For the most part, I think that I’ve generally associated the word “copyright” with mountains of paperwork, complicated rules that hardly anyone understands, and a subject that is important but frankly, boring. This week’s readings changed my conceptions of the word and the broader issue–it’s certainly not boring, but rather extremely charged and the source of fierce debate. It directly affects most people on the planet.
The Basics
I read through the PowerPoint presentation that Mason’s Copyright Office had created (“Copyright Tutorial: The Basics”) and found it to conform to my first notions of copyright discussions–important, but a little boring. It provided good background information (especially about the types of documents that fall into the public domain and fair use), though, and it brought to light some of the issues faced by teachers and scholars that are particularly relevant to all of us at Mason.
Dr. Cohen and Dr. Rosenzweig’s chapter, “Owning the Past?“, further defined the concepts briefly described in the PowerPoint and put the copyright debate and its related issues in context in this digital age, where knowing what constitutes copyright infringement has become clouded with uncertainty. The authors note that we can all contribute to and borrow from the intellectual property that circulates the web and have to deal with the consequences of doing both:
Those who create historical materials on the web are, indeed, likely to find themselves on both sides of the legal and ethical fence—creating intellectual property that they want to “protect” and “using” the intellectual property of others…Few people do digital history without both making a creative contribution of their own and benefiting from the creativity of others.
We prefer to view the web as a “commons,” or a shared storehouse of human creations, rather than a “marketplace,” and we align ourselves with the broad movement of lawyers and scholars, like Stanford University law professor Lawrence Lessig, who have promoted the notion of a “Creative Commons.” In this, we advocate a balance between the rights and needs of the “owners” and “users” of intellectual property, but a balance that favors the enlargement of the “public domain”—taken here to mean not just the formal realm of works with no legal copyright protection, but also more broadly the arena defined by fair use and the sharing and dissemination of ideas and creativity. To see intellectual work entirely as “property” undercuts the norms of sharing and collaboration that are integral to a field like history.
Expanding the “Creative Commons” seems a great way to encourage the “sharing and collaboration that are integral” to history and other social sciences, but after viewing the chart provided by Cohen and Rosenzweig showing when texts or photographs will enter the public domain, one wonders whether a major overhaul of the copyright system might be needed to make that expansion possible. With the passing of recent laws extending copyright benefits an even greater number of years following an author’s death, works that are sought after may not become available until long after the person desiring them inquires. Mark Twain’s copyrights have outlived his grandchildren! As Cohen and Rosenzweig point out, historians generally are able to practice “fair use” and acquire some information from books not in the public domain, but they might be able to do so much more if only the copyright system did not protect works for multiple generations: “Copyright radicalism in the early 21st Century has come to mean embracing an 18th Century law”.
Those seeking greater access to texts are not the only ones up-in-arms about copyright policy. Perhaps the most visible conflicts appear in the studio, where recording artists are fighting for their “rights” to use old songs in what they say is a battle for creative freedom.
Copyright and the Music Industry
We live in a remix culture.
~Jeff Change, Solesides Records
In Copyright Criminals, DJs from the remix “underground” describe the struggles they face in producing their music, which they deem completely original. They “sample” a variety of tunes–old and new–splicing and mixing them together with new beats to create a new sound. Change says that DJs give us snatches of our history, reinterpreting it and presenting it to us in the present day–it’s “audio archaeology”. Many of the artists interviewed claim that their music reintroduced the world to lost classics, actually doing the original artist/recording label a favor.
Many of the DJs argued that their art form, that of mixing a variety of sounds, is not unique to the music industry and should not be punished as though it is. They discussed the “sampling” that goes on in the art world and film industries: the painting of photographs, the digitization and editing of works of art, and even the fairy tales borrowed and made into major motion pictures by Walt Disney. They insist that sampling is not a new phenomenon–the video quoted Igor Stravinsky, the prolific composer, to stress that point: “A good composer does not imitate–he steals”.
Though most DJs don’t view their art as “stealing” and don’t want others to do so, either, there are some producers who dislike sampling immensely: the sound mixer for Nirvana called it “cheap and lazy”. Artists whose work has been used extensively also have mixed feelings. For example, Clyde Stubblefield, the drummer for the James Brown band, said he is honored that his drum loops are used so frequently. He doesn’t ask for royalties, but says he would like to be credited when his work is sampled. Other artists aren’t so generous, and sampling clearances have become a big business. Now DJs are trying to figure out ways to circumvent the very unclear digital audio copyright rules that can cost them their savings or even their careers. They find it outrageous that it’s “easier, cheaper, and faster to cover an artist’s song (unless you try to change the words), rather than to sample it” under the copyright act last updated in 1976. The DJ for Complete Outlaw noted, “You’re either rich enough to afford the law, or [you’re] a complete outlaw.”
It doesn’t seem as though it should need to be that way. As with digital historians, who both “sample” others’ ideas and create their own, so music consumers have now also become producers, who can create mixes with only a computer and the proper software. In order to take full advantage of the creative power of our society’s artists, thinkers, scientists, and writers, it seems as though a copyright overhaul is necessary to redefine intellectual and creative “property”. This will not be an easy task. But as one DJ pointed out,
That’s how society moves forward. It doesn’t just create new things–it evolves by taking old things and changing them.