Such Complicated Protections!
Where to start? After going through all the readings and the video, I am amazed at how complicated the protection and regulation of intellectual property is. Although there are laws that help protect an artist from having their works stolen without permission, the artists have to equally show consideration to whatever idea or pictures or videos that they use in their own creations. While there are some situations where it's OK to show someone else's material if it was not intentional, there are other situations where you must "clear the rights" for use of material if you intended to add it to your work (Aoki, Boyle, Jenkins). I found that the authors of Bound by Law? did an excellent job explaining how the whole system works. I'll have to read it about 50 more times to get it all straight, but it was great.
I enjoyed the story of the artist Tom Forsythe. An artist, Forsythe was taken to court by the Mattel Corporation because they didn't like his artistic renderings of Barbie which were in fact legal. Forsythe had the right to present Barbie in the context of parody. Mattel's lawyers obviously knew this but their aim was to apply pressure on Forsythe. Legal representation is expensive and many people in this situation would have to settle for fear of bankruptcy. I was happy to read that the Judge saw through this scheme and threw out the case. He even ordered Mattel to pay for Forsythe's legal expenses (Aoki, Boyle, Jenkins). How great is that?
I have heard many a story of a powerful person or corporation that sues someone to simply apply financial pressure. They know that their case is weak but they are able to either keep the case tangled in the legal system or scare the person into settling because they fear financial ruin. My friend's boss experienced this first hand. He owns a boat dealership and also does a lot of service work on boats. A big-shot lawyer had brought his boat in to have some work done. After the work was completed, the lawyer claimed that the dealership had damaged his boat. The boss checked and found that the damage was present when the boat arrived. The lawyer then tried to intimidate the boss by saying, "Do you know how deeply I could sue you?" That's an abuse of power if I've ever seen it. It's heartening to see that there is some protection from such monsters.
In regards to what happens to someone's creation after it’s uploaded to the internet, I am confused. I think that a person's works should definitely be protected, but what happens when someone in a different country uses those works without permission? That seems to be quite a murky situation. John Perry Barlow description of this situation fits well. He states that, "In cyberspace, no national or local boundaries contain the scene of a crime and determine the method of its prosecution; worse, no clear cultural agreements define what a crime might be."
China is a great example. I worked for a company that produces power generators. A competitor of this company decided to outsource the production of one of its generators to a contract manufacturer in China. At the time, Chinese companies were (without permission) shamelessly copying anything they could get their hands on. Someone over in China decided to copy the competitor’s generator and sell it for themselves. I’m sure our competitor was not pleased.
The ownership of the content that people create online on various websites is also a touchy issue. In a recent paper of mine, I wrote about that famous website/corporation known as Yahoo!. As the Yahoo! Corporation grew, they bought up new web services that would complement their web site. Users of the acquired web sites took issue with the Yahoo! Corporation’s practice of changing the relevant terms of service. After taking over a service, Yahoo! would claim intellectual property rights on the content of their servers (Answers.com. History of Yahoo!).
This makes me think twice about what I upload or create online. If I get into writing on these nifty blogs, or if I upload my precious photos to any site, I want to make sure that I own that media.