File Sharing, Copyright and Creativity

AK 2100March 15, 2006

Open Source

Basic concept: the code for a particular software is not “secret” but freely distributed

This will allow a community of “coders” to continually improve the product

“Open source software is an idea whose time has finally come. For twenty years it has been building momentum in the technical cultures that built the Internet and the World Wide Web. Now it's breaking out into the commercial world, and that's changing all the rules. Are you ready?”

http://www.opensource.org/index.php

Revolution OSDir. JTS Moore, 2002

http://www.revolution-os.com/

LINUX

Linux is Free Software. Now, just because it's Free, doesn't necessarily mean it's free. Think "free" as in "free speech," not "free beer," as we in the Free Software/Open Source community like to say. In a nutshell, software that is free as in speech, like Linux, is distributed along with its source code so that anyone who receives it is free to make changes and redistribute it. So, not only is it ok to make copies of Linux and give them to your friends, it's also fine to tweak a few lines of the source code while you're at it -- as long as you also freely provide your modified source code to everyone else.

From http://www.linux.com

LINUX

Linux is not owned by anyone. One misconception many first-time Linux.com readers have is that this site, Linux.com, is similar to Microsoft.com, which is owned and controlled by the company that produces the Windows operating system.

Not so!

No one company or individual "owns" Linux, which was developed, and is still being improved, by thousands of corporate-supported and volunteer programmers all over the world. Not even Linus Torvalds, who started the Linux ball rolling in 1991, "owns" Linux.

From http://www.linux.com

File Sharing

• Napster and Shawn Fanning: popularized P2P (peer to peer) file sharing

• No central repository of files. Files distributed and shared among a large network

• Napster: an intermediary program that located users who had files they wanted to share. Files then shared between users

Peer to Peer file sharing. From http://garnet.acns.fsu.edu/~jas1454/

Kaaza file sharing model

http://garnet.acns.fsu.edu/~jas1454/

File Sharing

• MP3 brought file sharing into public spotlight• Millions downloaded music• Recording Association of American (RIAA)

responded with lawsuits• Caused the fall of Napster, but many other

P2P networks have replaced it (Kaaza, Limewire)

File Sharing

• Basic problem: who owns what?• P2P networks have many legitimate uses and

have been used in business communities for decades

• Licensing: when you buy a CD you buy the right to listen to the music, not the actual music itself

File Sharing

• Is file sharing ethical?• Comparisons to the mix tape• Fair Use: complicates issue somewhat• Reactions from Industry and the Law– http://www.overpeer.com – http://www.riaa.com – Anti copying protection: http://

news.com.com/2009-1023-273619.html

Source: http://garnet.acns.fsu.edu/~jas1454/

Copying: a shift in values

• Technology makes copying easy• Essays, films, novels, sampling, music, etc.• Notion of originality is challenged• Cutting and pasting• Counterfeit designer goods• Evidence of a cultural shift - from production

of material goods to reproduction of a label or concept

Copyright CriminalsA documentary by Ben Franzen and Kembrew McLeod

http://www.copyrightcriminals.com/

Best Selling historian accused of plagiarism

No need for original thought. Just download it!

“Authentic” designer replicas

Kaaza.com

http://www.bostonphoenix.com/boston/news_features/dont_quote_me/multi-page/documents/02201537.htm

Copy Culture"What the Internet does is, it pries everything out of moral context and lets people feel(good) knowing about it," he said, because the skills used to cut and paste something with a computer are more valued than those used to manufacture it.

"In a sense, Internet technology is a metaphor for the new morality. As long as you can get it, it doesn't matter how." (Neal Gabler as quote in Leland, John “Beyond File Sharing, A Nation of Copiers” NY Times, Sept. 14, 2003)

Is it necessary to rewrite existing copyright legislation to take into account developments in technology?

To what extent is “copying” a part of working creatively with digital technology?

See Copyrights and Copywrongs: The Rise of Intellectual Property and How It Threatens Creativityby Siva Vaidhyanathan

Beyond-Copyright

Experimental sound collage group founded in the 1970s in San Francisco

Gained some notoriety for creating false accounts that one of their songs was inspiration for a real-life mass murderer

Gained even more notoriety for their battle with U2 and their parody of “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For”

Sued by Island Records

Mondo 2000 interview with Negativland and U2’s The Edge

http://www.negativland.com/index.html

Beyond-Copyright

Interested in intellectual property rights

Champion Fair Use

Contributed to Creative Commons - an organization that strives to provide a broader range of copyright options to artists

See http://creativecommons.org/

http://www.negativland.com/index.html

Beyond-CopyrightAdvocate a culturally sane solution to confrontations between owners of copyrighted material and artists

Need to broaden the concept of Fair Use

“No one much cared about the centuries old tradition of appropriation in classical music as long as it could only be heard when it was played live in front of your ears. But now all music exists as a mass produced, saleable object, electronically frozen for all time, and seen by its owners to be in continuous, simultaneous economic competition with all other music. The previously interesting idea that someone's music might freely include some appropriated music of another has now been made into a criminal activity. This example is typical of how copyright laws now actually serve to inhibit or prevent the creative process, itself, from proceeding in certain interesting ways, both traditional and new.”

http://www.negativland.com/changing_copyright.html

http://www.negativland.com/index.html

Beyond-Copyright

http://creativecommons.org/

Creative Commons

Creative Commons is a new system, built within current copyright law, that allows you to share your creations with others and use music, movies, images, and text online that's been marked with a Creative Commons license

Beyond-Copyright

http://creativecommons.org/

Creative Commons

Creative Commons is a new system, built within current copyright law, that allows you to share your creations with others and use music, movies, images, and text online that's been marked with a Creative Commons license

Beyond-Copyright

http://kembrew.com/pranks/mytrademarkof.html

Beyond-Copyright

http://kembrew.com/pranks/mytrademarkof.html

Beyond-Copyright

http://www.illegal-art.org/index.html

Some Links

www.bannedmusic.org www.creativecommons.org

www.detritus.netwww.downhillbattle.org

www.eff.orgwww.poclad.org

www.publicknowledge.orgwww.thecorporation.org

Discussion

Based on your reading of this week’s article, ideas from the lecture and/or your own experiences and other readings consider the following:

To what extent are the conventions of copyright and originality still relevant in today’s society? Given the changes in technology and the new possibilities that follow as a result, is it necessary to rethink such fundamental concepts as “the original,” “ownership,” and the “author?” If so, what would be the consequences, both positive and negative, of such changes?

To what extent is “real” creativity “different” in today’s so-called digital age? Does such potential “difference” require a change in the infrastructures that support and deliver creative content to society? Are there any indications that this is happening?

If possible, draw from real life examples to develop your ideas!