Copyright Law

How might you more effectively integrate multimedia components into your assignment?

“Let rhetoric be an ability, in each case, to see the available means  of persuasion.” ~ Aristotle, Rhetoric (1.2.1)[1]

With great resources comes great responsibility. Now, more than ever before, student writers have access to a plethora of multimedia resources that are at their disposal when completing projects. As you may have found out by now, many first-year writing programs define “composition” rather broadly. That is, composition does not merely refer to the writing of words on a paper or in a word processing document but rather refers to the holistic act of using all forms of media (images, videos, sounds, and text) in a variety of different mediums (paper, blogs, websites, YouTube, podcasts, etc.) to get your message across.

Put in the context of the quote above from Aristotle above, your own available means of persuasion, due in large part to the rapid influxes in technology, includes a seemingly never-ending supply of videos, websites, images, and sound bytes that are yours for consumption. However, when you begin to use these resources in your own compositions, you need to be aware of copyright laws that address which resources you can use, why you can or cannot use them, and how much of them you can use. If Aristotle were still around today, he would surely adjust his working definition of rhetoric to encompass not only the ability to see but also the ability to use the available means of persuasion.
 
Due to the broad definition of the word “composition,” you will often be expected to integrate non-traditional texts and sources into the projects you complete. Embedding images into your blogs posts, remediating text into images, and cutting and remixing video and audio are now daily realities in the writing classroom and, by extension, immediately impact you and your work. The best way to ensure that you are using digital resources ethically—and legally!—is to stay informed. Unfortunately, staying informed on issues surrounding copyright laws can be very complicated, as subject matter tends to be intentionally vague, sometimes technical, and highly political. Below you will find a series of main points that attempt to provide a basic framework for understanding current copyright laws as they pertain to the multimedia resources you will inevitably be using throughout your time in composition and beyond.

Educational versus Commercial Use

There is a big—and I mean big—difference between using content for educational purposes versus using content for commercial purposes. Because we are in an academic context, both students and teachers alike have more free range in how they can use content. Movies can be shown, music can be played, and readings can be distributed as handouts because they are for strictly educational purposes and take place in face-to-face classroom settings. Do not assume that the practices for using content in school are the same when you leave campus or even if you are trying to make money on campus.

Fair Use Doctrine

Content used for educational purposes falls under the copyright doctrine of fair use. Fair use is the right to use copyrighted material without permission or payment under some circumstances. Education is one of those circumstances and is the reason why there are stark differences in the copyright laws between educational and commercial use of content. The fair use doctrine is extremely arbitrary. From a legal standpoint, decisions typically revolve around four questions and your answer to each of these will determine whether or not your use of content will indeed be characterized as fair use [2]:

1. What is the purpose of your use of the copyrighted work? You first need to consider whether or not your use is for commercial or educational purposes.
2. What is the nature of the copyrighted work? This question really comes down to whether or not the work is fact-based or creative. Ideas or facts cannot be copyrighted, but if you begin to enter into the area of creative expressions, then you will need to further qualify your work.
3. How much of the original work are you going to use? Typically, you can only use a small portion of the work and from a numerical standpoint this varies. The rule of thumb is generally at around 10% of the original source is available for fair use, whether it is an audio file or video file. But, again, if you’re in an educational context, then this question need not be asked and does not pertain to your creative license.
4. Will you harm the market for this product by using this material? Not surprisingly, copyright laws are in place to protect the personal “property” of the original creator. If the original creator is in a position to lose money from your use of the content, then chances are your use of the content will not fall under the fair use doctrine and you may be reprimanded.

Ultimately, like many legal regulations, the question of fair use comes down to a matter of intent. If you are using copyrighted content for school projects, then chances are you will fall well within the fair use doctrine. But knowing the information above is important ifs you intend to use copyrighted material for commercial or non-academic purposes.       

Public Domain: Not All Content Is Created Equal

Not everything on the Internet is public domain. Just because you can view the content on the Internet, which is provided for free in many places, it does not automatically give you the permission to disseminate the content for whatever reason. It is your own personal responsibility to ensure that the content is copyrighted or not and it is up to you to figure out what the appropriate ways are to use the content.

Copyright, Copyleft

Copyright laws are a highly political issue. Without going into too much detail, it is important to realize that there are very liberal ways to think about copyright (oftentimes people will call it “copyleft”) and of course more conservative approaches. A common way to resist the strict limitations of copyright laws is to find and contribute sources through what is called Creative Commons licenses. This not-for-profit organization basically provides a safe space on the Internet for content to be freely shared without worry of copyright infringement. You still need to acknowledge the source, however. This is just a wise practice anyway.  

Personal Responsibility: It’s Up to You

Unfortunately, pleading ignorance in copyright laws is not possible. You yourself are always responsible for knowing copyright laws and for acting both legally and ethically with the use of others’ content. This is no different than plagiarism in the university: whether or not you read the plagiarism section attached to the course syllabus does not change the fact that copying and pasting content from websites and including it word for word without any citation in your own paper is still considered plagiarism. At this point I your life simply saying, “I didn’t know” just doesn’t cut it. If you are ever in doubt about the appropriate use of content or whether or not your use of content falls under the fair use doctrine or is part of Creative Commons, always ask for permission from the original creator. Always.

    To stay informed, keep in mind these valuable websites. They provide a wealth of information and scenarios about copyright law:

•    thecopyrightsite.org
•    centerforsocialmedia.org
•    creativecommons.org
•    fairuse.stanford.edu

Putting It Into Practice: Copyright Concerns in Composition

The above list is by no means exhaustive and is simply intended to give you a brief introduction into the wild and wacky world of copyright laws. This topic can be very confusing, so it might be easier to understand these laws, regulations, and requirements in the context of the projects and practices you will actually be engaging in during your academic life, particularly as it relates to writing classrooms. Let’s break it down into practice.    

Blogging

An important part of your grade in writing classrooms is often assigned to informal, public, or online writing. This may take the form of a blog or other social networking site. Let’s say you are blogging and wish to embed an image from Google into your post. Your post is about photography and you want to include a really cool photo from one of your favorite photographers. What do you do? How do you attribute source to the image? In blogs, as with most web spaces, the way to attribute source to content is to make sure that when the reader of your blog post sees the image they are then able to click on the image and be led to the website or source from which it came. You need to be honest about where you get your sources and make sure that the person who originally had permission to use the image is acknowledged.
 
That being said, even when you follow the ethical guideline of citations by providing a link, you're not really fulfilling the legal requirements of the law if you don't have permission to use the image. In short, when reposting images on public spaces (like blogs), it really is far better to search for Creative Commons licensed stuff. (And Flickr and Yahoo Images make this really easy.)

Remediation

One of the key concepts students of rhetoric and writing should be aware of is remediation; that is, you should be able to use and adapt content from other sources, reinterpret the material, and change the purpose and even audience of the content. Oftentimes, students will take audio and video clips from previous sources and “remix” them into new, original creations. If you intend to use audio or video clips in any of your remediations, then what you need to pay attention to is the actual length of the clip being used. Generally, less than 30 seconds or 10% of the original content will allow you to fall under the fair use doctrine and protect your work. (To remind you, this is only if you intend to make money off of your work. In an educational context, you can use any and as much of songs as you wish.) Again, it must be iterated that there is no set rule about how much can be used.  These are guidelines that are in place to protect you and your project. If you follow these guidelines, then you are free to post your video to YouTube and share it with all your friends and other YouTube users.
 
It is also important to note that parody or critique is far more likely to be seen as fair than other kinds of uses. So if you are making some kind of critique of the original that requires the use of the original in some way, you are on safer ground. Be sure to critique or parody the source using only the source itself, and not content from other sources. It is less likely to be considered fair use if you’re using other content in addition to the content you are critiquing or parodying.

Is copyright law difficult and complex? Yes. Is there an overwhelming amount of information to know about the topic? Yes. Does having a cursory knowledge of copyright law make you a more informed digital citizen and a more responsible and ethical user of online and even traditional content? Yes. Technology has enabled composers to draw from such a wide range of content, with the amount of textual documents, images, videos, and audio clips at their fingertips surely in the billions. But again, with great resources comes great responsibility. Knowing copyright law is one of those responsibilities.

[1] Aristotle. On Rhetoric: A Theory of Civic Discourse. 2nd. ed. Trans. George A. Kennedy. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. Print.
[2] Questions adapted from thecopyrightsite.coThe Copyright Site. U of Alabama, n.d. Web. 7 June 2011. See <http://www.thecopyrightsite.org>;