Intellectual property

Today, we'll be talking about Intellectual Property, focusing on copyright and how that intersects with the digital age. I'm listing some links that I'll refer to in class today.

Copyright

• Stanford
• Copyright Protection: What it is, How it works - Good description of copyright expiration
  

Other Intellectual Property terms (see this website, bottom left box for these terms)
Public domain, fair use, patents, trademarks, etc.

Example of use of public domain for continued creativity through time
The Gallow's Pole is a traditional song that has been covered throughout time by artists such as Leadbelly and Led Zepplin, most notably. These artists drew on the creativity of the public domain to create a new sound or interpretation of the original work.

Copyright Law of 1976 (amended in 1988)

• Lays out copyright law that we know today, including concepts like Fair Use
• Original range of protection – author’s life + 50 years
  

Copyright Term Extension Act, 1998

• Basically, extends the coverage of copyright for the individual and corporate holder
• Labeled Sunny Bono Act or Mickey Mouse Act (Disney) because of the strong support these interest
• Effectively froze the advance of the public domain
  

Digital Millenium Copyright Act, 1998 – effort to apply intellectual property to the digital age

• Recent example of this in action - Sony v. Hotz
• Other examples of this in action?
  

Creative Commons

• Read Only/Read Write culture -this has shaped a new intellectual property discussion
• Look for CC sign in youtube, music, other creative works (Public Library of Science – scholarly works)
• Creative Commons and other open licensing revolves around the idea of allowing open use of creative works for collaboration and more open access, not necessarily for the protection of “property” but for the collaborative development of our culture; of writing it together; of writing ideas; of rewriting those ideas; of creating something better as a community.
  

Other examples of this:

• Open licensing/Open source
• OSI – Open Software Initiative
• Free Software Foundation
• GNU license; GNU/Linux operating system
  

Here's a good description of the goal of "free software:"
Taken from http://www.gnu.org/.

Free software” is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of “free” as in “free speech”, not as in “free beer”.
Free software is a matter of the users' freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software. More precisely, it refers to four kinds of freedom, for the users of the software:
· The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
· The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
· The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).
· The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits (freedom 3). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

Instead of putting a Creative Commons license on this type of software, you would use a GNU GPL (General Public License), for example.

Open access in publishing:
Example - Public library of science

TED, Lawrence Lessig: Laws that choke creativity