Post by Boing Boing.
The post leads to this article, written by Cory Doctorow, a founder of Boing Boing, among monay other things. Doctorow is a Toronto native who has become one of the leading voices of the Open Rights and Creative Commons movements. He recently published a book entitled "Information Doesn't Want to Be Free: Laws for the Internet Age", which examines the current state of global copyright laws, especially as they pertain to creative/artistic production and consumption.
The interesting thing about the Boing Boing article, of course, is the fact that the one and only currently elected member of the Pirate Party, Julia Reda of Germany, is leading the European Parliamentary review of copyright legislation in Europe! The Pirate Party was born in Sweden in response to government crackdowns and raids on the file-sharing site The Pirate Bay. It has since spread internationally, including to Canada (disclosure: I have donated to the Pirate Party of Canada).
Tangentially, The Pirate Bay was again raided and shut down just last month, but as a countdown timer on The Pirate Bay homepage hints, it might be back in operation again soon. In any event, to have a member of parliament representing a party founded by so-called "pirates" who have been hounded and prosecuted for years leading the review of copyright legislation is truly remarkable.
Just this week, the organization Copyright for Creativity issued a manifesto calling for comprehensive copyright reform to "support creativity and innovation". This and all of the above are just some examples of recent developments in the world of copyright.
The point of all this is that copyright and "intellectual property" are incredibly hotly-contested concepts at the moment. There are a great many other voices in the discussions, including politicians, academics, cultural creators, and so on. The people, articles, ideas, and debates I have referenced in this post may seem far removed from the world of an individual teacher in Alberta. But I would propose that they are not at all distant. These discussions will shape the flow of ideas in the world we inhabit. As far as I'm concerned, these are profoundly important ideas, and--if we are to call ourselves informed citizens, let alone educators--it is our responsibility to at least become informed about these debates. At appropriate grade levels, we should also be introducing these debates to our students. They must be aware of, and understand at some level, these sorts of discussions if they are to be informed, engaged, critical "digital citizens".
References:
Copyright for Creativity. (n.d.). Retrieved 2015-01-22 from http://copyright4creativity.eu/
Doctorow, C. (2015.01.22). They put a Pirate Party MEP in charge of EU copyright reform: you won't believe the awesomesauce that followed. Retrieved 2015.01.22 from http://boingboing.net/2015/01/22/they-put-a-pirate-party-mep-in.html
Gibbs, S. (2015-01-21). Countdown Timers Hints at Pirate Bay Return. Retrieved 2015-01-22 from http://thepiratebay.se/
Gibbs, S. (2014-12-10). Swedish Police Raid Sinks The Pirate Bay. Retrieved 2015-01-22 from http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/dec/10/swedish-police-raid-pirate-bay
Information Doesn't Want to Be Free. (n.d.). Retrieved 2015.01.22 from http://store.mcsweeneys.net/products/information-doesn-t-want-to-be-free
Pirate Party of Canada. (n.d.). Retrieved 2015-01-22 from https://www.pirateparty.ca/
The Copyright Manifesto. (n.d.). Retrieved 2015-01-22 from http://copyright4creativity.eu/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/C4C-Copyright-Manifesto-20150119.pdf
The Pirate Bay. (n.d.). Retrieved 2015-01-22 from http://thepiratebay.se/
When I began learning about copyright this week, I was struck by Horava (201) when he described that "copyright needs to perform a delicate balancing act of author protection, stimulation to create new works, and public dissemination in order to promote culture and innovation, and to meet public policy objectives" (p.3). I had not previously considered how stringent (or lax) copyright laws could affect most facets of our culture.
ReplyDeleteThank you for bringing in contexts beyond our educational/Alberta/Canadian boundaries! I often forget how interconnected as I often do not participate in digital activities beyond my comfort zone. Your post reminded me that digital citizens are global citizens.
References:
Horava, T. (2010). Copyright communication in Canadian academic libraries: a national survey. Canadian Journal Of Information & Library Sciences, 34(1), 1-38.
Michael, I have learned this week that education about copyright should be embraced by schools and should include readings about global discussions, such as the ones you have referenced. You mention that the information in your post may seem to teachers like far away issues from our classrooms. Yet education is not limited to issues in our own backyard. We teach about history and current events from around the world. There is a place for digital citizenry, including copyright discussions, in the social studies curriculum. Can this discussion fit in a discussion of Globalization? Or is this a better topic for a specialized course, taught by a specialized teacher?
ReplyDeleteIn checking out the links that you provided, I appreciated the comment in Copyright for Creativity that expresses a need to move away from such a strong focus on enforcement in discussions about copyright by moving towards considering “how to ensure that copyright fully supports innovation, creativity, competition, and the public interest. Now is the time for a constructive policy agenda to ensure copyright meets the needs of the 21st century” (Copyright for Creativity, 2014). I also enjoyed the comic in the Manifesto (Copyright for Creativity, 2015, p. 11) pages that claims that copyright is an incentive to create lawsuits.
This week’s discussions have prompted me to have discussions with my daughters, who are 24 and 26 years old. I was very surprised at their knowledge base in this area. One of things they told me about was fan fiction. Apparently many authors have no problems with the creation of fan fiction. The thing I found interesting was one author’s comment that they had to be careful to not be too familiar with fan fiction content because if an idea is too similar to the author’s future writing they could be sued for stealing that idea from the fan. I found this to be a good demonstration of how copyright, as it currently stands, is an incentive to create lawsuits.
Copyright for Creativity. (n.d.). Retrieved 2015-01-22 from http://copyright4creativity.eu/