First, A Word on Copyright and Fair Use

Before I get started with my new blog, I’d like to post something I prepared for my Writing Online class regarding copyright law and some of the issues that are coming up as we become more and more immersed in a digital world. The ease and speed with which digital information can be duplicated is proving a challenge to copyright law, and what constitutes Fair Use—concepts that were defined in an analog world. I’ll provide links to discussions that offer some of the various opinions on the matter below.

The importance of communicating online is its speed, and the volume and diversity of information that online communication offers. Because of these attributes, and continually developing technologies that offer new ways to use all of this information, a solid policy of Fair Use covering academic, non-profit, and commercial activities needs to apply to online/digital information.
For academic uses, educators should be free to use any form of online information in their efforts to teach. With education so fundamental to succeeding in our society, teachers should not be limited in finding the best way to present an idea or concept. Sometimes the best way to do so is in someone else’s words, or with someone else’s images, video or audio. Credit to the source is a necessity, of course, but permission from the source should not be required.
The case should be much the same for non-profit uses of information online. While I don’t find it much of a creative effort, or “artistically valid, socially aware, and conceptually stimulating to all,” as Negativland would have us believe, sampling for purposes of making a collage is harmless. Therefore, as with academic uses, this type of non-profit use should only require credit to the source, not permission. I do draw the line in the non-profit realm, however, at copying CDs to avoid paying for them, and at peer-to-peer sharing of music. Even though people in these cases are not “reselling them for [their] own profit,” (Negativland) they are preventing revenue from the sale of those works from reaching those who are legally entitled to receive it. It’s stealing, and it’s illegal. The often-heard rationalization that it’s okay to steal from the rich doesn’t make it any less so.
In commercial uses of information, the rules of Fair Use should be stricter than for academic and non-profit uses. Credit to the source, permission, and a fee for that permission are all reasonable requirements. To return to the sampling example, the original artists and their labels have a financial investment in the creation and production of the original work. It wouldn’t be fair for someone to combine a bunch of ready-made samples, and attempt to profit from the compilation without permission and without compensating the creators of the original work. It’s silly for Negativland to say “that artists, no matter what they choose to do, need to support themselves and their work with a return on their investment just like everyone else. The currently applied 'nonprofit' standard simple [sic] assures that only the independently wealthy may dabble in fair use.” What the non-profit standard assures is that only the truly creative and original can participate. Talent can always find its way around financial limitations.
Except for loosening the Fair Use requirements on academic and non-profit endeavors, our copyright laws aren’t far off the mark. They simply need to be adapted to a digital world. The authors of “Principles of Technorealism” express this best when they write “we must update old laws and interpretations so that information receives roughly the same protection it did in the context of old media.”
All this said, my policy regarding my online work is simple: I will follow the guidelines of Fair Use. I will cite my sources, and ask permission if necessary. I would expect others to follow the same policy if they wish to incorporate any of my work in their own.

Links to other reading:

Bill Thompson, “I share, you rip off, they pirate.”
David Post, “Free Culture vs. Big Media.”
“7 things you should know about… Creative Commons.”
Danielle Nicole DeVoss and James E. Porter, “Why Napster Matters to Writing: Filesharing as a New Ethic of Digital Delivery.”
John Logie, “A copyright cold war? The polarized rhetoric of the peer-to-peer debates.”