging sources both inside and outside the classroom.
Plagiarism
"I will define plagiarism as intentionally taking the literary property of another without attribution and passing it off as one's own, having failed to add anything of value to the copied material and having reaped from its use an unearned benefit."
- pg. 7 from Perspectives On Plagiarism And Intellectual Property In A Postmodern World by Martine Courant Rife
pla·gia·rism
Plagiarism is a legitimate and important concern for education. It is the word no student wants to hear and no teacher wants to see. What's the connection between remix and plagiarism?