The sad part in all of this is that the digital technologies we have now, and which are continuing to blossom, afford our children (and us of course) the opportunity to create in the same way that the human race has created for hundreds of years... by remixing culture... but the creation of copyright law, as Lessig so elegantly points out, was not written to deal with such rapid technological advancement.
I found Lessig's comment in the Ted Talk about balance to be particularly poignant really: "We need to legalize what it is to be young again".
We, as the older generation, have grown up knowing that we must cite or otherwise acknowledge the use of other people's work. Today's multimodal technology doesn't really lend itself to such practices. As Lessig (2008) points out: "In my view, the solution to an unwinnable war is not to wage war more vigorously. At least when the war is not about survival, the solution for an unwinnable war is to sue for peace, and then to find ways to achieve without war the ends that the war sought. Criminalizing an entire generation is too high a price to pay for almost any end. It is certainly too high a price to pay for a copyright system crafted more than a generation ago." I believe that until a balance is found between the law and the new generation of creators, that question of responsibility will remain nebulous at best.
In the US
If we were talking about the US, then I would be more concerned as illegal use of copyrighted materials is quite doggedly pursued. Here in Canada however, we are more lax. An interesting article on copyright damages suits can be found at the link below. In the article, Geist states:
"it is important to note that recent changes to Canadian copyright law limit liability in non-commercial cases to a maximum of $5,000 for all infringement claims. In fact, it is likely that a court would award far less - perhaps as little as $100 - if the case went to court as even the government's FAQ on the recent copyright reform bill provided assurances that Canadians "will not face disproportionate penalties for minor infringements of copyright by distinguishing between commercial and non-commercial infringement."
http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/6710/125/
Dr. Michael Geist is a law professor at the University of Ottawa and holds the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law.
I think it's relevant to point out that plagiarism isn't a crime while copyright infringement is. That being said, reading this article makes it fairly clear that Canadians can most likely relax and sleep easy with regards to non-commercially driven copyright violations.
I think it's relevant to point out that plagiarism isn't a crime while copyright infringement is. That being said, reading this article makes it fairly clear that Canadians can most likely relax and sleep easy with regards to non-commercially driven copyright violations.
Canada's Federal Copyright Act doesn't even mention minors, so it's hard to know whether the parent or the child would be responsible for "misdeeds" online. However, I also looked into the Parental Responsibility Act (Ontario) which states:
Parents’ liability
2. (1) Where a child takes, damages or destroys property, an owner or a person entitled to possession of the property may bring an action in the Small Claims Court against a parent of the child to recover damages, not in excess of the monetary jurisdiction of the Small Claims Court,
(a) for loss of or damage to the property suffered as a result of the activity of the child; and
(b) for economic loss suffered as a consequence of that loss of or damage to property. 2000, c. 4, s. 2 (1).
Same
(2) The parent is liable for the damages unless the parent satisfies the court that,
(a) he or she was exercising reasonable supervision over the child at the time the child engaged in the activity that caused the loss or damage and made reasonable efforts to prevent or discourage the child from engaging in the kind of activity that resulted in the loss or damage; or
(b) the activity that caused the loss or damage was not intentional. 2000, c. 4, s. 2 (2).
I also read an illuminating article at WIPR (World Intellectual Property Review) which discusses the intellectual property nightmare created by memeing and the speed with which they transmogrify into new memes or different formats (e.g. video). The process for identifying the copyright owner and the potential copyright violators is extremely complex and not always possible. Within this article Damien Collier, in 2011. Its purpose is to provide the creators of viral videos with a service that includes handling licensing requests, tracking down violators of copyright, and even the development of brands for memes.
The US is most definitely more diligent about tracking down so-called violators than we are here in Canada. In 1998, Bill Clinton passed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act which came into being via the World Intellectual Property Organization and which serves to protect Online Service Providers from liability when their users infringe copyright law but also to extend the reach of copyright law, thus enabling the pursuit of violators.
I could ramble on about law ad nauseum but I think that, to Lessig's point, the big issue here is the chasm between the law makers/owners of copyright and the right of the people to engage in cultural practices that include the remix and mash up of existing works to produce new ones. It's not like this is a new concept, it's just that never before has it been so easy, so rampant, and so disconcerting to the holders of the "original" works. In the entire history of art, literature, drama, and even dance, it is understood that re-inventing, or appropriating, rewriting, retelling, adapting - whatever you want to label it - has, and always will be how culture is fashioned and how it is rewritten to echo the realities of the current population. Only now is it criminal to do so... Take Romeo and Juliet for example, here's what I gleaned from www.historicalfiction.com:
1440's Masuccio Salernitano's poem Mariotto and Ganozza
1531 Luigi da Porto, Newly Found Story of Two Noble Lovers
1554 Matteo Bandello, Romeo e Giulietta
1562 Arthur Brooke, The Tragic History of Romeus and Juliet
1582 William Painter, Palace of Pleasure
1590 Lope de Vega, (Spanish version)
1590's Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
Restoration, William Davenant, wrote a revision of his uncle's (Shakespeare) play
1679 Thomas Otway, The History and Fall of Caius Marius
1744 Theophilus Cibber, revision
IMDB indexes over 34 films based on the story. These include West Side Story (don't forget that was on Broadway too), and my personal favourite, Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet.
2010 Robin Maxwell's novel O Juliet
...but today we can't adapt, remix, retell, appropriate using digital technologies because the world has gone crazy...
No comments:
Post a Comment