Gail Weatherly
Lesson 15
COMM 5350

Copyright Issues

Today, and almost any day of the week, there is a story in some news publication or online news site about copyright and ownership of intellectual property.

Take, for instance, a story today, May 1, 2001, at Technology - ZDNet http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/zd/20010501/tc/throwing_the_book_at_decss_1.html about the controversy surrounding DcSS, the code theoretically capable of cracking DVD security.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals (news - web sites) is considering whether to overturn a lower court ruling that prevents online hacker magazine 2600 from publishing or linking to code theoretically capable of cracking DVD security. On Tuesday, the appellate court peppered attorneys from both sides about the scope of the ruling.

A New York Times article today opened with the lead, "In a case testing the scope of copyright law in the digital age, a federal appeals court questioned Tuesday whether software that can decrypt digital movies should be considered free speech" (Jesdarun, 2001).

The sobering aspect of this case may be the proliferation of such software technologies. The software in question allows computer users to copy feature-length films from digital versatile discs onto hard drives or other recordable media and possibly share them over the Internet. The software was developed by a 15-year-old Norwegian youth.

Napster (http://www.napster.com/) has been in the news as a site where MP3 music files were available for downloading at no cost to the visitor. Court action has temporarily slowed the process which the judge ruled a violation of copyright.

This issue is complicated by the digital age we live in.

For educators, there is the Fair Use Doctrine which is an effort on the part of the judicial branch to allow use of copyrighted material that contributes to the creation of new work and use that is not likely to deprive authors or publishers of income.

The factors in the copyright law are as follows:

1. the purpose and nature of the use (educational, for-profit?)
   
2. the nature of the copyrighted work (creative work has more protection than factual work)
   
3. the amount and significance of the portion used.
   
4. the effect of the use on the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

A well-known expert in Copyright, Georgia Harper of the University of Texas System Legan Counsel Office, provides a great deal of in-depth information on copyright at www.utsystem.edu.

The Copyright Clearance Center (http://www.copyright.com/) assists the public in acquiring copyright clearance. Copyright is a legal chasm that is widening. Instructors in an online environment are responsible to ensure that they adhere to the copyright law, but that is much easier in theory than in reality.

This issue will remain at the forefront as society struggles with the balance of freedom of speech and compensating creative people for their ideas and work in order to encourage further creativity.

References:
Baase, Sarah. 1997. A gift of fire: social, legal, and ethical issues in computing. Prentice-Hall, Inc.: Upper Saddle River, NJ.

Hu, Jim, and L. Bowman. May 1, 2001. Throwing the book at DeCSS. Technology - ZDNet.

Jesdanun, Anick. May 1, 2001. New York Times.