My Paste Up

An excellent resource

The Otago School of Art has created a great bibliography of links about copyright. They can be viewed at:http://www.wikieducator.org/School_of_Art_Digital_Literacy .

I am copying the list here as well, just in case the school removes them at some future date! Here they are:

A COPYRIGHT BIBLIOGRAPHY

Richard Niven, Solicitor and Copyright Manager, gives a quick wrap of copyright law http://podcast.radionz.co.nz/twu/twu-20080223-1350-Copyright-048.mp3

OTAGO POLYTECHNIC STUDENTS CLL brochure “Copyright the Law and You”. You’ve got it. It was a hand out. See also http://www.library.otago.ac.nz/billrobertson/copyright.htm

COPYRIGHT NZ LEGISLATION Literary style = legaleese. The entire riveting 1994 Copyright Act. Wallpaper your bedroom with it and memorise permitted uses sections. http://gpacts.knowledge-basket.co.nz/gpacts/public/text/1994/an/143.html

What’s happening in limbo land? The proposed amendments to the 1994 Copyright Act http://www.med.govt.nz/templates/ContentTopicSummary____1103.aspx

See also the Copyright Council of NZ

COPYRIGHT/INTELLECUTAL PROPERTY/MAORI IP An enlightened recap of the cornerstones of European-style copyright law and a compelling look at the future of tikanga as a way of addressing spiritual, intellectual and material concerns regarding traditional knowledges in Aotearoa. Mana Tuturu: Maori Treasures & Intellectual Property Rights by Barry Barclay Auckland University Press, 2005.

LICENSING/COLLECTING AGENCIES/CLL Providing a comprehensive introduction to the Copyright Act. Has a useful FAQs section and includes a summary PowerPoint presentation. Click click. http://www.copyright.co.nz/

COPYRIGHT AND CREATING Introduction to ‘real world’ digital issues. Includes case studies of high profile multimedia infringements (wav files available). http://benedict.com/

MACHINIMA – Excellent keynote address by Fred von Lohmann from the Electronic Frontier Foundation and another that may interest from Dan Hunter (on innovation, property and virtual worlds) from the recent symposium run by Games and the Law research group. http://testpattern.blip.tv/file/672264/

Illegal art or illegal imagination, an exhibition which explored the legalities of “illegal” creating and the corporate world. http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/7030

For the reasons why YOU should become a copyright activist. How big money is eroding fair use for the public good by proprietary practices and penalising measures. Vaidhyanathan, Siva, Copyrights and Copywrongs: The Rise of Intellectual Property and How It Threatens Creativity, New York University Press, 2003. May also be searchable on Google books.

FAIR USE http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/chapter9/index.html

CREATIVE COMMONS LICENCES When looking at using CC make sure you know exactly what you want your licence to do (or not to do). http://creativecommons.org/. Use the local version CC NZ as this has been tailored to our particular jurisdiction http://www.creativecommons.org.nz/

For a summary on pros and cons of CC licensing issue in education, see the google.doc hyperlink at http://trustdr.ulster.ac.uk/outputs.php

UK Artists – study to approaches to copyright and creative commons http://www.openbusiness.cc/2006/11/28/release-of-report-on-%E2%80%98uk-artists-copyright-and-creative-commons/
COPYRIGHT GENERAL Easy to navigate, small partially chewed portions. Crash course in copyright (note US system) http://www.utsystem.edu/ogc/Intellectualproperty/cprtindx.htm#top

Information Outlook magazine summary of “info rights”. Covers common everyday digital uses including scanning, web site content, e-mail, linking, listservs, browsing and caching, pulled together by Lesley Harris. http://www.sla.org/io/2007/05/40.cfm

Good straightforward articles on specific areas of interest eg. Fair Use http://library.creativecow.net/

A copyright ‘calculator’. Clear and concise. May need to navigate to fuller descriptions for clarification of terms and interpretations. http://www.vraweb.org/resources/ipr/dirc/index.html

Very broad, website delivering the UK position on copyright. http://www.tasi.ac.uk/advice/managing/copyright_faq.html

OTHER DIGITAL LITERACIES Otago University has put together self-directed modules on digital literacy. Very simple, easy to navigate and covers the basic information and some how to’s for various media tools. It also covers copyright essentials. http://oil.otago.ac.nz/oil/module9.html

The link about YouTube Fair Use??

This is the link I think we were meant to use to find out about YouTube Fair Use:

http://www.benedict.com/Info/FairUse/FairUse.aspx

Flickr

I took one look at the long terms of use on Flickr, which seems to be owned by Yahoo, and decided not to upload an image. If I did I would have to read through the terms of use and I have no burning need to use the site, so I didn’t.

youTube licence

I could not initially find the licence fair use classifier on YouTube as we were asked to do, so I looked for other people’s comment. I found a blog citing an article called ‘You Tubes balancing act’ which I found interesting so I copied the whole post verbatim here. It is from the TOTO blog at

http://www.totonetwork.com/node/237325#comment-243393

‘This is long’

Submitted by fmrecords on Fri, 09/14/2007 – 1:10pm.

but I found it interesting re the legal issues.

I am on the fence ethically..except for things that are available commercially and still put money into the pockets of those that created it.
However..someone that took the time to find, convert/code and upload old tv stuff that might otherwise get lost in the past can’t be doing any wrong I dont feel. Most old tv interviews are not archived or stored. Example..Luke’s appearance on Jimmy Kimmel. TOTO on Regis and Kelly. TOTO on Dutch TV. etc etc.

YouTube’s Balancing Act: Making Money, Not Enemies
July 10, 2006

By Fred von Lohmann

Copyright Issues
So how does YouTube’s content fare under copyright law?

First, YouTube’s 10-minute clip limit and tiny video window cater to clip culture, not pirates. A studio executive with a limited anti-piracy budget would be foolish to spend time and money suing YouTube while millions of full-length features are being swapped through public Bit Torrent indexes.

In addition, there is a flood of perfectly legal original creativity on YouTube — much of it from teenagers uploading video using everything from cell phones to Webcams to high-quality camcorders.

Also, an increasing number of media heavyweights (NBC, TVT, Epic and Atlantic Records, as well as E! Entertainment, MTV2 and Fox Searchlight) are licensing content for distribution on YouTube. No copyright difficulties there.

But that leaves an enormous quantity of copyrighted material that ends up sprinkled throughout the clips uploaded by users. This content includes television clips (most famously the “SNL” “Lazy Sunday” skit, which was ultimately taken down in response to an NBC letter), music videos, amateur lip-synched songs and the Hollywood trailer mash-ups (who hasn’t received an e-mail with “Brokeback to the Future”?).

Some of the content is simply uploaded in its original form (music videos, movie clips), while a great deal more ends up “remixed” into original creative material.

All of these clips are, for the most part, things you can’t buy from shops or authorized download services, even if you had known they existed before stumbling on them at YouTube.

Nevertheless, some copyright owners are unhappy. According to a recent report in the Wall Street Journal, Universal Music Group is urging the recording industry to crack down on amateur music videos.

Would UMG have a case? The creation of these unauthorized works implicates a copyright owner’s reproduction and derivative rights. Uploading and streaming the video to others may also implicate the public performance right. And because YouTube hosts and streams the copies from its own servers, a copyright owner would have both direct infringement and secondary liability (contributory infringement and vicarious liability) theories available.

On the other hand, YouTube and its users may have a number of good copyright defenses. In my opinion, most of this video-sharing should qualify as fair use — after all, this is noncommercial activity (at least for the end-users), and a company like UMG may have a hard time proving that there is a realistic licensing market for amateur lip-sync videos shot by 14-year-old girls.

But outside of law school exams, we’re not likely to see these difficult questions resolved because neither YouTube nor its audience can afford a courthouse showdown over every 3-minute homemade music video.

Rule No. 1 is the implementation of a “notice and takedown” system to respond to infringement notices from copyright owners. YouTube, of course, has this in place and takes down material once properly notified by an owner that a clip is infringing. Section 512(c)(3) sets out exactly what a copyright owner must include in a takedown notice. (Note to content owners: If you use takedown notices to remove noninfringing content, you can be sued by YouTube or its users for abusing the system!)

Another rule is that you must have a policy in place to terminate the accounts of those who have been identified as “repeat infringers.” YouTube has this policy in place as well, according to the “terms of use” on its Web site.

The safe harbor will not protect a Web host if it is “aware of facts or circumstances from which infringing activity is apparent” — in other words, if you make your living providing hosting services to pirates-R-us.com, don’t look to the safe harbor for protection. YouTube doesn’t appear to be sheltering any obvious pirate fleets, so this shouldn’t be an issue.

-About the Author: Fred von Lohmann is a senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco-based nonprofit group devoted to the protection of civil liberties, free expression and innovation in the digital world.

Oh so criminal

I support Keir’s work, as I suppose you could guess from my previous blog entries on this subject.

Lebbeaus Woods chair

12 Monkeys used a chair that was, to my eyes, almost identical to that made by artist Lebbeus Woods. In this case a very large firm has used copyright of an artist without asking. I wonder what Universal’s reaction is when others use their copyright?

If Universal have a penchant to sue for copyright infringement, then I think Woods is within his rights. I would have supported him taking all the money he was due and funding those trying to overturn copyright laws! If, on teh other hand, Universal Studios encourages creativity by having a policy of freeing their own coyright for use, then I think Woods was out of order.

Harrison vs Bright Music

Our task was to listen to the clips on benedict.com, decide how similar the music is then comment

Using a scale of 5= exactly the same to 1=not alike my assessments were:

Melody: 3
Lyrics: 2
Harmony/Chordal struccture: 4
Rhythm: 3
Tempo: 3
Instruments:4

Both songs had repitition and similar structure but the content was different and the language. These two songs have a similarity, but the fact that you have to listen to them closely and analyse them to understand the similarities means that the average person could not confuse the two. In my opinion this is an example of how copyright laws are being abused by commercial entities for their own gain. I would have supported Harrison in this case.

All knowledge is built on what went before and locking down certain ideas, musical structures etc purely for commercial gain will, in my opinion, result in our culture becoming less rich and diverse. Innovativeness will be (has already been?) stiffled. Imagine what would have happened if someone had copyrighted the first church music, the first Psalm etc. I support the artists and writers who are challenging copyright laws.

My ideas are not new. Even large firms are now discovering that these laws stifle them too and are releasing copyright on some of what they ‘Own”, for example IBM. I suppose if someone finds that this expression of my ideas is too much like that of someone else I could be sued! I rest my case.