Copyright Purpose

Copyright, CopyLeft.

Control of one’s creative works is complicated in the era of YouTube, rapid expansion of computing power, the shaken music industry, and Open Source software.

Justice Sandra Day O’Connor once wrote:

“The Framers intended copyright itself to be the engine of free expression. By establishing the marketable right to the use of one’s expression, copyright supplies an economic incentive to create and disseminate.”

Harper & Row v. Nation Enterprises, 471 U.S. 539 (1985). O’Connor was joined in the decision by Chief Justice Burger and Justices Blackmun, Powell, Rehnquist and Stevens.

A new book, “Free Ride,” by the journalist Robert Levine, discusses copyright, the Internet and the impact of digital piracy.

Copyright often encourages free speech. It sometimes inhibits free speech. The idea that copyright is the be-all and end-all of free expression is simplistic. The idea that it inhibits free speech is simplistic. I think this is true of politics in general, but everyone argues about stuff like a 4-year-old.

Read an interview with Levine by Salon.com.

Essay: How “going viral” works by OK Go

This essay by the creative musical band OK Go has a well-written description of how “going viral” works. Here’s a quote from the original article:

Embedded videos — those hosted by YouTube but streamed on blogs and other Web sites — don’t generate any revenue for record companies, so EMI disabled the embedding feature. Now we can’t post the YouTube versions of our videos on our own site, nor can our fans post them on theirs. If you want to watch them, you have to do so on YouTube.

But this isn’t how the Internet works. Viral content doesn’t spread just from primary sources like YouTube or Flickr. Blogs, Web sites and video aggregators serve as cultural curators, daily collecting the items that will interest their audiences the most. By ignoring the power of these tastemakers, our record company is cutting off its nose to spite its face.

The numbers are shocking: When EMI disabled the embedding feature, views of our treadmill video dropped 90 percent, from about 10,000 per day to just over 1,000. Our last royalty statement from the label, which covered six months of streams, shows a whopping $27.77 credit to our account.

It’s a good read; check it out, and consider how your website’s content can be embedded in other sites and blogs, and whether it’s worthy of being shared.

Check out the band’s website at www.okgo.net

OK GO promo poster
OG GO promo poster