Murdoch & 'fair use'

For students, teachers, and parents interested in the ongoing conversation about the "fair use" of other people's content in the classroom, Web profiles, presentations, blogs, etc., this article in BNET.com is great: It's the view from two intellectual property lawyers of News Corp's Rupert Murdoch's threat to block Google from searching his news sites (you know, minor sites like the Wall Street Journal's and Times of London). He says that he's trying actually to monetize his content at the same time that Google's making it free. The thing is, Google allows anyone to block its Web crawlers (which index the Web for its search engine) by using the Robots Exclusion Protocol (simply adding that exclusion code into the software code of their sites). So the lawyers in the article think Murdoch "must have other reasons for these threats" (like somehow changing Fair Use law?). [Thanks to teacher and Flat Classroom Project founder Vicki Davis for point this piece out. See also "Remixes & mashups" and "EFF's copyright curriculum for students."]

Defending remixers, future artists

In light of the new intellectual property law President Bush just signed (see this yesterday), it's interesting to read the story about how 13-month-old Holden Lenz's 29-second dance video on YouTube became a case of "willful copyright infringement under the laws of the United States" whereby Holden's mother "is liable to a fine of up to $150,000," Stanford University law professor Lawrence Lessig writes in the Wall Street Journal. "We are in the middle of something of a war here - what some call 'the copyright wars'; what the late Jack Valenti called his own 'terrorist war,' where the 'terrorists' are apparently our kids." He goes on to suggest that we "decriminalize Gen X [and Y and the Millennials!]" and "deregulate amateur remix," which "could drive extraordinary economic growth, if encouraged, and properly balanced." See also "Break the Digital Millennium Copyright Act," the last of "5 dangerous things you should let your kids do," a video of a talk by Gever Tully, founder of the Tinkering School, in which kids learn to build things.

US's new IP law

What surprised me about this new law, just signed by President Bush, is that it creates a Cabinet-level position for intellectual property enforcement coordination, CNET reports. The "Pro-IP Act" also "steepens penalties for intellectual-property infringement [though the penalties against families of P2P file-sharers, who probably will also be affected, seem to have been stiff enough], and increases resources for the Department of Justice to coordinate for federal and state efforts against counterfeiting and piracy." The US Chamber of Commerce told CNET that American intellectual property is worth more than $5 trillion and "accounts for more than half of all US exports." The law was backed by the US Chamber, the Recording Industry Association of America, large media companies, and the AFL-CIO. Opposition came from, among others, the American Library Association, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and Public Knowledge.

More bloggers in hot water

Bloggers are getting more attention from lawyers, these days. They're "starting to receive legal letters when they upset someone with enough money to hire a media lawyer," the Financial Times reports, and "defamation, offensive messages, incitement, compromising intellectual property, linking to illegal websites, and inaccurate reporting can all get you into hot water, regardless of whether you are a blogger, journalist, publisher or an e-mail user." This is an opportunity for all of us - parents and young people - to learn more about their free speech rights. "Just 5% of internet users are clear on their legal rights and responsibilities when posting comment online," the FT cites a law firm's research as showing. The study found that 77% of bloggers are "uncertain or unaware of where the law stands."

Piracy fear campaign

Fear tactics persist in the education of youth and parents about digital issues. This time the "be afraid" message is echoed by the National Center for State Courts, Wired blogger David Kravets reports. In this case it's packaged into a 24-page leaflet in the form of a comic book which is being distributed to 50,000 students nationwide. One of the storylines is about how "criminal" teen file-sharer Megan's grandmother has to "fight eminent domain proceedings to keep her house while Megan ... deals with the charges against her." The story goes that Megan had learned "to download music from a friend. About 2,000 downloads and three months later, a police officer from the fictitious City of Arbor, knocks on her door, and hands her a criminal summons to appear in court." In fact, Kravets reports, "criminal copyright infringement is when somebody sells pirated works and not sharing on a peer-to-peer network. And it’s the federal government, not local cities, which prosecute the criminal cases." For perspective on this issue, see "Cyberethics: Downloading Music from the Internet" from University of Missouri-based eMINTS and "Young People, Music & the Internet" from London-based Childnet International.

Important decision on fair use

It was an important decision for all those digital video producers and YouTube users out there. The Los Angeles Times called a San Jose federal court decision last week "a victory for fair use." Judge Jeremy refused to dismiss a lawsuit that a Pennsylvania woman filed after Universal Music Publishing forced YouTube to remove a video of her children cavorting to an old Prince hit," the Times reports. "But it may prove Pyrrhic, as the judge expressed doubt that the woman would ultimately be able to prove her case." According to PC Magazine, the judge said that "content owners must consider 'fair use' before sending Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedown notices." The case was about a 29-second home video depicting little kids dancing in a kitchen to Prince's "Let's Go Crazy."

Remixes & mashups: Study on fair use

Teachers who deal with media think a lot about it. Parents of video producers and bloggers do too. So does everybody trying to understand the impact of the social Web on traditional media, including artists and the recording industry. What am I talking about? A part of copyright law that generates a lot of understandable confusion: "fair use." "Fair use is quite tricky because courts address it on a case by case basis after someone is sued. There is no list of what constitutes fair use," writes University of California, Berkeley, social-media researcher danah boyd. She's blogging about a just-released study, by media and legal scholars, that really advances the public discussion: "Recut, Reframe, Recycle: Quoting Copyrighted Material in User-Generated Video" at American University's Center for Social Media site. The study gives examples of "a wide variety of practices - satire, parody, negative and positive commentary, discussion-triggers, illustration, diaries, archiving and of course, pastiche or collage (remixes and mashups) - all of which could be legal in some circumstances," the Center says. Danah adds that the authors "try to assess which way the courts might fall, depending on practice. They also offer potential defenses that creators can make if they were sued in an attempt to build best-practices principles." This is valuable material for any family or classroom discussion or debate about fair use and intellectual property in the age of digital media and the participatory Web, when this discussion has never been more important (see "The age of remixes, mashups"). For an online debate on fair use, see the arguments of Columbia law professor Tim Wu and NBC Universal general counsel Rick Cotton in this New York Times blog. See also MIT professor Henry Jenkins's book, Convergence Culture (Henry's at HenryJenkins.org).