Intellectual Property and Copyright

Copyright and intellectual property in general is a sticky situation for libraries. Librarians tend to work on a shoe sting budget in most cases either to preserve funds for other projects or because there are no funds so obtaining copyrighted materials such as images, songs, and character licensing too work with is cost prohibitive. However, pirating those same resources is wrong. Which makes creative commons the best things since sliced bread for those of us who would like to use high quality pictures, graphics and songs and yet would like to avoid getting sued or hurting other peoples ability to make a living. As I understand copyright and intellectual property law it boils down to, if people can't benefit from creating, inventing or researching then they are less likely to do it and we would all be poorer for that loss of potential.

Telling tales out of School:

As I was reading this article three things stuck with me. One: document what you do and when you do it in a way that you can use later because no one is going to take your word over someone else correct documentation. Besides, if you know other people are working on the same things you are when you start collaborating with them and everyone is still friendly is the time to get these details worked out upfront so that there is less of a chance for hurt feelings or miss understandings in situations where your career is on the line.

Two: Pelletier damaged her reputation horrible by going outside of the normal boundaries for pursuing her case, she lost more then she won not only for herself but also for other researchers. The way the article is presented it makes it seem as if this Post-Grad student was just not willing to pay the dues that her professional requires of her and that she should not have brought the suit because it made scientists look as if they were out for money not intellectual enlightenment and the betterment of the human race.

Three: I didn't realize how convoluted academic research situations were. As someone who is not interested in being in an academic situation I had never considered how truly dependent each researcher was upon the goodwill or ethical standards of the person heading the lab, project or group because the room for abuse is tremendous.

Intellectual Property and the Liberal State:

Copyright isn't about stealing from the public pool of information and resources its not about capitalism, its about recognizing that creating, writing, researching, designing are skills that produce more items for the vast pool to enjoy but it takes time and energy to do. Rewarding people for doing these things is a side benefit of copyright not the purpose of it. The author gains a copyright so that they can then go and sell a manifestation of the idea not the idea itself which once its out there its no longer controllable. What I mean is that a writer writes a book and they can sell the manifestation of the book such as a bound edition in a book store they are getting the right to produce the manifestation and stop anyone else from producing it without paying for it. To further simplify copyright is just a mechanism for giving someone credit where credit is do.

Revising Copyright Law for the information age:

New formats and new technology creates problems when we try and deal with it as if it was not new. I liked the practicality and the straight forward writing, it was the easiest to read. Creative people create because its what they do, after the item is created then making it profitable or support itself is the next step. Although what can be done is not the best place to start to determine what should be done it will result in the most likely solution that can be implemented sooner rather then latter.

Who owns native culture?

The article started out talking about an artists right to record and control aboriginal artwork which is believed to belong to the whole clan and that the artist is just the tool to record or create a physical manifestation of the tribes legend. Just when the article was getting interesting it was revealed that the case was brought to prove a point and to solidify land rights. Mainly, the aboriginal people used paining and stories to prove their had ownership of land, which I find slightly suspect. I could paint a picture of a nice piece of land and it wouldn't make it mine regardless of how many stories I found about that land. The other point that ruined the usefulness of this article was that it was determining rights for people who were not present and didn't have a voice in the proceedings.

However the small portion on the "fair use Doctrine" was interesting and something that comes up a lot where I work when we put together a photo montage and include music, when I put together a book club flyer and use copyrighted cover art, when I do a lot of things that could be questionable but is usually protected under the fair use doctrine according to my understanding of it.