Monday, November 14, 2005
Free Culture
On Friday, I went to a lively presentation and discussion about the Free Culture movement and its implications for education, a part of the Science and Society series at Bryn Mawr. The Free Culture movement is primarily a networked group of college students with chapters at lots of different colleges. They are interested in examining existing copyright laws and exploring other options for copyright. The movement has evolved from the Open Source Software movement as well as others. There are many ways in which the issues raised by this and other similar movements affect educators.
From my perspective as a technologist, I am aware of the many ways in which technology is being used to protect intellectual property, preventing educators from using video, music, even text in their courses or research. On the one hand, the copyright law allows for fair use; on the other, the DMCA prevents us from circumventing measures in place to protect materials. In other words, the law actually prevents us from exercising our fair use rights set forth in another law. I only see this getting worse.
The problem with attempting to protect materials is that there are always people out there who figure out ways around the protection. And the real pirates are best at this. They have enough time and motivation to figure out how to make a million copies of the latest Sony DVD. Who suffers as Sony tries to crack down on the pirates? Us. And as text goes digital, these protections could be applied to it as well. Imagine if you went to photocopy an article for use in your class either as a digital copy or hard copy and the copy came out blurry because you didn't have permission to copy it; it was protected. Imagine if every time you wanted to do this for a class, you had to obtain permission and maybe even pay for it. What if you had to get permission just to quote the text in an article or book you're writing?
Google is attempting to scan and digitize millions of texts, but they're getting a lot of flack from the Publishing Industry and even being sued for their efforts. I did a quick search for my old dissertation topic, the poet Mary Wroth. I got 1500 results, a great way to find potential sources. Publishers apparently don't want you to find those. Lawrence Lessig, the inspiration for the Free culture movement, explains the key issues in the Google Print project in a recent Wired article.
Part of a university's mission, I believe, is to give people ready access to information. Current copyright law coupled with Digital Rights Management and other protective technology might seriously prevent ready access to that information. And if information is power, think about who is holding that power now and who might hold it in the future.
free culture
From my perspective as a technologist, I am aware of the many ways in which technology is being used to protect intellectual property, preventing educators from using video, music, even text in their courses or research. On the one hand, the copyright law allows for fair use; on the other, the DMCA prevents us from circumventing measures in place to protect materials. In other words, the law actually prevents us from exercising our fair use rights set forth in another law. I only see this getting worse.
The problem with attempting to protect materials is that there are always people out there who figure out ways around the protection. And the real pirates are best at this. They have enough time and motivation to figure out how to make a million copies of the latest Sony DVD. Who suffers as Sony tries to crack down on the pirates? Us. And as text goes digital, these protections could be applied to it as well. Imagine if you went to photocopy an article for use in your class either as a digital copy or hard copy and the copy came out blurry because you didn't have permission to copy it; it was protected. Imagine if every time you wanted to do this for a class, you had to obtain permission and maybe even pay for it. What if you had to get permission just to quote the text in an article or book you're writing?
Google is attempting to scan and digitize millions of texts, but they're getting a lot of flack from the Publishing Industry and even being sued for their efforts. I did a quick search for my old dissertation topic, the poet Mary Wroth. I got 1500 results, a great way to find potential sources. Publishers apparently don't want you to find those. Lawrence Lessig, the inspiration for the Free culture movement, explains the key issues in the Google Print project in a recent Wired article.
Part of a university's mission, I believe, is to give people ready access to information. Current copyright law coupled with Digital Rights Management and other protective technology might seriously prevent ready access to that information. And if information is power, think about who is holding that power now and who might hold it in the future.
free culture
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From my perspective as a technologist, I am aware of the many ways in which technology is being used to protect intellectual property, preventing educators from using video, music, even text in their courses or research.
I'm sorry, but they are not "prevented" from using these materials; they must be used in specific ways and meet specific tests. If I had a dollar for every teacher that has asked me to copy something illegally, I would be Donald Trump. There is an ignorance of the law on the part of educators that is our responsibility as technologists to address; the fact that laws exist make it our duty to uphold them; you can work to change the law if you don't like it, but spreading the gospel as written by napster is not my role or my goal.
It is far too easy to side with the pirates...As a producer of electronic media, I respect other's intellectual rights because I want mine respected. If one wants to make their material available, Creative commons and other methods exist. As for the technology used, the same could be said about safes. There will always be safes that thieves can crack, but should we stop making safes or making them any more secure?
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I'm sorry, but they are not "prevented" from using these materials; they must be used in specific ways and meet specific tests. If I had a dollar for every teacher that has asked me to copy something illegally, I would be Donald Trump. There is an ignorance of the law on the part of educators that is our responsibility as technologists to address; the fact that laws exist make it our duty to uphold them; you can work to change the law if you don't like it, but spreading the gospel as written by napster is not my role or my goal.
It is far too easy to side with the pirates...As a producer of electronic media, I respect other's intellectual rights because I want mine respected. If one wants to make their material available, Creative commons and other methods exist. As for the technology used, the same could be said about safes. There will always be safes that thieves can crack, but should we stop making safes or making them any more secure?
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