Plagiarism+and+Copyright

In Ms. Dahlin's Media Studies class we will be pondering the ethics of several scenarios regarding copyright. Here are some links for more information.

Sample Scenario: Girl Talk
Should this band be allowed to make art which is basically taking from other forms and making thier own forms. Pro: Girl Talk should make its art Con:Its not ethical to steal ideas and call it your own

Scenario 1: Bittorrent and Music
John was using bittorent to Seed a new album by Kanye West. His Comcast internet provider noticed that he had his client open and forwarded his name and address to Mascott Holdings and Universal and they have decided to fine John, a 30 year old auto mechanic 10,000 dollars per song or 120,000 dollars.


 * Pro**: The recording companies are doing what they have to.
 * Con**: The recording companies are wrong.

Scenario 2: Mixed Media
Maya loved the latest edition of the Jerry Springer show “ I love you and you.” She decided to take apart the show and break it down into just the best fight scenes and the insults thrown by the audience. She was able to use her editing suite to take a one hour show and break it down to 2 minutes. She put opera music on underneath the fight scenes and made a video for youtube. Viacom noticed that content from its flagship show was being posted on youtube and asked to have it removed as well as requested the contact information of Maya—who received a letter telling her that she was violating the law. Was what she doing wrong? Pro: What she was doing was wrong. Con: What she was doing was perfectly fine

Scenario 3: AP Obama photo
The creator of the famous artistic image of President Obama files lawsuit over his right to its use. Shepard Fairey, the California artist whose “Obama Hope” works have garnered much attention has filed a lawsuit against the Associated Press over his right to use the famous image. As reported by the Associated Press (AP), Fairey’s lawsuit, filed on Monday, is requesting that the artist be found not to be in violation of any copyright law because the 2006 AP photo image was dramatically changed.

Should the photographer have the right to digitally alter this image? Pro: Artists Can use the AP photo Con: Artists need permission to make this

Scenario 4: Google Scholar[[image:goo_scho.JPG align="left"]]
Google recently announced a plan to scan the contents of four university libraries and one public library, with the goal of enabling everyone to search those books online. In exchange for permission to scan the books in the libraries and make "brief excerpts" of the works available on google scholar, Google promised to give the libraries a digital copy of the contents.

In reaching the settlement, the parties dodged the question of whether the scanning of a book qualifies as a fair use.

The question is: Is it fair for someone to scan a book from the library?

Pro: Yes, you can Scan Con: No, the author owns the rights to his writing