Week #1: Copyright – Fair Use – Creative Commons

If only “Good Copy Bad Copy” had a cleaner version. While I clearly understand the definition of copyright, the areas of interpretation are very murky according to the videos. As an undergraduate student my English professor gave a lecture on oral and written literary traditions. It was based on the premise that works have a tradition of recycling themselves. One storylines inspires another and then another. How many times have we read or watched boy meets girl, boy loses girl and then gets girl back (or so the story goes.) Of course, this was nearly two decades ago.
There is nothing new under the sun. Isn’t that what the adage says? If so then the creative opportunities that bridge age, gender, culture and every gap imaginable must be allowed to flourish. Right? Wrong! (Or at least in some cases.) It appears that the speed of cyberspace and fast access to multimedia – particularly music and film – has been the culprit of this great debate of copyright rights and wrongs. Not to mention the jurisdictions that govern one’s actions are blurred. How dare the U.S. enforce its laws on an alleged offender living in Brazil? How dare a Brazilian remix American content into Techno Brega and get away with it?
Intent, then, should be a major factor concerning copyright infringement and that’s where Fair Use comes into play. What is clear from the videos is that fair use is simply a legal defense. According to law professor Peter Jaszi of American University, fair use prohibits private censorship. But can it always solve the question of whether one’s copyright has been infringed upon? Enter Creative Commons, a great start to bridge the gap of all works not restricted or in the public domain. In a real sense, Creative Commons clarifies -- artist to artist-- what can be used and how. In this way, the culture of text and media sharing – the literary and artistic tradition my professor spoke of, the read-write culture that Larry Lessig speaks of in his Ted Talk can revive and flourish.