Research Proposal

Music copyright infringement has been a huge issue since the launch of Napster. Now with multiple peer-to-peer sharing applications and torrents the industry has lost control.  With the release of Garage Band, Apple has created another monster. More and more people have the opportunity to learn how to use samples to create their own music.  The question I would like to answer is this; With the wide use of peer to peer sharing of music over the internet how has the music industry adapted to this copyright infringement? I feel like it is a huge issue that needs resolving. The music industry as a whole has been in turmoil over this.

 

Research Journal Blog 2

Whenever I start to do research on anything I usually start by looking into Google with a basic searches. After I have collected all the information I can through the basic Google searches I start to look in library databases for anything I might have missed. The only reason I don’t start with libraries is because the Internet is a giant library. For my search I used Google and got a lot of good stuff. I only really god articles people have published or random sites by people in the industry. Not really any books on the subject itself. When I looked in the NYC Public Library’s database I got a lot of books and journals. I did get some video media from the library though. I still use the library sources because experts in the field, depending on what kind of book or topic it is, usually write them. Some of the words and phrases I used in my searches were; Copyright, Music Copyright, copyright infringement, musical copyright court cases, remixing, Sampling, remixing rules and regulations.

Research Journal Blog Post 1

I really liked the discussions on copyrights in different industries. It is a huge deal in the television and music realms. It is a huge part of my life being in the music industry. It’s all about royalties these days! I am an electronic music producer and DJ and musician. I use samples everyday. A lot of the samples I create myself but many samples come from stuff others have played or created. Now I could take those samples and chop them up and put effects and filters on them and they would sound nothing like the original. Now is that mine? Do I owe the person who made the original money? Are musicians committing musical plagiarism? You can only play a grouping and patterns of notes so many ways. I would like to do research on musical copyrights. I feel there is a lot more to it these days because we are so digital.

Subject Headings:

M – Music

K1411-1485 – Copyright

Class notes 9/30/10

In today’s class we discussed information ethics, principally the issues around intellectual property.

Ethical Considerations:
“A wealth of new possibilities awaits those who employ the new digital tools for creating and delivering compelling new content, yet these same tools make it easier than ever to plagiarize and pirate content” (Pavlik, Media in the Digital Age, p. 234).

We began by discussing academic integrity and plagiarism.

• This article from the New York Times discusses the case of Jayson Blair, a journalist who fabricated and plagiarized news articles while he worked as a Times reporter: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/11/national/11PAPE.html

• This article from Time Magazine discusses the case of Kaavya Viswanathan, a Harvard sophomore who lost her book contract when it was revealed that she’d plagiarized from another author: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1189282,00.html

For the second half of class we discussed copyright, public domain and fair use:

• The American Library Association created this digital copyright slider to make it easier to determine whether a work is under copyright: http://www.librarycopyright.net/digitalslider/

• This copyright expiration flowchart from a law firm’s website also provides guidelines on copyright: http://www.sunsteinlaw.com/practices/copyright-portfolio-development/flowchart.htm

• This clever flowchart highlighting some of the differences between purchased movies (with digital rights management) and illegally pirated films: http://www.geekologie.com/image.php?path=/2010/02/25/piracy-full.jpg, while this comic tackles the same issue with downloadable music files: http://xkcd.com/488/

• One less restrictive alternative to copyright that many creators are using is Creative Commons licensing: http://creativecommons.org/. The search engine on this website can help you find copyright-free images, sound, and other media to use.

• Copyright-free doesn’t always mean that the creator won’t be able to make a living. CASHmusic is essentially a cooperative that uses a subscription or pay-as-you-like model to fund releases from participating musicians. While all releases are available for free download, limited edition or special issues are also available for purchase: http://cashmusic.org/.

Information ethics: some definitions

We’ll be covering a lot of ground in class tomorrow when we talk about the ethics of information use, so I thought it might be helpful to post some definitions for you to refer to. (We’ll go over this in class, too.)
See you tomorrow,
Prof. Smale

Some Terminology Relevant to the Ethics of Information Use:

Copyright:
“the exclusive right to make copies, license, and otherwise exploit a literary, musical, or artistic work, whether printed, audio, video, etc.: works granted such right by law on or after January 1, 1978, are protected for the lifetime of the author or creator and for a period of 50 years after his or her death.”

Fair Use:
“the conditions under which you can use material that is copyrighted by someone else without paying royalties ”

Public Domain:
“the status of a literary work or an invention whose copyright or patent has expired or that never had such protection.”

Academic Integrity:
“Academic Integrity is the idea of faculty and students engaging in the proces of teaching and learning with a high level of respect for each other and great attention to the values of trust, honesty, and fairness.”

Plagiarism:
“the unauthorized use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one’s own original work.”

Open Access:
“Open-access (OA) literature is digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions. ”

All definitions from Dictionary.com, with the exception of Academic Integrity, which is from the Academic Integrity at City Tech page on the college website, and Open Access, which is from Peter Suber’s Open Access Overview.

Two interesting articles

Rigoberto noticed two articles in this week’s New York Times that might be of interest to everyone:

Code That Tracks Users’ Browsing Prompts Lawsuits

Film Director Comes to the Defense of a Convicted Internet Pirate