Copyright in my life

Reading for the week: Jessica Litman, Digital Copyright (first half of the book)

This review of copyright that we're reading in class currently is helping me not only to jog my memory about what I learned last semester in Information Policy class, but also to help me ponder how copyright has affected me both during my scholastic and professional careers. I was surprised, having thought a bit about it, to realize that I have had to deal with copyright in many capacities throughout differing positions.

First, I started undergraduate in 1998, when the file sharing phenomenon had hit its peak. I wrote about this for Policy, but never expressed my opinion on it. I only once, in 1998, ever downloaded software that could be considered file sharing software. I find it funny that instead of considering the copyright of the music and the legal ramifications (cases were prevalent in the media around this time), I regarded it more as a waste of my time and the very limited internet bandwidth of the era.

While working for a multinational company, I found that copyright was ever-present. I hadn't really ever thought about copyright and how it affected me. Now I was acting as an enforcer of copyright, namely software copyright. Every single day, callers would contact us, in many different languages, trying to install pirated copies of the software. They would ask for activation codes, which were put in place to prevent copyright infringement. The serial number is used with a unique ID that is generated by the software when it is installed on your computer. If the serial number is a fake, the activation code will not be successful, and the pirate will be given a number to call. Many callers would simply hang up in haste when you mentioned the word "piracy," however, some would haggle with the operators and say that they had gotten the software from a friend. (This is kind of sharing is also copyright infringement, however, the majority of people had faked copies from the internet.) Unless the case was truly severe, no action was taken on any one individual.

Another story that comes to mind is when a scandal hit and people would call in demanding answers. It came to light that certain CDs distributed by our company were installing software to track illegal uses of music. Even though we were not the source of the software that was being installed deep inside the operating system, we were receiving calls about it. I had to wonder at this time: Was tracking copyright infringement really worth all of the effort? Why the "Big Brother" tactics?

As I learned to support e-Reader technologies for a new facet of my job, I noticed that we were giving 100 free "Classic Books" away as a promotion. I wondered how we could afford to give away books, when the others were $9.99 or higher. At the time, I did not realize that these were simply books that were already in the public domain, and which were freely available at Project Gutenberg in plain text.

Later, I had a very different brush with copyright. As I worked my first teaching position, I stood at a copy machine, copying an entire book for my managing professor. I wondered to myself, is this actually legal? Or was I somehow breaking the law?

These stories came back to my consciousness as I took the course "Information Ethics and Policy" last semester at SLIS. I was again reminded of the importance of copyright in my life, reading Litman's book. I think that she does a great job of displaying the method by which our copyright law has become so complicated in the U.S. It is difficult for me to admit that it is still even fuzzy now, but I hope to be clearer on the core concepts by the end of her book.