This week I discovered that there is much more to copyright law than I’ve ever truly known or understood. This is a bit frightening and shocking to me, being as that I have been working as a technical writer and media asset creator in the public sector for over ten years. e
David Burch
The biggest shock was discovering how little protection and legal support we have through Fair Use. I admit that I had a false sense of security in the past, from what I believed to be legally binding Fair Use principles. However, after watching, Eyes on the Fair Use of the prize, I discovered how little power we have. Not only are copyrights and rights of fair use convoluted and challenging to defend, we can lose the right to use media assets altogether if outlandish royalty fees are not met.
As a writer and consumer of media, it saddens me and makes me nervous for our cultural and societal history to know that money and bureaucracy have the power to constrain our right to knowledge.
I welcome your thoughts and comments.
- Jen David Burch
As you are using content professionally, I'd be interested to know how the institutions or supervisors that you work under have presented the issue of Fair Use to you. What kind of restrictions are required by those paying you to create? Are they protecting themselves and you or are they more interested in the messages that you are creating ("Damn the torpedoes…" and all that)? This is such a quagmire. Obviously, the artist /creator of any work deserves to be paid when their work is distributed, but in what is now a global society, is trying to control all distribution more profitable than the exposure of the work to billions of people?
Sunday, September 4, 2011 - 10:30 AM
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