Review: Dan Gillmor's We the Media

I've just finished Dan Gillmor's We the Media: Grassroots Journalism by the People, for the People as part of my research into citizen journalism. You can read my Goodreads review if you'd like as well.

Overall, I enjoyed the book. The stories made it quite easy to get through, though as I noted in my Goodreads review, the examples also dated the book quite quickly. Something I'd like to add that I didn't get to talk about before was Gillmor's brief discussion of copyright at the end of his book. Part of the reason I was left with a good feeling at the end of the book was the way he presented his views on copyright, which corresponded very nicely with mine.

Gillmor supports copyright. He thinks that creators should have incentive to create. However, current copyright law is abusive, and stems creativity (especially since there is no more incentive for creators to be creative if their copyright extends 70 years beyond their death than if the copyright period was much, much shorter). Gillmor licensed this book under a Creative Commons license, which is like saying, as he claims "Some rights reserved." He still believes he and the publisher will benefit from the production of the book, but he has also left it open to inspire more people creatively.

I'm glad I read this book, but I know I'm not done yet. It's time to expand to new citizen journalism horizons.

Copyright Fighting Piracy

Going off of Kayla's post, I like the theory that "if you are using something non-commercially and it doesn't affect the market for the copyrighted work, it should be fair use." Unfortunately, I think the problem lies with the piracy more than anything, and this is why this theory can't work. At least not yet. Yes, the outdated copyright laws should be updated. Why hasn't it been updated yet? I think it has to do with the fact that creators of content like using the current copyright laws to protect their work against piracy (or anything that could put their work in a bad light OR take away potential profit).

Quick Point on Piracy: 

The anti-piracy bills SOPA/PIPA in early 2012 was an attempt to fix piracy. Big name websites like Wikipedia, Google, Tumblr, Twitter, and YouTube all protested these bills (check out this article for a refresher on the internet wide blackout) because it was not only blocking piracy, it was destroying creativity, free knowledge for around the world, and promoting censorship. We are still in the process of finding a happy balance between blocking piracy but keeping creativity and fair use.

Example of Copyright Problem:

My curation tool is YouTube. We did talk a lot in class about the problems with YouTube's terms and conditions, as well as its appeal process. So I'm going to focus on a different side of copyright issues with YouTube that isn't necessarily YouTube-the-company's fault.

When we upload songs/movies/movie extras/etc not our own, we are taking away chances for the original content to be paid for. To break it down: artists who use streaming sites for their music get paid for it. The Beggars Group (record company Adele uses) said in a statement by founder and chairman Martin Mills that in 2012, "22% of the label group's digital revenues came from streaming - and that the majority of its artists earn more from track streams than track downloads." That sounds great. Here's the issue: when YouTubers use songs to create lyric videos or powerpoints to a certain song, the potential money that would go to the artist for their song is taken away by free listening that doesn't go back to the artists. Plus there are websites designed to rip the MP3 off videos to download onto the computer for free. The same goes for video content. By watching extras online, or watching full videos in parts on YouTube, the money that would be spent purchasing the content isn't spent at all because people can watch it for free as many times as they want (until YouTube copyright programs flag it, but with 100 hours of video content uploaded every minute, it's hard to keep up).

Here's an artist talking about how free music online has its benefits as well as downfalls:

I remember getting into a discussion with my roommate a couple years ago about how it wasn't fair for artists who make thousands of dollars to squabble over $1.99 song that's being put up on a YouTube video. Maybe if only a few people watched the video and only a handful downloaded the content illegally it would seem like a petty thing to argue about. But. It is still an artists content that they deserve payment for, no matter how rich. And when you have an estimated 82% of people on the internet downloading at least one file illegally, 24% watching streaming movies online, and 32% downloading films still in cinema, that's a lot of money not going to the owner (source may not be reliable, and I couldn't find any decent statistics on illegal downloading in US, but still - several thousand people download content illegally and that's still a lot of money).

Here's another thing though that I've just started reading about though: CD Baby. Apparently when someone uses a copyrighted song in their own video, the song's owner can use CD Baby to ID the song, place an ad on the video, and direct money from views to the owner. So why people aren't using this more often (or maybe it isn't really effective - haven't gotten to do much research on this yet) I don't know. And it still doesn't solve the problem with video content. But anyway. That's my two cents and what I've been able to research so far.

Other articles for further reading on YouTube/copyright topics:

YouTube's Copyright Problem

How Musicians Make Money From YouTube

Types of Content Theft

Top 10 Most Pirated Movies of All Time

House Piracy: Over 1 Million People Watched 'Game of Thrones' Illegally

Copyright Monstrosity

The monster of copyright.
This image, of course, from Wikimedia Commons.

Is calling copyright a monstrosity a little too much? Well, yes. But I don't think anyone will disagree with me that the system is monstrous. I'm an editor, as I've mentioned before, and I've had to deal with copyright in varying levels of depth in different jobs.

Let me introduce you to my not-so-little friend, the Cornell copyright cheat sheet.

I can't tell you how many times I've referenced this PDF. I don't expect you to read all of it. Please don't read all of it. But you can get the gist of it. You can see why I love the year 1923--public domain and nothing you can do about it! Don't some of the terms seem excessive, though? I'm trying to think of a reasonable purpose for having a copyright extend 70 years past the death of the author (not even just when it was published), but I can't.

Also, it's just too complicated for any non-expert to work through. Do people really expect others to know that works published from July 1, 1909 to 1978 in Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands (if it was published in a language other than English and without subsequent republication with copyright notice) should be treated as unpublished works until such date as US-compliant publication occurred? It's laughable.

Now, a lot of what I deal with is print or at least something for official publication, and a lot of people seem more concerned with being able to share things on the Internet non-commercially without being tracked down and sued. I think both points are fair, and I have one main suggestion for simplification.

If you are using something non-commercially and it doesn't affect the market for the copyrighted work, it should be fair use. I know that that is part of fair use, but there are other stipulations. Personal example: If I am wanting to use an image in the design of a non-profit, non-sold-at-all, student-project magazine, I think in most instances I should be able to without paying a royalty. In my particular case, it will in no way affect a market for the photograph or photographer.

Of course, there are a lot of other areas that need to be simplified, but that's my first thought and whack at it. We need to not make the common people into victims who are in charge of defending their innocence in violating laws made too complicated for most of them to understand.