Intellectual Property Law Still Alive and Well in the Social Media

Intellectual property law is still alive and well in the social media age despite the free-for-all attitude that many people have about what is available online. Experts at the recent South by Southwest Interactive Festival had a panel discussion about it and explained three important tips for anyone who uses media derived from online sources – even Twitter!

• Be careful with any picture, video or other media, even those that have been widely circulated through Twitter or Facebook.  If you use a photo, the best practice is to obtain express permission to use it, and at the very least do not use photos without proper attribution and links at a minimum. Items like this may be covered under Fair Use to be used in school assignments, but even they need to be attributed.
  
  
• Don’t just “scrape” content off of online sources. To claim a Fair Use exemption, even for a school assignment, you need to transform most content with your own unique creativity, and thereby avoid unfair competition or copyright violation claims.
  
  
• Social media has often been used as a vehicle to make fun of certain people or criticize them. The Fake Steve Jobs blog is a good example of this. Obvious parodies probably are still safe, within reason and good taste, BUT – and kids should know this as this is often a favorite way to get back at a teacher or school administrator – several states, and others have similar laws in the works that have made e-personation , or impersonating another person online, a crime. So, when dealing with criticism or parody of individuals online using the word “Fake” over and over again is one way to keep yourself from getting into trouble.

Yet Another Example of the Dangers of Online Research

It seems like the perils of using online sources, especially Wikipedia, keep cropping up all over and the thing that bothers me the most about them is that sometimes it seems like where the line is drawn on plagiarism is rather capricious. So it plays out in a recent article in the Washington Post entitled An Education in the Dangers of Online Research about students expelled from the Semester at Sea program for violating the University of Virginia's honor code. The expulsions raised questions about what plagiarism actually is, how it can be subjective, and how the enforcement of anti-plagiarism policy can vary from student to student even within the same class.

As we get ready to head back to school it is particularly important to bear in mind that schools are increasingly enforcing anti-plagiarism policies but without giving students, particularly high schools students, an education in the concept and control of plagiarism. Know what your school's policies are, make sure your children know what they are, and when in doubt, cite everything and ask lots of questions about proper form and substance.

(To read the link from this article you will need to register with the Washington Post. It's free.)

Microsoft Surveys Teens on Intellectual Property

Microsoft Corp. announced recently the results of a new survey that found teenagers in grades seven to ten are less likely to illegally download content from the Internet when they know the laws for downloading and sharing content online. About half of those teens, however, said they were not familiar with these laws, and only 11 percent of them clearly understood the current rules for downloading images, literature, music, movies and software. Teens who were familiar with downloading rules credited their parents, TV or stories in magazines and newspapers, and Web sites - more so than their schools - as resources for information about illegal downloading.

Microsoft is also launching the pilot of a broad-based curriculum for middle school and high school educators titled "Intellectual Property Rights Education." The curriculum is focused on preparing students for the digital age, helping them understand, in a meaningful way, how intellectual property rights affect their lives and sparking discussion to clarify the "gray areas" in protected and shared content. To complement the curriculum and enhance the learning experience, Microsoft is also launching an interactive Web site, http://www.mybytes.com, where kids can develop their own intellectual property and assign usage rights by mixing music online to create a custom riff that they can download as a ringtone. (Kids may find it a bit lame if they are already familiar with programs like Apple's GarageBand.)

While I applaud Microsoft's efforts, there has been so much written lately about how teachers are not using digital materials in the classroom because they are anxious about copyright issues, I would urge Microsoft to also do something about educating educators!

Europe May Take DeFacto Control of How the World Uses the Internet

While the United States will still own much of the hardware that the Internet runs on, Europeans are taking a serious look at how we use it by harmonizing the copyright laws of its member countries related to creative content online. While some of what is being negotiated is legalese, for parents and kids there may be important changes in the wind. Here's short list and what it may mean:

1. Copyright owners are going to be encouraged to make content available online with the confidence that piracy will not cannibalize the economic value of the underlying works.
    
2. Procedures will be created to make clearing content easier and less expensive, including the ability of third parties to use works for whom the owner of the rights cannot be located (so-called orphan works).
    
3. A standard of conduct will be formalized between access/service providers, rights holders, and consumers to encourage legal use and access of creative content and to discourage unauthorized file sharing.

As the Europeans create a common copyright policy for its member countries, the European Union will have to tackle issues that are hampering the activities of entrepreneurs, creators, and consumers. The solutions the European Union creates will serve as a guide to other countries, and perhaps the de facto legal framework for the Internet as the digital frontier continues to develop. Should be an interesting ride...

The Forming of the Pirate Party

Ok, even I was a little blown away by this one. Apparently in Sweden a new political party has been formed called the Pirate Party with the sole purpose of thwarting the enforcement of US copyright laws in Sweden. Their goal is to take their argument-that sharing movies, music and other information should not be a crime-directly to voters. And listen up U.S. music and movie moguls, a similar group has asked to become a political party with the same name in Utah. While the Pirate Party in Sweden has not yet got much political clout, it does make one wonder what they want to substitute for copyright laws. If everything is free, are we all destined to watch YouTube-handheld camera clips as our sole entertainment or will advertising play even a bigger part in entertainment production? I'm sick of pop-up ads already, what about you? Anybody out their got any sage advice or a new financial model to replace copyright and royalties?