Fair use is the facet of intellectual property law that allows portions of copyrighted material to be used for criticism and parody and it is a hot button issue in the online content world. For instance major fair use issues that have popped up at YouTube in the last few months include permanently disabling the account of a prolific video film critic and using its ContentID system to remove Warner content after a dispute between the two companies. And in another high profile fair use clash, the AP is suing artist Shepard Fairey over his iconic Barack Obama prints which the AP claims were based on a photo of Obama owned by the AP. According to Fairey and Obama for America, the original print was based on an AP image but when Fairey began to work with the campaign in an official capacity they provided Fairey with a campaign owned photo of Obama to work from. So if two people own similar photos of the President and an artist makes a print from one of them, how do you decide what photo was the inspiration?
I want to highlight a couple helpful resources on fair use law, the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s fair use guide and the Stanford University Copyright and Fair Use Center. The most frustrating thing about fair use is that the burden of proof is on the user. There is no clear criteria for what qualifies as fair use. This allows large conglomerates to easily push around individual artists and critics who do not have the money to fight clostly legal battles even if the individual is clearly using copyrighted material in good faith. As the EFF’s FAQ points out, it is also unclear if fair use is a right or just an acceptable defense against copyright infringement.
What is clear is that the law is not adequately protecting the average citizen’s right to expression, as well as stifling the sharing of art and criticism. What is most frustrating about the current situation is that the current legal situation does not appear to be in anyone’s best interests. Artistic derivative works and criticism do not serve as adequate substitutes for original works so they are not actual threats to original rights holders, in fact they often serve to spark interest in the original works. Thusly, going after critics and artists is not in the long term interest of large conglomerate rights holders. However, legal departments feel like they are serving the short term interests of these conglomerates by bullying and possibly winning settlements. Reform of intellectual property law to catch up with modern technology is going to be a long arduous process. I am curious and excited to see what direction the Obama administration takes us in. Sadly I expect we will have to wait a while given the number of higher priority crises in President Obama’s docket.
Yesterday’s New York Times ran an article on Google’s ever-expanding book search. I have found Google’s book search to be an amazing tool when doing scholarly work. It is encouraging that they are working with publishers and authors to share profits from ads on book searches.
China’s government may be upping the ante in their censorship efforts. The Chinese government recently issued a statement condemning major Chinese & international web entities, including Google, for how easily pornography can be accessed online. Google’s policy is to cater search results to specific countries’ laws by monitoring IP addresses (for instance, in several European countries it is unlawful to seek out Nazi related material so Nazi related websites are filtered out of their Google search results). Google has also stated they would prefer countries to lift their content bans to Google making judgments as to what is acceptable within the laws of each nation. Our literary history is filled with fantastical conceptions of Utopian societies (not to mention real-life attempts to create Utopian societies on this Earth). A single society without censorship laws would be an interesting first step.
Lawrence Lessig argues that FCC regulations should be eliminated to promote technological innovation. I am cheating a bit here, in that it is not Monday’s news but the article is worth your time. While the two domains are vastly different it is interesting to see a respected intellectual in the field of communications press for deregulation as the world suffers through a recession most blame on deregulating the financial markets. At the moment I cannot think of a way this sort of deregulation could cause a global crisis but I suspect the possibility exists.
Turkey’s government is still in the midst of a longstanding debate over how to handle YouTube in a country where content insulting Turkey’s modern founder Ataturk is illegal. Most recently there was a judicial ruling banning YouTube entirely. Turkey is yet another government facing difficult decisions about censorship laws created in parochial world as we now live in an inescapably international world.
Facebook has been flagging breast feeding photos for removal. Despite online and offline protests by breast feeding mothers, they have no intent to change their policy. I am surprised by Facebook’s stance on this issue, which is essentially a shrug and a “those are the rules.” Which is a disconcerting, thoughtless, anti-woman response. It does not take an acrobatic reading to see this as Facebook deeming women’s bodies and women’s relationships to their infants as obscene.
It turns out Israel’s new media campaign to justify its attacks in Gaza is not limited to the IDF’s YouTube channel. The Israeli consulate has a Twitter feed that includes links to news items, quotes and brief comments. The more of this I see coming out of Israel the more comfortable I feel calling it little more than propaganda.
Benazir Bhutto’s daughter made a hip-hop video tribute to Bhutto, the assassinated former-Pakistani leader, and posted the tribute on YouTube. Is it too distant for me to leave my comments at this is a fascinating way to express one’s grief?
We live in a truly absurd age, if you require evidence of this notice that the Israel Defense Forces media & PR wing has setup a YouTube channel to share videos of the IDF’s air attacks in Gaza. Anyone want to join me on a trip to Montparnasse Cemetery for a seance with the spirit of Jean Baudrillard?
In the last year we have seen a rise in “citizen based journalism,” but it is strange (though unsurprising) to see a nation’s military attempt to usurp media coverage of their tactics with video recorded during missions. It is even more strange that the IDF’s idea of justifying or explaining their actions is to provide the world with video of who they are blowing up as those people are being blown up. Yet I must admit, it worked. The first thought that came to mind when I saw what appeared to be Hamas operatives loading and transporting rockets was “Yeah, maybe someone should blow those guys up.” Allow me to say that I am not voicing support for Israel’s actions, just that on the shallowest cognitive level, maybe more visceral than cognitive (maybe visceral, then cognitive?), the IDF’s videos were effective.
Among the interesting ironies here: in a culture that has trended towards fantasy, digital existence and detachment from basic human experiences, here YouTube is allowing the violence in our world to be made more real rather than less. These videos are not the sort of images one would typically find in war coverage on the world news. And to further entangle things some of the IDF’s videos have been taken down, most likely due to graphic content but YouTube policy is not to offer comment on why particular videos were removed from the site. According to the IDF’s brief statement on their YouTube channel’s home page YouTube has allowed some of the censored videos to be accessible again.
I would also like to add that despite my claim about these videos enhancing the realness of military violence I am not wholly uncritically accepting these videos as the real of the Gaza attacks. If the IDF has say, videos of two different bombings. One video is clearly targeting Hamas operatives while the other is more ambiguous, targeting Palestinians believed to be Hamas operatives but not engaged in suspicious activity and possibly innocent civilians. I realize these two theoretical videos would not have an equal likelihood of making it to YouTube.
Australia is planning on becoming the first western country with a nationwide web content filtering system. Supporters of the filter cite protecting Australia’s children from illegal content (such as child pornography). Detractors are concerned that the filter will slow browsing speeds and incorrectly block legal content. Other concerns about the filter include unclear or even arbitrary guidelines for blacklisting.
The question at hand is what is the best way to protect children from inappropriate content on the internet while still respecting the civil liberties of a population, and Australia’s answer strikes me as odd. Instead of expecting parents to be responsible for protecting their own children by doing things like not allowing their young children to use the web alone and installing private content filters, Australia plans to compromise the quality of their entire population’s internet connection and block legal sites via false positives. Many people pay extra for a faster internet connection, yet Australia is flirting with slowing down traffic nationwide. Perhaps one could argue this is analogous to the FCC dictating guidelines for what appears on television in the United States, however FCC guidelines do not apply to all forms of broadcasting and do not deteriorate the quality of your television signal (although, I suppose sports fans may disagree).
Even more murky is that Australia hopes to extend their filter to Peer-to-Peer file sharing networks. I am sure when and if the Australian filter is installed despicable forms of child pornography such as videos and images will be blocked. But I am also curious where the line will be drawn. If someone were to say write a song about an infamous child rapist and murderer, would that song be banned in Australia?
And in another high profile fair use clash, the AP is suing artist Shepard Fairey over his iconic Barack Obama prints which the AP claims were based on a photo of Obama owned by the AP. According to Fairey and Obama for America, the original print was based on an AP image but when Fairey began to work with the campaign in an official capacity they provided Fairey with a campaign owned photo of Obama to work from. So if two people own similar photos of the President and an artist makes a print from one of them, how do you decide what photo was the inspiration?