Kembrew McLeod/Copyright Criminals

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Kembrew Mcleod

McLeod trademarked Freedom of Expression®

when he was an undergrad at James Madison University.

history of pranks

Suing AT&T news story

• Copyrights are okay: the PROBLEM is when trademark holders go too far:

1.We engage in self-censorship b/c we might get sued

2.We censor ourselves after backing down from a lawsuit that’s clearly frivolous

3.Our freedoms are curtailed b/c the law has expanded to privatize an ever-growing number of things: from genes to gestures.

What are some of the examples you came up with in your discussion of copyright holders going too far?

Internet fueling fears

1. Digital Milennium Copyright Act, 1998

1. Digital Milennium Copyright Act, 1998

2. Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, 1998

1. Digital Milennium Copyright Act, 1998

2. Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, 1998

– 120 years for corporate authors.– An entire lifetime, plus an additional

70 years for individual authors.

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This Land is Your Land

If I had a hammer

Song is based On: – The Carter Family’s 1928 recording “Little Darlin’

Pal of Mine,”• Derived from a nineteenth-century gospel song,

• “Oh,My Loving Brother.

• The song celebrates communal property: “This land was made for you and me.”

JibJab’s parody of This Land is Your Land

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Happy Birthday to You

1. Horace Waters’s “Happy Greetings to All,” published in 1858.

2. Schoolteacher Mildred J. Hill and her sister Patty published the song’s melody in 1893 in their book Song Stories for the Kindergarten, calling it “Good Morning to All.”

3. Children changed words to Happy Birthday to YOU.

4. 1935: Hill sisters finally register a copyright on the melody and the new birthday lyrics.

5. 1988: Time Warner buys the rights to the song: PD in 2030

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DISNEY

“Mickey Mouse Extension ACT”

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Martin Luther King: I Have a DreamAnother one

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Public Domain(Commons)

“The existence of a commons encourages creativity and innovation in both art and science, because this kind of openness allows people to build on others’ discoveries or creations” (McLeod, p. 37)

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authorship

Nature of authorship• Roland Barthes: authors never have the

last word• Derrida: deconstruction--all text is made up of

vast numbers of parts and can be deconstructed…

Deconstruction shakes up a concept like text in a way that provokes questions about the borders, the frontiers, the edges, or the limits that have been drawn to mark out its place…

ASKS…what is a text?

McLeod: “Revitalizing music from the past isone of the many ways sampling andcollage help to refresh and reboot ashared popular culture.”

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Jefferson and forefathers

• p. 17: “articulated a theory of intellectual property law that rewarded authors and inventors for their creativity, but didn’t intend to give creators COMPLETE control over their work.”

• p. 108: “For Jefferson, the uninhabited spread of ideas, information, and culture was essential to a thriving democracy. The constitution’s framers wanted to avoid permanent monopolies over information and culture. Copyright was designed to be porous”

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Copyright Criminals