Shaffer, Kris. “Copyright for Instructors.” UMW DTLT, November 22, 2016.
“A creator’s rights persist for their entire lifetime, plus 70 more years. After that, works become part of the public domain, and anyone can use them for any purpose, without attribution or paying royalties.”
Its fascinating to me that what is probably the largest impact the Disney corporation will have had on culture and society will not be people’s fond memory of characters like Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck, but rather the things Disney did to hold onto said characters for as long as possible. Originally, copyright laws in the US were designed to allow a creator to profit off of their creation for their entire lifetime, and following their death the creation would enter the public domain. This process was highly beneficial to both the creator and the culture as a whole. The creator could make as much money off their product that they wanted to in their lifetime, and once they passed the wider culture would gain a new work, character, or piece of art to use in their own creative works. This all changed with Disney, who had the money (as well as the audacity) to lobby Congress to get the copyright law changed multiple times to make sure that they could hold onto the original copyright for their beloved mouse. That “plus 70 more years” exists entirely for the benefit of corporations, allowing them to maintain the rights to art no one alive and employed in their company ever even created. Its no wonder that Disney became the massive entertainment behemoth that it is; considering it changed the law itself, just to hold onto those precious three circles.
“Taken together, these four parameters are weighed by a court to decide how “fair” (or infringing) the use is…There is no simple formula”
While I appreciate the articles we read for this weeks reading in terms of providing a lot of information and context for our rights as educators to use copyrighted works, I think a lot of the so called “advice” chocks up to a simple “it depends.” As with almost everything in US courts, sometimes the meaning of the law entirely depends on the ways in which it is interpreted. While courts rely on precedence to speed up decisions, copyright creates a whole host of new problems for them to solve, as the amount and type of creative work is constantly changing. For example: what is the place of generative AI in terms of copyright? If I prompt DALL-E-2 to create images of every US President with a six pack and mullet, then do I have the rights to use those images in creative works? No human created them, yet the images themselves are created by using existing images on the internet, images which were created by humans. Its interesting to read about the fluidity of copyright law in this article, as it is a pot to be stirred in this early stage of the age of AI.
“However, what constitutes the limit on the size of quotes is not explicitly defined by law (see the four parameters above), and ultimately is only determined for a specific case when that case is brought before a judge. While that flexibility is necessary to make the law work, that’s not very helpful!”
Once again, copyright law proves to be a fair-weather friend, flaking out on holding any firm position. I believe that the adaptability of copyright law is a good thing, as it gives courts the power to determine its place in an ever changing and evolving world. Yet this same flexibility creates a lot of murkiness for us, especially in our role as educators, in terms of understanding just how much we are able to use a copyrighted work.
