Reclaiming Fair Use -- A Book Preview

I picked up Reclaiming Fair Use: How to Put Balance Back in Copyright from the library this week, to boost my literacy of copyright laws and practices. As someone with some experience and lots of aspiration to create content and share it using digital tools, I want to have a firmer grasp of the stickiness of the issue, and I liked that Patricia Aufderheide and Peter Jaszi's book seems to come at the issue from the perspective of "reclaiming" something rather than digging heels into tradition.

Preview

After spending a few minutes browsing the book, I see that the book's scope is usefully narrow. It does not appear to be a history of copyright law in general, but rather a focused look at the fair use clause of copyright law (clause? is that how to think about it? I'll find out!).

In addition, I seem to have been right about the forward-thinking tone and approach of the book. Some of the most interesting-looking chapters have titles like "Why Fair Use Is So Important," "How to Fair Use," "Pioneering Best Practices," and "The Culture of Fear and Doubt, and How to Leave It."

Early Social Proof

I let my social network know that I'm thinking about these things, and was happy to get a response from a friend who is a freelance writer, and who also works at a content and marketing company. She writes:

I have to research copyright every day for my job. We have to be careful in how we use different companies' logos and taglines, and when we write a new one, we have to make sure it's not already copyrighted or trademarked. It's an interesting world. Not many people know that the "Happy Birthday" song is copyrighted song, which is why restaurants can't sing it and come up with their own ditties, and it's why it is rarely used in films-- because it's very expensive to use... I could geek out about copyrights all day.

I especially loved her last line. Geeking out about copyrights sounds even more fun than it did when I started!

Similar Books
I put the book through an Amazon search to see what other books it might hang out with on the shelf, and I found books with titles like Moral Panics and the Copyright Wars; How to Fix Copyright; The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind; and Free Ride: How Digital Parasites are Destroying the Culture Business, and How the Culture Business Can Fight Back. 

That last one, especially, seems like a provocative "other side of the story" to loud faction who support totally open information and media. I'll make a note to check that one out.

I also found the most common "shelves" that Goodreads users put Reclaiming Fair Use in. I found that to be a helpful way to not only finding other similar books but also understanding how people think about and classify this one.

Formal Reviews
I found several reviews of the book using the university library's database. These reviews come from journalism journals, which is understandable although I was expecting more from law journals, which I also found.

David King, a media librarian, describes the book as "a pep talk and how-to manual on exercising fair-use rights" and points out that the book is more interested in empowering people to use the freedoms the law already allows rather than needing to storm the castle of copyright entirely and rewrite everything.

Scholar Judith Fathallah writes:

Not intended for ‘‘bomb-throwers’’ (in effect, those who seriously question the legitimacy of intellectual private property), nor for ‘‘big copyright holders’’ (Introduction, p. ix), this is a book for citizen users who largely accept the legitimacy of media ownership, or at least believe with the authors that immediate efforts to change the system are unrealistic, seeking rather to exercise and strengthen their rights within it.

Fathallah comes from the UK, which must inform her valuable critiqe of the book, that it swings nationalistic in its perspective. After all, Fair Use is an American law, and does not exist in exactly the same way in other countries.

Informal Reviews
Wow, there is a site called FairUseTube.org: Promoting Fair Use in Online Video -- it is no surprise that theirs was the first review of this book! The review was positive and praised the book's history of copyright and (especially) its emphasis that much can be done within the realm of what laws already exist:

The authors argue that copyright reform advocates were far too quick to concede that fair use is too vague and nebulous a concept to be of any real use to those wishing to put copyrighted content to new and transformative uses. Instead, scholars like Lawrence Lessig and others began advocating either for radical changes to the copyright system that are unlikely to ever happen, or for alternatives to traditional copyright such as Creative Commons.

The user reviews on Goodreads also seem very positive. This appears to be a readable, interesting book to a wide variety of people interested in copyright issues.

Other Sources
Classrooms have used this book -- what a useful thing to know, in case I want to reach out to some of the people who have thought the book through. Occidental College teaches a course with the book (And that course also uses clips from 30 Rock, so they have my affection!). As does American University and the University of Pennsylvania. All these courses seem to be focused about new media, copyright, and history.

I also found videos of interviews with the author, one short one (which has been embed-disabled, but can be found here) and this longer one:

First Impressions
By the time I actually sat down to seriously begin reading the book, I already had a sense of what I might find, which helped me read much more effectively.

I am especially taken by the authors' critical examination of the "culture of fear and doubt" surrounding copyrighted material. There is an inspiring story about a parent posting a video of her child dancing to a popular song. Universal, who owned the music, issued a takedown notice, but the parent went to court and won. Fair use advocates want owners like Universal to stop abusing their hedge around the law that keeps content creators from living within the law, out of fear.

I also thought it was nicely put that we are "becoming a nation of makers and sharers" (though that may have traces of the nationalistic critique). As someone who grew up as that really became possible, I didn't really consider the shift inherent in that reality.

I am relieved and eager to learn from this book so far that one does not need to keep a copyright lawyer in your pocket to understand and use the copyright laws effectively. Here's to empowerment and creative fair use!

Exploring the Changes in Media Through Dan Gillmor's "We the Media"

I am an English major and editing minor, and I am graduating in April. When I tell people I want to be an editor, most people first ask, "like for a news paper?" It always surprises me that people think this is the only place I could edit is a newspaper. But, really how many of us are even getting our news from sources like this anymore?? So, I want to figure out where we are getting our information instead, and possibly start to figure out what this will mean for me as an editor. I am starting Dan Gillmor's We the Media: Grassroots Journalism By the People for the People, and it will hopefully be able to answer some of these questions. 

Preview

After looking over Gillmor's book, examining the table to contents and skimming through a few pages, it seems as though it will focus on how media has transformed, what effects this has had on people (specifically journalists), and how this will continue to effect people (specifically journalists). 

Early Social Proof

Nobody responded to my google+ post about this and I just figured I wouldn't even bother posting on twitter because I don't expect I would get feedback from there either. I tried talking to a couple people about this, but they seemed relatively uninterested.  Thanks everyone. I wish I had thought about this a little earlier so I could have chatted with some of my editing friends to see what they think about it. But, alas, procrastination is kinda my thing. 

Similar Books

The Elements  of Journalism: What Newspeople should Know and the Public Should Expect

Bill Kovach & Tom Rosenstiel 

     An overview of media history, practice, ethics.

Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organization

Clay Shirky

    How the spread of technology is changing social interations and the way that people form groups and 

    interact with them

Journalism Next: A Practical Guide to Digital Reporting and Publishing

Mark Briggs

Mediactive

Dan Gillmor

    What is the future of journalism, and how should people get around in today's flood of information online?

Who Cares?

First of all, I wanted to see if the author of the book had a media presence (which I was assuming he did). I found him on google+ and added him to one of my circles and also found him on twitter and started following him. I thought this would be good to find out what the author is thinking now with all the changes in digital media since the book was written a few years ago and a lot has changed. I then did a twitter search looking for both the author and the title of the book. It would seem that a lot of people like bloggers, journalists, social media supports, etc. are reading the book and are interested in what he has to say about the state and progress of journalism in the digital age. 

Formal Review

I found a review posted on The Guardian in 2004 when the book came out. One thing that I thought was really interesting was that the review claimed that the thesis of the book was in no way new, but really had been a thought for many years now. But, with the advancement of digital culture and the developments leading up to this book, it can finally be proven how the internet and technology is changing how we produce and consume the news. What is remarkable is that he is the first one to gather all of this evidence together to prove that the media is moving into the digital age. 

Informal Review

I found a blog review of We the Media on a blog called Masters of Media. They seemed impressed by the book and the way that Gillmor not only looks at what is happening now, but why it is happening now. He uses specific examples that illuminate what is happening with the media in the digital age and how it has reshaped media over time. The blogger also applauded Gillmor for making his book free to the public using Creative Commons Licensing. 

Educational Courses

I'm not entirely sure that I did this search right, but I did not see any search results for courses using this book. I did however see a review of the book from a Harvard Law website and Ohio website. 

Multimedia

I found a video of Dan Gillmor giving a lecture on his book We The Media at UNC Chapel Hill. It's mostly him talking about the ideas from his book and the thought process behind everything. I didn't watch the whole thing because it is an hour long, and well that's really long. 

First Impressions of the Book

This will be updates by tonight. I promise. 

Copyright: through the eyes of Keith Aoki in his book "Bound by Law?: Tales from the Public Domain"

I have heard this book talks about creativity and copyright while at the same time doing so in a creative way. I heard it is sort of like a comic book or graphic novel in layout. I am excited to see how that works out, if it is effective and not distracting. Also, I think copyright is a very important issue in the film and music industry.

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?

Exploring the Human/Technology Relationship in "Rainbow's End"

I think the relationship between humans and technology is very interesting, but everyone has their own opinion about how that relationship works. I want to read “Rainbow’s End” by Vernor Vinge to look at a fictionalized account of one such relationship to see the possibilities that arise from it. I hope that it will give me something to hang on to in my research, because I tend to get lost in technology/the internet when doing research. By reading this novel, I hope to get the aspects of a human mindset in a technological world.

Preview

This novel looks so interesting in light of the relationship between humans and technology. The list of chapters in the table of contents shows a mix between chapters that look to be about humans interacting with each other, and other chapters that have technological references in the title, such as “No User-Serviceable Parts Within” and “How-to-Survive-the-Next-Thirty-Minutes.pdf”. Vinge also looks like a man that is reputable in this field of thought because the About the Author section talks about how he has spoken in conferences about the subject, and he is thought highly of among scientists, journalists, etc. He was also a mathematician and computer-science professor along with being a writer. Quite the mix!

Early Social Proof

This is an idea that has been in my mind for longer than just what we have done in this semester. I talked about it with one of my friends, who also happens to be a high school English teacher. During her science fiction unit of her class, she focused on ideas like this and came up with the tagline, “What makes us human?” for her class. As we discussed this idea, we realized the idea of being human spreads across all aspects of life, as does technology, so it is important to differentiate between the two. She also said that she is interested in the idea that in order to truly have control over the technology in our lives, we must be educated in it. I’m excited that this idea is one that everyone can relate to and have insights to!

Similar Books

Books similar to “Rainbow’s End” are mostly the other novels by Vernor Vinge. He sticks with the theme of technology and humans throughout his stories, but there were also many other types of science fiction stories that explored the same idea. One that struck me is the connection to Isaac Asimov’s stories. His stories, especially “I, Robot” focus a lot on how humans can relate to or interact with technology, and how the lines between the two can be blurred. I think the idea of the blurring of lines is a string of thought that would be interesting to explore a little bit more in my research.

Who Cares?

I did my main search on Twitter because I feel like that is the tool that connects people the most across all tools of the internet, and I found some great stuff! I didn’t find anyone reading this novel at first so I tried “#vernorvinge” and found people who were reading his other work. I even found people who were excited to meet him and have him sign their copies of his books. But I also saw another common hashtag among these posts for “#singularityu” which led me to a community of people who are finding ways of using technology for educating themselves! That ties right back in to my original topic! The ideas of Singularity University tie right in to the ideas that I am exploring, so I am following that hashtag to see what other people are saying about it. It also led me to interesting articles such as this and this that I plan to keep in mind as part of my research. This community is full of people that are excited about learning about technology, through technology! Leaning is such a human trait, and technology can enhance that.

Formal Reviews

Through using Google (to keep the theme of my Google Alerts going) I found a review by Chris Meadows of this novel. An interesting aspect that he explores in the review is the idea of interactive fiction. He quotes Vinge to say that hypertext will allow for a new art form in writing, but there hasn’t been really any full success on that front, but it allows for further creativity on the parts of both the author and reader. He also talks about how the real world overlaps the digital world in the novel and the conflicts that arise through that overlay. Meadows acknowledges that the ideas discussed in the novel are possible, but he doubts that they will happen because there is no way to really predict the future.

Informal Reviews

When I searched through the reviews for this novel on Goodreads, I found that people were really intrigued with the ideas presented in it. One review from “Kris” mentioned that “the book is largely about people trying to discover the significance of their own actions. Another way to put this is, they're trying to discover the meaning of their own life.” I think this goes along with the idea that technology can help us to discover ourselves as long as we don’t let it overtake our lives and drive our actions. We need to keep the human aspect of decision-making. Many reviewers mentioned how the dialogue is not as strong as Vinge’s other works, and it can be a bit dry, but the ideas represented are what drive the novel. I thought that was really interesting. Is that Vinge’s critique on humanity? Is our ability to speak and community giving way to technology and its layers over humanity?

Multimedia

When searching for other media sources that reference “Rainbow’s End”, I actually didn’t find very much. I did find this picture of the book with a caption talking about how much they loved the novel. However, I did find this awesome article about Google X. Google X is taking on some of the ideas brought up from the novel, making some of Vinge’s ideas come true. This reminded me of the book “Fahrenheit 451” because that novel written years ago had elements that are now happening in the world of technology today, and both novels are built around ideas of where the line is between humans and technology.

First Impressions of the Book

As I have been reading this novel so far, I have noticed many small references to a life without technology. These references are easy to pass over, but there have been enough that I think that Vinge is trying to hint at the simplicity of a world without technology, and I am excited to see if he develops that idea more. In particular, there is one passage where he mentions that a character is going out of the city to sight-see in the mountains and he uses language that gives the impression that the city is touristy, noisy, and never-ending, but then the mountains and oceans are peaceful and remind the character of a simpler time. We'll see where these ideas take us!

My Thinking so Far

In combining all of these elements of research, I am excited to see a couple of my scattered ideas revolving around a certain theme. I am fascinated by the idea of what makes us human and what differentiates us from technology, as well as how humans and technology can work together. As I continue my reading of this novel, I am going to be looking more at Vinge's tone about technology to see if he agrees with the mixing of humanity and technology, or if maybe he is using this novel as a way to hint that there needs to be a greater separation. I'm excite to see where it takes me!