What surprised/empowered/frustrated you?
- Surprised: I think the most surprising as well as empowering piece of information was realizing the influence all of the regulations have on culture. I first thought that this affected the kind of money generated by a person’s ideas and inventions, but a deeper reason is to limit as well as protect culture. Its reassuring that the at least some of the reasoning behind copyrights and their length go to the preservation of society and not just for commercial reasons.
- Frustrated: I have been introduced to the ideas of intellectual property before, but what is frustrating is the fact that the definitions of fair use are not definitive, that is to say that they are not explicit. They are guide by four principles in the Copyright Act (nature of work, nature used, extent, and commercial effect) that are left unto the interpretation. I’m not necessarily against the expertise of the lawyers and judges, but it is a lot to be responsible for and mistakes can happen. I guess what is really frustrating is the nature of regulating such a intangible thing.
Two specific examples of copyright/fair use/creative commons and my experiences with them:
- I suppose an easy target would be any essay or project that I have used with a work cited/annotated bibliography. For any quote, there is a specific amount of words that can be copied before it is considered too much. The Fair(y) Use Tale had to exhibit certain a certain length of sound bytes before the use would need permission from the author. It was a clever use of Fair Use in and of itself.
- I, too, have had friends that have engaged in file sharing that may or may not have been legal. I myself choose not to endeavor in that path even though the chances of being charged for the crime are highly unlikely, but upon principle.