CSE 619:

Reclaiming Fair Use: How to Put Balance Back in Copyright by Patricia Aufderheide and Peter Jaszi is a great book that explains what Fair Use is and how it works. I found it interesting that the book goes through all of the steps on how to create a code for the best practices in fair use. It goes from talking about the people that are going to be a part of the group to what is going to be done by the group. When it was describing who would be in this group it reminded me of when I would be put in groups and each of us would have a role within the group.

I remember that there was a recorder, speaker, reader, a leader, and an illustrator. Now reading through the book I can see that this type of set up is not just used in the classroom. With every group you need to make sure that everyone will work well together and all of the different roles are the right ones to use. It talks about how, “The industry executives or brokers who license the copyrighted material a community uses are never good friends for this purpose…” (Jaszi, 2011). This shows that people need to be careful when trying to create their own code for fair use.

                The next step in creating a fair use code is to collect research on why there may be problems with using copyrighted material that the community that is your group has. The book suggests that using surveys, interviews or both are good ways in collecting the information that you are looking for. Using these methods, the fair use group, are able to see what problems accrue in the specified field that is being looked at. With the survey and interview information the fair use group can narrow down the issue that is being had and the best way to go about moving forward in the mission.

An example is if I am writing a lesson and come to a road block because I want to try something more creative than what I have been doing, I would look online to see if I find anything that looks like it would be more fun to do. If I were to have found a lesson that looked like it would be a great substitute for what I originally had I would fill out my survey explaining that I found a lesson I want to use but I do not want to use all of what the lesson gave. I would be wondering if I would need to cite where I found the lesson or if I tweak it enough that I would be able to call it my own.

The information that the survey and interviews collect would be looked through and have not just the things people are asking about but also the obstacles that the person is going to have to go through in order to get what they are asking. Recommendations on how to proceed will also be included so the questioner will not be left hanging. All of this information will be the most helpful for the people in the same field as the questioners.

Works Cited

Jaszi, P. A. (2011). Reclaiming Fair Use: How to Put Balance Back in Copyright. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637.

CSE 619:          

With all of the new technology that is coming out it gets harder and harder to make it difficult for people to pirate DVDs or sell books online, which are copied. I have said before that new technology is a blessing and a curse. It is a blessing because it is allowing teachers to get more creative with their lessons. However, nothing is perfect so the down side of the new technology is that it is getting easier to do things like make pirated movies.

I remember when I was younger and seeing the no pirating screens while watching a movie and wondering why would people want to make a copy of a movie when they could just buy it. As I got older I started hearing people talk about how they have a pirated version of a movie or a CD. It always confused me why people would risk getting in trouble for doing something that silly. I still think it is a stupid thing for people to do. I saw a pirated movie once and it was not as good a picture as the actual copy, so that even furthered my musings of making pirated movies.

            It was smart of people to pass the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to make it even more difficult for people to pirate DVDs. It was a little sad to see that a fifteen year old was able to brake the encryption on DVDs and that he had the time just to figure it out so people would be able to pirate DVDs. It is situations like that that make me wondering about people and what are they doing with their life if they have time to sit down and brake an encryption.

            Reading about piracy and how it is truly affecting Hollywood is eye opening. I knew that the production companies can lose money from people making pirated copies but I never saw how big of an impact it can truly make. On page 177 of Free Ride: How Digital Parasites are Destroying the Culture Business, and How the Culture Business Can Fight Back gives a really good description and breaks it down so I was able to fully grasp the impact.

            On page 243, it states “Users complained it overcharged their credit cards, which just goes to show there’s no honor among thieves” (Levine, 2011). This statement was talking about a Russian pirate site. People had to pay for a subscription in order to use the site. I like that this was said because it is true. It went on to talk about how if piracy kept getting worse than it, “…endangers free speech by reducing the incentive of artists to create new work” (Levine, 2011). Why would people want to create new amazing things just to lose more money than what they put into their work? It defeats the purpose of making a living.

            I am a coach for Girls on the Run and this week’s lesson was treating others the way you would want to be treated. Going along the lines of this I would like to see the people that are doing the piracy to switch places with the production companies and see how much they like make amazing films and then getting their income lowered just because others are taking in illegally.

Works Cited

Levine, R. (2011). Free Ride: How Digital Parasites are Destroying the Culture Business, and How the Culture Business can Fight Back. Toronto: Doubleday.