Sunday, September 4, 2011

EMDTMS/MAC WK1 Reading: Copyright Issues, P1-3: Fair Use and De-evolution

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/
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When I start a lesson on copyright issues (issues mind you, not law) I usually show a segment from CBS Sunday Morning, an outstanding issues/news program that, in my book, ranks at the top of useful news productions - right behind PBS Newshour.  It is the story of Shepard Fairey, a street artist, conscientious objector and, in the eyes of the law, criminal.  This due to the nature of his artistic display of "public art" by defacing public areas upon his own authority.  Fairey's method's land him in court frequently but it is his motivations that may deserve the most attention and, depending on your point of view, the most effort on the part of law enforcement.  His artwork, like Andy Warhol's before him, and hubdreds of other artists, draws from popular culture and the work of other artists and professionals.  Whether during his long running "Obey" campaign where he manipulated images of Andre The Giant or his much celebrated Obama Hope posters, much of Fairey's work is arguably original or theft.  Part of the reason I use this video is to generate a student led discussion of the acceptability of Fairey's methods.  There is a quote in the story that I will paraphrase: What Shepard Fairey does to create his art, regardless of the original inspiration or source, is uniquely Shepard Fairey.  This suggests that "fair use", a term that Fairey himself uses in the story, is based on the creative application of editing an original owned by another.  The results of an Associated Press (the corporate owner of the image used in the Obama Hope poster) lawsuit are irrelevant to my discussion starter, so I don't cover that and I'm not sure if I could cover it objectively.  Which brings me to my point.  We, as teachers, can read, verbatim, the copyright law.  And we, as teachers, can pretend to be as knowledgable as hundreds of university professors, lawyers and big picture think tanks and present our interpretation of the these laws as a black and white or gray (see this week's video prompts) situation.  To put a philosophical spin on this issue, I have to admit that I'm a little perplexed on how to adequately teach the issues that will keep media creators, federal (global?) prosecutors, corporations and end-users (can we call them consumers if they are not paying to license?) in courthouses around the world for years to come.  Where is the line in the sand and does there really need to be one?  Here is the quagmire.  Young people especially, with their native use and inextinguishable access to online content have already decided as a societal movement or a collective agreement that free access to copyrighted intellectual and entertainment property is necessary and desirable. While the majority of teachers (I'm guessing here) over the thirty years of Internet evolution taught a black and white version of copyright law, the young end-users have decided that black and white doesn't make a correct, enforceable argument for them not to try to get away with using copyrighted material in new creative ways.  In my opinion, teaching copyright law as black and white is like teaching that the earth is flat.  On the other hand, if I start saying, out-loud, that this concept is not always enforceable and that the rules fluctuate depending on jury and Supreme (US) Court decisions, aren't I teaching tomorrows young adults that they could and should challenge the system? Aren't I speeding the decline or dismantling of the copyright protection laws?
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  1. jbb9/8/11, 1:43 PM

    It's even more complicated than what you've laid out. The first is the misappropriation of the language used, in that there is a black and white definition of both copyright and fair use that the media and people like Fairey misuse. By legal definition Fairey's actions would not qualify as Fair Use unless the poster is considered "critical comments." And sadly the lesson that's being missed is that if he had simply done due diligence and tracked down either AP or Manny Garcia and sought permission none of this would have matter. But that would hardly fit with with street-artist persona (who at the same time was doing work with various galleries and legit business).

    My problem is there's a difference between going against the legal status quo in pursuit of waking folks up or to change the status quo and those too lazy to do due diligence to respect the rights of previous content creators. Copyright is messed up, but so is taking someone else's work without that person's consent.

    Now, I also believe that all of this is also completely out of set with how one becomes an artist, in that all beginning artists begin by copying the masters that came before them. No musician, graphic artist, photographer or painter just springs up fully formed ready to dazzle the world with their artistic visions realized. They begin by copying those they love. And this was once institutionalized in the apprentice/master process where the apprentice literally learned his craft by making copies for the master until the apprentice was good enough to be trusted to be given his own piece of canvas or marble. Today's music and drama teachers have to pay huge performance rights so that they can train the next generation of artists. It should be the other way around. The media companies should be paying educators for training the next generation of artists who are going to be making them money (assuming that the media companies continue to exist...). We need a system that compensates content creators and supports the next generation of content creators.

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