The Collins readings looks at several subjects we have touched on over the preceding weeks of MED104 and starts to bring them together to paint a picture of the current media production and distribution landscape in relation to copyright and fair use.
Collins begins by highlighting that in the current cultural context people for the first time have accesses to media production hardware and software at prices which allow for people who were strictly consumers to become producers, and terms it “prosumerism”. And that is prosumerism which a form of creativity where participants are able to create ‘new’ works which are then easily distributable online through web 2.0 platforms such as YouTube. I think it is this combination of lower barriers of media production and a relatively free distribution platform for many forms of different media that has thrust copyright into question in the digital age where it is steadily becoming the societal norm to participate and that perhaps that this highlights the generational differences present in society today’s and its attitudes towards media and that perhaps there are two generations at the moment – the push generation (Read Only) and the pull generations (Read Write).
Thus we currently have a situation where most professional content is being created by the Push generation which is using laws relating to media in the offline world and trying to apply them in an online environment as they see this use of copyright to a challenge to their media hegemony as Collins notes “despite a lack of demonsratable economic harm in many cases” and thus use their power in the media to create moral panics thus exacerbating issues and negatively labeling “prosumers” as thieves and pirates to protect their power position and suppress new business models and technologies that pose a threat to their position.
Fair use is supposed to provide balance between these private and public/cultural interests however with old media laws treating digital media still as a real property and that any use breaks intellectual property laws. I agreed with Collins that this should not be the case and that digital media should be treated differently by the law as they are being created within a different cultural context of an increasingly participatory culture.
Collins noted that copyright was originally created to ensure that culturally important works were not subject to monopolies, something that I see having broken down now to protect monopolies with the ever extending period of copyright and was surprised to see that fair use issues extended back on to the 1840s and thus is not a new issue, but seems to be an issue born out of consumerism and commoditization which seem to develop around this time (Bowlby, 1985).
Collins noted that fair use is an essential social utility of copyright and uses a quote from Patry to support this where he notes that fair use encourages “learned men to compose useful books”. This highlighted a key point in Collin’s argument in the support of fair use in that it promotes new thinking on existing ideas and concepts to produce new materials to assist in cultural and societal development, and also highlights that this is not a new phenomenon and has been going on in the media landscape for a long time. The freedom to develop new ideas and concepts has only recently been restricted due to the ever extending lengths of copyright designed to appease economic concerns in a capitalist society where infinite economic growth is required - appeasements which are at logger head with the participatory culture of today and show to me that economic concerns are currently emphasized over cultural ones and that many “infringements” could well be argued to be fair sue but due to the perceived economic and political power of copyright holders they are not challenged for fear of losing.
Whilst I do not believe having no copyright laws and blatantly stealing content is right I think the need to allow a culture to develop using the communicative and creative means of the day is extremely important. Some kind of licensing is required to supply authenticity to the reader which is important when considering that anyone can post anything on the web whether it is correct or incorrect.
References:
Collins, S. (2008). Recovering fair use. M/C Media Culture 11 (6). Retrieved from http://journal.media-culture.org.au/index.php/mcjournal/article/viewArticle/105
Bowlby, R. (1985). Introduction in Just Looking: Consumer Culture in Dreiser, Gissing and Zola , Bowlby, Rachel , 1985 , 1-17. Retrieved from http://www.library.mq.edu.au/reserve/index.php?command=searchCourse&coursenotes=0&exams=0&ereadings=0&course=sgy120
Collins begins by highlighting that in the current cultural context people for the first time have accesses to media production hardware and software at prices which allow for people who were strictly consumers to become producers, and terms it “prosumerism”. And that is prosumerism which a form of creativity where participants are able to create ‘new’ works which are then easily distributable online through web 2.0 platforms such as YouTube. I think it is this combination of lower barriers of media production and a relatively free distribution platform for many forms of different media that has thrust copyright into question in the digital age where it is steadily becoming the societal norm to participate and that perhaps that this highlights the generational differences present in society today’s and its attitudes towards media and that perhaps there are two generations at the moment – the push generation (Read Only) and the pull generations (Read Write).
Thus we currently have a situation where most professional content is being created by the Push generation which is using laws relating to media in the offline world and trying to apply them in an online environment as they see this use of copyright to a challenge to their media hegemony as Collins notes “despite a lack of demonsratable economic harm in many cases” and thus use their power in the media to create moral panics thus exacerbating issues and negatively labeling “prosumers” as thieves and pirates to protect their power position and suppress new business models and technologies that pose a threat to their position.
Fair use is supposed to provide balance between these private and public/cultural interests however with old media laws treating digital media still as a real property and that any use breaks intellectual property laws. I agreed with Collins that this should not be the case and that digital media should be treated differently by the law as they are being created within a different cultural context of an increasingly participatory culture.
Collins noted that copyright was originally created to ensure that culturally important works were not subject to monopolies, something that I see having broken down now to protect monopolies with the ever extending period of copyright and was surprised to see that fair use issues extended back on to the 1840s and thus is not a new issue, but seems to be an issue born out of consumerism and commoditization which seem to develop around this time (Bowlby, 1985).
Collins noted that fair use is an essential social utility of copyright and uses a quote from Patry to support this where he notes that fair use encourages “learned men to compose useful books”. This highlighted a key point in Collin’s argument in the support of fair use in that it promotes new thinking on existing ideas and concepts to produce new materials to assist in cultural and societal development, and also highlights that this is not a new phenomenon and has been going on in the media landscape for a long time. The freedom to develop new ideas and concepts has only recently been restricted due to the ever extending lengths of copyright designed to appease economic concerns in a capitalist society where infinite economic growth is required - appeasements which are at logger head with the participatory culture of today and show to me that economic concerns are currently emphasized over cultural ones and that many “infringements” could well be argued to be fair sue but due to the perceived economic and political power of copyright holders they are not challenged for fear of losing.
Whilst I do not believe having no copyright laws and blatantly stealing content is right I think the need to allow a culture to develop using the communicative and creative means of the day is extremely important. Some kind of licensing is required to supply authenticity to the reader which is important when considering that anyone can post anything on the web whether it is correct or incorrect.
References:
Collins, S. (2008). Recovering fair use. M/C Media Culture 11 (6). Retrieved from http://journal.media-culture.org.au/index.php/mcjournal/article/viewArticle/105
Bowlby, R. (1985). Introduction in Just Looking: Consumer Culture in Dreiser, Gissing and Zola , Bowlby, Rachel , 1985 , 1-17. Retrieved from http://www.library.mq.edu.au/reserve/index.php?command=searchCourse&coursenotes=0&exams=0&ereadings=0&course=sgy120