Introduction
At first glance, the title of the essay reviewed here Who “Owns” Electronic Texts doesn’t seem all that out of the ordinary in the year 2008. But that’s exactly the point of including the article in the collection Central Works. Tharon Howard, in the essay, is very forward looking in his assessments of the legalities of copyright and intellectual property rights of authors in the electronic age. One could say that the essay was just slightly “ahead of its time.”
Historical Context
In his review of the history of copyright laws, Howard sets out to discover how electronic means of communication such as digital imaging, software licensing, email communication, and hyper text language hold up to the letter of the law.
Historically, there are three theories of textual ownership that have pervaded for centuries:
1) Authors have a natural right to “own” their work
2) The laws of nature and absolute truths cannot be “owned”
3) Socially-constructed truths have no owner
These theories of ownership were really first challenged when the printing press was invented and books became inexpensive to make and distribute. Ironically, it really wasn’t the author’s ownership that brought about the first copyright laws but rather the publishers right to produce copies. The publishers banded together in a sort of loose union called the Stationers Company and attempted to enforce their own copyrights by allowing certain publishers unlimited rights to produce certain texts. They even established a sort of “book police” that searched out and destroyed all illegal copies of texts.
The U.S. Constitution addressed the issue of the unfair advantage that the Stationers tried to hold on to when it established copyrights that favored the author in Article 1, Section 8. This gave authors the exclusive right to their intellectual property – sort of. The ownership of authors was established for a certain amount of time after which the public then has broader use of texts. This in effect gave authors time to capitalize on their work both monetarily and by partnering with publishers and researchers to further their work.
Now, the laws of the United States in a few ways also address the concept of fair use:
o Texts may be reproduced in limited quantities for use in teaching, criticism, comment, news reporting, and in scholarship and research. Essentially, fair use allows copy of text insofar as it does not interfere with the commercial viability of the work. If a potential market is hindered due to copyright infringement problems will arise for the offender.
o Also laws protect the author’s expression of ideas. This means that, although certain universal truths may be found in scientific and math developments, it is right of the individual who arranged these truths in a formula to protect their intellectual property. i.e.) someone steals the code for a software program
The difficulty that we now experience is in the assignment of copyright and intellectual property laws to electronic forms of communication.
Examples of Electronic Copyright Questions
1) Photo reproduction – it is interesting that he was thinking about this twelve years ago as it is even more pertinent today in this age of digital photography. The verdict – always go to the publisher before using any portion of a photograph or image or better yet, purchase your images legally from iStock or some other image archive.
2) Software usage – always check the legal rights of the purchases before putting software that you did not purchase on your PC or Mac.
3) Quoting material from an email message – in general, check with the author of the message before using it. Many businesses and academic institutions have protected themselves by applying for an International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) number. The ISSN number identifies you as the owner of the text.
4) Private email message may be protected or they may not. Check the laws of the state you live in to see if your personal email is protected by privacy laws. I think we’ve learned since the writing of this article that nothing you do electronically is safe. In general, don’t put anything in an email that you wouldn’t want the whole world to see.
5) The fifth example involved something that I was not familiar with – Hyper Card stacks.
A hypertext programming environment for the Macintosh introduced by Apple in 1987. The HyperCard model consists of cards, and collections of cards, called stacks. You can connect the cards in various ways, and leaf through them the way you would with a set of Rolodex cards. In addition to data, each card can contain graphics and buttons that trigger other events, such as sound or video. Each object in a HyperCard system -- stack, card, text field, button, or background -- can have a script associated with it. A script is a set of instructions that specify what actions should take place when a user selects an object with the mouse or when some other event occurs. (from http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/H/HyperCard.htm)
This example really looks at the use of data owned by someone other than yourself and your rights to display the data in a way that is different than its original context. This, of course, is very pertinent in today’s world of instant information from the Web. The author’s advice – go to the source first and ask permission to use the data.
Conclusion
As technical communicators, we will collaborate frequently with other writers, engineers, developers and others. We need to be aware of the implications and consequences of the use of protected material. It is imperative that we keep informed of changes in copyright and intellectual property laws. If you have any doubt about the legality of what you are doing, stop and research the issue. One can never tell how a court will rule in these types of cases and it’s better to be safe than sorry.
Thank you, Vanda and Lance
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4 comments:
This was an interesting article. I like the examples given and the explanations for them. Recently at work, I dealt with photo rights a lot as I chose photos to use in a publication. It was the first time I'd gone through the process, and I hadn't realized how much work it would be to gain permissions, how much the photos would cost, and all the guidelines I'd have to follow. It was a lot more extensive than I expected.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but the Digital Millennium Copyright Act is one of the worst pieces of legislation on the books. It criminalizes the routine activities of people who legitimately purchase products. For instance, in the days of VHS, you could legally make backup copies of your movies. In the age of Blue-Ray and the DMCA, you are breaking the law if you make backup copies of disks you purchased because to do so you must first circumvent the encryption that Sony has built into the disks. Unfortunately, the only people who are harmed are honest consumers because thieves still find ways to circumvent, copy, and distribute, but honest consumers are deterred from protecting their own investments.
What does this have to do with technical communication? For one thing, the DMCA makes life extremely difficult for people who run websites. The consequences of a DMCA violation are so onerous that webmasters routinely prevent the posting of material that could be construed as violating the DMCA, even when that material is in fact perfectly permissible under fair use. Major corporations even make bogus copyright claims, knowing that people will probably just comply, rather than stick up for themselves and risk heavy fines or jail time. In a recent case, an illustrator posted a 3D wireframe of a WWII-era bomber plane on an illustrator website. Lockheed Martin actually used the DMCA to make a bogus claim that the model was violating their trademark (which the DMCA doesn't have anything to do with; http://www.boingboing.net/
2008/03/21/wwii-bomber-trademar
.html).
As technical communicators, if we deal with web content we will probably end up dealing with DMCA issues eventually. We must, must, must inform ourselves of our rights so that we are not pushed around by those who presume to have power over us.
Yup, we posted first! :)
Fascinating that two groups posted the same article, but both summaries were unique and interesting and didn't really duplicate each other much. I thought that our class discussion on the topic was lively and informative, as usual.
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