Authority, Property, Piracy: From Copyright to the Commons

Jane Secker @jseckerWith thanks to Chris Morrison @cbowiemorrison

City, University of London, 24h February 2017

www.copyrightliteracy.org @UKCopyrightLit #INM380

Some definitionsCopyright: Exclusive rights of the author in a creative work. Protects the expression of an idea not an idea.

Copyright exceptions: these are circumstances when works can be used without seeking the copyright holder’s permission.

Licence: a legal agreement that sets out the terms under which you are allowed to use someone else’s intellectual property.

Public domain: these are works that are free from copyright restrictions (e.g. it has expired) and are therefore available to use.

Creative Commons: If a work is distributed under a Creative Commons licence, you can re-use it for free under the conditions set by the licence.

Statute of Anne 1709

“An Act for the Encouragement of Learning, by Vesting the Copies of Printed Books in the Authors or Purchasers of Copies, during the Times therein mentioned"

John Locke1632-1704

Labour theory

“Every man has a property in his own person - the labour of his body, and the work of his

hands”

“That the sweat of a man's brows, and the exsudations of a man's brains, are as much a man's own property as the breeches upon his backside”

Laurence Sterne - The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman. (1759)

“One particularly evocative example is the language of copyright as intellectual property right, and of intellectual property right as human right, a powerful rhetoric, with little historical or theoretical credibility, but which nonetheless threatens to dominate copyright discourse and drive contemporary copyright policy.”

Deazley (2006) p.8

The Intellectual Commons

From Deazley, R (2006) Rethinking Copyright, p.123

Sharing in the digital age

BROKEN

?

ACTIVISM or PIRACY?

Creative Commons

Cultural Commons

LEARNING

Teaching copyright in context

Copyrightliteracy.org

Copyright literacy is….

“the range of knowledge, skills and behaviours that individuals require when working with copyright content in the digital age”.

(Morrison and Secker 2015)They recognise the dual nature of copyright literacy where librarians develop their own copyright knowledge but are also able to teach and support others.

The survey said…...

• 57% of UK librarians moderately or extremely confident about copyright matters

• 76% think having a copyright policy is important

• Only 63% have a copyright policy• 64% of institutions had a copyright officer

(higher in HE)

Copyright as an Experience

Category 1: Copyright is seen as a problem and avoided

Category 2: Copyright is seen as complicated and passed on to specialists

Category 3: Copyright is seen as a knowable entity requiring coherent messages

Category 4: Copyright is an opportunity for negotiation, collaboration and co-construction of understanding

© ©

The role of librariansAs copyright

advisors

As copyright educators

All part of information

literacy

“If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”

Sir Isaac Newton, 1676

Further readingAshton, K. (2015) How to Fly a Horse: the secret history of creation, invention and discovery. Doubleday books.Deazley, R (2006) Rethinking Copyright: history, theory, language. Edward Elgar: London.Morrison, C and Secker J. (2015) Copyright Literacy in the UK: a survey of librarians and other cultural heritage sector professionals. Library and Information Research. 39 (121) http://www.lirgjournal.org.uk/lir/ojs/index.php/lir/article/view/675 Secker, J and Morrison, C. (2016) Copyright and E-learning: a guide for practitioners. Facet publishing: London. Chapter 6: Copyright education and training available online.Soetendorp, R and Meletti, B (2016) Exceptions for education. Copyrightuser.org. Available online.Stern, Laurence (1759)The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Life_and_Opinions_of_Tristram_Shandy,_Gentleman Tehranian, J (2011) Infringement Nation: copyright 2.0 and you. Oxford University Press: Oxford. Todorova, T., Trencheva, T., Kurbanoğlu, S., Dogan G., & Horvat, A. (2014) A Multinational Study on Copyright Literacy Competencies of LIS Professionals. Presentation given at 2nd European Conference on Information Literacy (ECIL) held in Dubrovnik. October 2014. Retrieved March 13, 2015 from http://ecil2014.ilconf.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Todorova.pdf

@UKCopyrightLit Copyrightliteracy.org

Image creditsSlide 1: Photo from Unsplash.com CC-0Slide 2: Photo by Jane Secker CC-BY-SASlide 4: Queen Anne / Statute of Anne from Wikipedia CC-BYSlide 5: John Locke from Wikipedia CC-BYSlide 8: © Ronan Deazley used with permissionSlide 9: Summer Peach Cake by William Andrus https://flic.kr/p/ajEydF Slide 10: 3D Broken Copyright by Chris Potter https://flic.kr/p/ogWUh1 CC-BYSlide 11: Tattoo by Ivan Lanin CC-BY-SA https://flic.kr/p/4vXiA9 and Kindle by Andrew CC-BY https://flic.kr/p/8WxLjuSlide 13: EIFL Aaron by Quinn Norton CC-BY https://flic.kr/p/5tVxF9 and Sci-Hub logo from Wikipedia Slide 14: Slide 18, 19: Photo from Unsplash.com CC-0Slide 15: Learning from Wikipedia CC-BYSlide 17: From copyrightliteracy.org CC-BYSlide 22: Isaac Newton from Wikipedia CC-BY