|
|
Doctoral candidate completes study on copyright law’s chilling effects
Nick Meador
Martine Rife, a Ph.D. candidate in MSU’s professional writing program, just completed a study to evaluate knowledge and comprehension of copyright law and fair use. Fair use is the buffer in copyright law that allows people to use protected works in certain ways without being punished.
Rife received 334 completed surveys out of 1935 randomly selected professional writing teachers and students. The most important question in the survey was whether someone would always obey copyright law, or if they would break a law if their conscience told them the action shouldn’t be illegal.
Among those surveyed, 73 percent said that they would follow their conscience in such a case, while 14 percent would follow the law and 13 percent were undecided. “There is evidence that the more education you have, the more likely you are to follow your conscience,” said Rife.
The core of Rife’s study focused on the way copyright law can potentially chill or restrain speech and creativity. However, the majority of subjects didn’t feel that copyright law has chilled their speech. Fifty-eight percent have experienced some chilling, but only 2.5 percent feel extremely chilled.
On knowledge questions relating to Creative Commons – a web site that provides partial protection to author’s work, to assist widespread creative progress – and fair use, those surveyed scored 63 percent on average. “That says there’s some teaching and learning to do,” said Rife.
Rife noticed that, although most people were lacking in this legal knowledge, many of them wanted to learn more. “Way over half of people think that [copyright law] is something that you need to know,” said Rife. “That indicates that students and teachers want to have information on fair use and copyright law in their curriculum if people will be writing for the Web.”
The professional writing program at MSU was developed six years ago to provide students with a wide array of skills – everything from newsletters to press releases to web sites – with a growing emphasis on working in digital environments. Danielle DeVoss, a director of the program, includes a segment on copyright law in all her classes.
“We want to make sure our students understand the implications of downloading, copying, mixing and mashing in today's digital world when they go out to work in nonprofits, organizations and companies,” said DeVoss.
According to Tyler Smeltekop, a professional writing senior, the knowledge he has gathered in class came mostly in the context of scenarios. “The bulk of the (copyright law) teaching is on the gray-area cases and the process to determine whether it could be arguably fair use [of] the material,” said Smeltekop.
Despite these types of lessons becoming increasingly common, DeVoss is concerned that copyright law is being taught the wrong way. “Because individuals and institutions are terrified of lawsuits, they're quick to put tight reins on fair use – rather than using it, celebrating it and fighting to retain it in its broadest sense,” said DeVoss. “We have to be bolder than that. I see a lot of teachers assuming what they can’t do and operating from a chilled perspective. I think we need to be much more bold in terms of what we can do.”
Both Rife and DeVoss attest that copyright law in the digital world still has uncertainties, but it is malleable as well, and pushing the limits could lead to greater leniency with fair use in the future. “These communities of creators are crucial to a healthy, robust public commons,” said DeVoss. “But as long as large-scale corporate interests dominate discussions of and legislation related to copyright law, our work and our shared creative commons are potentially endangered.”
Smeltekop is still very careful about using other people’s content. He searches for images on open use web sites like Stock.xchng. “This way, I know I am protected in using the photos, so long as I am following the applicable restrictions,” said Smeltekop.
DeVoss claims that students should be included in discussions of copyright law more often, so common knowledge will expand beyond restrictions for illegal distribution of music and movies. “I think we have an obligation to have larger discussions about copyright, beyond threats related to file-sharing and policies regulating network use,” said DeVoss.
As a student about to enter the real world, Smeltekop hopes that copyright law will be on his side when he makes digital compositions. Smeltekop said, “The Internet allows for all kinds of expressions, so to limit that is to limit the power of the Internet.”
Questions? Comments? Contact Nick Meador at meadorni@msu.edu
|
|
