COPYRIGHT & CREATIVITY: GETTING BALANCE BACK

HOW DO COPYRIGHT POLICIES INHIBIT

THE GROWTH

OF DIGITAL

CULTURE?

“Standing on the shoulders of

giants.”

Collapse of business models (incumbents’ problem)

Copyright imbalance (emergent users’ problem)

TWO CHALLENGES:

BUSINESS MODELS COLLAPSING P2P, Piracy, Downloading, Etc.

NEW YORK, FRIDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2012

THE IMBALANCE PROBLEM

•  It’s hard to license

•  It’s hard to find out who owns it

• We’re locked out and punished if we break the locks

• We’re not sure what the balancing features of our laws are

WHEN WE TRY TO USE EXISTING CULTURE TO MAKE NEW CULTURE:

LICENSING • Usually time-limited • Too many layers • Too many regions

SOLUTION:

WAIT…

+

BUILD AN ARTIFICIAL PUBLIC DOMAIN BY TWEAKING LICENSES •  GPL (free software license) &

Creative Commons licenses …enabling new pools of content

•  Open source software

•  Open CourseWare

“ORPHAN WORKS”

TECH/LEGAL PRE-EMPTION OF BALANCING RIGHTS • DMCA (US)

• EU Copyright Directive

PATCHES: • Citizen participation in legislation (NZ; France)

• Press on exemptions (U.S.)

BALANCING RIGHTS USING

THE LIST APPROACH

AMERICAN UNIVERSITY’S FAIR USE PROJECT centerforsocialmedia.org/fairuse

Fair Use Project

JUDGES LOVE FAIR USE

INDIVIDUALS FEAR… • Will I get it wrong?

• Will I get sued? $125K+ per infringement!!)

• Will my boss/librarian/client get angry?

BEST PRACTICES

• Knowledge of the law

• Awareness of problem

• Define interpretation of fair use

•  Documentary filmmakers

•  Film scholars

•  Media literacy teachers

•  More

DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKERS

RESULTS • Broadcasters program films • Cablecasters program films •  Filmmakers develop new

kinds of projects • Television/web companies

expand their plans • All insurers of errors and

omissions insurance now accept fair use claims

ENGLISH TEACHERS

MEDIA LITERACY CATEGORIES

•  Teaching with copyrighted material

•  Using copyrighted material in curriculum materials

•  Circulating curriculum materials with copyrighted material in them

•  Student use of copyrighted materials in their work

•  Circulating student work

ONLINE VIDEO

ONLINE VIDEO CODE •  Comment/critique

•  Illustration/example

•  Accidentally/incidentally

•  Preserve/recall

•  Discuss

•  Collage

U.S. MOVEMENT • Film scholars • Archivists • Open Courseware •  Int’l Communication Ass’n • Business (“we wouldn’t

even be talking if…”)

FIRST STEPS OF INTERNATIONAL MOVEMENT TO USE EXEMPTIONS

• Canadian filmmakers • Mexican filmmakers • EU filmmakers • South African filmmakers

TO JOIN THE MOVEMENT • Document the problem • Research the reality • Define the opportunity

Please feel free to share this presentation in its entirety. For excerpting, kindly employ the principles of fair use.

CONTACT INFO Pat Aufderheide Center for Social Media School of Communication American University Washington, DC paufder@american.edu 202-885-2069