Preview:
The first thing I noticed by way of the cover was that yes, this book is indeed formatted to be like some type of comic book. Flipping through the rest (which had no chapters) confirmed that. I also noticed there were two more authors: James Boyle (the same author that did Professor Burton's book) and Jennifer Jenkins. The next thing that stood out was that the book was free, and under a creative commons license. So I am technically free to share this book with others so long as I don't try to make money off of it and I give correct attribution to the authors.
Early Social Proof:
Nobody posted on my google+ comment so looks like i'll have to ask my roommate his opinion... cretins! Well my roommate thought copyright sounds like an important issue because it has such important implications in many fields, especially in computer, a field he may be going into. This was good to see someone these laws effect. Now I am even more interested in copyright law.
Similar Books:
I am searching Amazon and Google books for similar books--
I saw a book about getting patents on genetically modified seeds by the same author. I kept seeing books by other authors talking about remix culture, DIY, and maker culture, and issues with how copyright laws are limiting creativity. In particular I saw on amazon some interesting books talking about copyright in the music world, about sampling, and about how creativity is being limited because of labyrinthine copyright laws. I will definitely be looking at how copyrights are stifling creativity.
Who Cares?:
A search on google+ under the heading Public Domain brought up a number of people, many griping about the limitations of getting things into public domain. Somebody was griping about her facebook pictures being used in the public domain. And I saw a post by Professor Burton on The Great Gatsby. On twitter I searched under "bound by law, public domain" and it turned up a lot of people either recommending the book, giving a few tidbits on it (such as it being from duke, or written by law professors) and talking about it. #fairuse turned up as well.
Formal Reviews:
Found some good reviews. Most helpful of which was probably the one my google search turned up by Timothy B. McCormack. He talked about how the book is pretty much a very in depth look at certain things such as copyright laws, fair use, and creating an "environmental culture" where people come together to get fair use and copyright law updated for the modern digital world. Also the book is mentioned as being very effective at getting the messages across because of its medium of image heavy content. Images are how we think, and if you can't draw something you don't really understand it is what McCormack points out.
Informal Reviews:
I found a good review on a blog called "the hooded utilitarian: A pundit in every panopticon" that esentially points out. They point out that in the book fair use is seen as vital for artistic creation: artists need the ability to respond to, and be influenced by, one another. This is because it limits artists from completely cutting there work off from the world.
Syllabus:
Found that this is used by a lot of universities, USC was using it in a media law survey course.
Multimedia:
Saw this cool remix video on youtube, which essentially gives some of the big ideas of the book in a remixed style with music in the background, images, etc. Seems to build upon the creativity put forward by the book insofar as medium goes.
First Impressions of The Book:
I like the parts that talk about fair use because I don't understand it. But it is helping me see that fair use was made to encourage more creativity, but because of bad copyright laws it is actually harder to implement fair use than it should be. Thus creative commons is becoming an alternative to that. I liked the images and layout of the whole thing a lot. Even the introduction, with the creepy old guy making things seem scary was good. And showing all these images of superheroes, etc. just made the entire thing interesting to look at. The way I skimmed this, in fact, was to find a neat image and then read what it said there.
My thinking so far:
I really enjoyed the portion where we had to find similar topics or books. This has shown me how much music has to do with this topic (the book touches on music but is mainly about film). Copyright laws are definitely something that the remix, sampling, and branding/logos/band names has to do with.
What do you thing? Should we have more lax copyright laws or should they stay the same. Is creative commons a good thing or is that a way for artists to never make any money?
This is such a tough topic! (And a cool approach in a graphic novel. Was that an effective method for delivering information? I know I understand things way better when cartoons explain them to me.) It's such a difficult thing to control what happens to your creative stuff when it gets tossed into the media river. It must be heartbreaking for some creators to see their work shared over and over and never get a dime out of it. However, it's got to be thrilling if they do find an audience to be able to connect to people all over the world.
ReplyDeleteI don't know if stricter copyright laws is the solution. For example, Professor Burton's wife doesn't appear to be hurting anyone by providing covers of songs that people enjoy. It might be more a matter of artists educating themselves about their platforms so that their material is a little more under control. I've seen several of artists I like realize that their work was being stolen and so added watermarks to everything. That was a great way to protect their work, but a bummer for us fans who wanted to see the picture by itself. Without the constant reminder that there are thieves among us.
Maybe there is no solution. I don't know.