Authorship Tug A War
From English 194 Wiki Site
By Michelle Hodges
17:08, 13 May 2006 (PDT)
Contents |
Abstract
People are socialized beings who are involuntarily connected, whose ideas are shared, and as the result, nothing is individually owned. Based on that assumption, this paper discusses the paradox of intellectual property (IP) between “copyright” and “fair use" laws per Karl Marx's theory; property leading to self alienation. IP laws, including copyright laws, permits writers exclusive rights to use subjectively creative works, while fair use assumes rights and influence from the common pool of ideas and activities. Although copyright and fair use laws are counter opposites, they are derivatives of one another, as they recycle into one another. Copyright legitimized subjective creativity by disregarding societal influences, while fair use connects community by recognizing influences, which contradictorily is privatized back into the copyrighted ideas. The film industry, which is often considered synonymous to economy, illustrates both the subjective/objective relationship writers/thinkers suppose with intellectual property rights.
Description
This paper will evaluate and define intellectual_property by comparing “copyright” and “fair use” laws in the film industry, while showing that the socially detached nature property implies in the production of films. Sources includes are the United States current IP laws, Karl Marx's "Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts," Seneca The Younger's work “On The Usefulness of Basic Principles,” and Wikipedia's definitions of key terms, such as "plagiarism," "copyright," "borrowing," and "fair use"
Evaluation
While living in interconnected societies, we influence one another, and are thus dependent on one another for our understanding of the world through information exchange, whether commonly or obscurely known. The rate of information exchange occurs rapidly in capitalist metropolitan cities, and then the information morphs according to whom ever interprets it into a new variation, and passes it again through various language, crafts or mediums. IP entitles these individuals who interpret their own of these shared, influenced, and fleeting ideas. Intellectual property, by definition, is the “creative work” in which a “person has rights protected by,” one of which are, copyrights. It includes “intangible products of human creativity over which people or groups exercise control” (Wikipedia). In the case of the film industry, either the creator of a story or corporations are granted the rights to own the story, which is then regulated by IP laws. According to Karl Marx, a nineteenth century economic and socialist philosopher, property alienates as described in Introduction to The Politics and Experience. He writes “the less you are, the more you have; the less you express your own life, the greater is your externalized life-the greater is your alienation” (Marx), supporting that private property alienates individuals from the community by justifying unequal rights from resources that are necessarily shared. How does Marx’s alienation theory relate to property rights of film? Although we live in a capitalist society where there is far more biased information supporting IP laws as being beneficial to individuals, this paper challenges the status quo and seeks to reveal the consequences of IP as being alienating, since it legalizes inequalities between individuals of the whole whose influence contribute towards ideas of which become IP. IP law alienates individuals from their community by entitling individuals rights to those who claim original/originality, while excluding the many other contributors from the right to produce and profit from the specified materialized idea formed in the public domain as thier own, while commodifying and capitalizing for private gain.
Plagiarism
Plagiarism has been called a kind of theft, as the unethical act of “presenting another person’s literary or artistic work as one’s own” and “a work need not be identical to the original to be plagiarism,” but does not include “character types, general plots, or other ideas” (Wikipedia). For example, the movie “Dukes and Hazzard” was alleged to have closely copied from the original 1974 series “Dukes of Hazzard,” and it's similair, which makes it debated as plagiarism. If one intends to incorporate someone else’s work, which resembles near copying, one must clearly give credit to another person’s idea, facts, quotations, and paraphrases. Although plagiarism is the arbitrary name which points to one’s attachment to their so-called “original” work, it also identifies the person taking responsibility for the work, one who claims ownership over it, which brings us back to IP. Plagiarism suggests that a person is defending IP as their own, discredits someone for claimingg it as their own, and that the owner is solely responsible for its creation. It removes the consideration for others who may have influenced or contributed to its design. According to Marx’s alienation theory, the allocation of property connects an individual with things, or in this case the film, while separating them from the rest of the people. Copyright legitimized privatization by discrediting community members for influencing the work, while granting exclusivity over property rights.
Copyright
Copyright laws respond to intellectual property issues of these original thinkers, by privatizing the use of rights to the creator. It gives the creator the “exclusive right to publish or sell and otherwise control” the “original work that can be preproduced and granted by the government for a certain number of years” (Wikipedia). If one closely copies another’s work, it is considered plagiarism. If one were to infringe on copyright laws, they would be subject to a lawsuit and to court ordered penalties. Copyright is the legal protection of intellectual property of materialized ideas, which enforces the rights of ownership by holding parties accountable for the exploitation of those rights. For example, the movie “Dukes of Hazzard” was produced by Warner, which was sued by Georgian writer Robert Clark, the original writer for the 1974 series “Dukes of Hazzard.” Clark’s “obscure film Moonrunners is acknowledged as the project which inspired toe original “Dukes of Hazzards” movie.” (www.femalefirst.co.uk). Warner’s attempt to reuse the series as a film idea was an attempt to steal a so-called original idea, which was itself the product of various contributions. Marx argues that property is a person’s capital, which determines a person’s value, and undermines the connection of people. Copyright justifies the subjective interpretation of ownership, points to the subjective relationship writers have with others, and permits people to express or profit off of the lives of others. Copyright laws benefit individual writers, while justifying the objectification of all those who influence the development of the story. If ideas and people are inseparable, then copyright protects the expression of other people’s lives, giving the creator a collage of rights to stories to collaborate with for new stories. This monopolizing of stories legitimizes the subjectification of others by legally defining the individual having unequal rights to a story.
Borrowing
In contrast to plagiarism and copyright restrictions, borrowing implies the free exchange of information as open use. [Seneca The Younger, a Roman philosopher who lived near the time of Christ, wrote “On Sharing Knowledge,” Moral Letters to Lucilius said “let us possess things in common; for birth is ours in common. Our relations with one another are like a stone arch, which would collapse if the stones did not mutually support each other” (Moral). This example points out a belief in the paradigm between the supporting and connections we have as individuals, as being the stone that demonstrates community as a supporting factor in which individuals gain in sharing. Borrowing ideas and information is “to obtain or recieve...to adopt or use as one’s own” (American Heritage). The key word, adopt or use, does not suggest ownership as being the tool, the enabler, not the property. Marx would agree that communities gain as a whole in the when process of sharing and using is not singularly owned. Movies of all sorts have been contested for copyright, for instance the copyright owner of the series The Great American Hero was challenged by the copyright owner of Superman, but lost due to the nature of public domain and the nature of that specific copyright. “Warner Brothers argues both that the ABC television series infringes its copyright and that it constitutes unfair competition” (Times). However, it was rejected in court because it was a type of borrowing and not copying, since the personalities of the characters were considered antithetical. The judgment demonstrates the fact that creative work and people influence one other by defining free use. The greater the acceptance of community, the greater the community gain, the less monopolizing of people or their idea, the less alienation or inequality from one another.
Fair Use
The basis of fair use takes into consideration public domain, influence, a reflection of our homage and what surrounds us. Fair use is founded “on free speech rights provided by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution...in the context of copyright law” and “provides for the legal, non-licensed citation or incorporation of copyrighted material in another author’s work under a four-factor balancing test” (Wikipedia). Fair use is a legal type of borrowing and a loophole for using copyrighted material. Basically, one is allowed depending on the nature of the use, the language used in the copyright, the amount or degree used, and the impact on the market for that particular work. For instance, Warner Brothers’ movie the Matrix has scenes which have been borrowed from films, one of which is Universal’s film Undercover Brother. The digital-effect fight scene where the character is suspended in the air, was borrowed by both films, series, and commercials from all producing companies. Initially people were using that scene were allowed because it promoted the value of the movie, the copyright didn’t include the particular scene, and only a small element of the movie was used. Even though this idea is public domain, the fair use laws are still subject to the considerations of copyright laws, IP regulations. Fair use takes more into consideration of public domain, accepting that some ideas are the result of influence, and that not all ideas can be monopolized on.
IP rights, whether discussing copyrights or fair use, all imply subjective justification for claim of ownership. Copyright objectifies private interests, while fair use claims to defend information from the public domain, the new idea created form public domain will be sought to be copyrighted. The irony here is that monopolized ideas are generated from sharing with one another. Marx would agree that monopolizing on communal ideas creates inequality in the community as a whole, alienating the very idea collaborators of society.
Works Cited
- The American Heritage College Dictionary: Third Addition. Houghton Mifflin Company-Boston. New York. 1997.
- Milligan, Martin. Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 by Karl Marx. Prometheus Books-New York. 1988.
- Seneca The Younger. “On The Usefulness of Basic Principles,” Moral Letters to Lucius. tr. Richard M. Gummere, 1918.
- Dukes of Hazard Case
- Wikipedia's Copyright Article
- Wikipedia's Borrowing Article
- Wikipedia's Property Article
- Wikipedia's Fair Use Article
- Wikipedia's Plagiarism Article
Edited by Bethany Serrano 20:35, 13 May 2006 (PDT)
