Media_Literacies

{draw:rect} As the world has entered an era of digital age, new forms of information are being created new technologies, such as the Internet, which provides much information, television, knowledge and so on. People could acquire vast knowledge and valuable data via the Internet as well as save time and money. However, as we have saying “Every coin has two sides”, they tend to abuse the Internet by downloading contents illegally or quoting individual knowledge without permission, which break copyright laws. Moreover, as high-tech has developed, large companies launched new devices, such as MP3 player, DVD player, scanners, Blu-Ray and so on, which exert harmful influence upon the copyright law. So, prestigious firms already embed Digital Rights Management (DRM) technology into digital music products and a new process that are called Advanced Access Content System (AACS). It was recently invented to restrict copying in new high-definition DVD technologies such as Blu-Ray(21 October 2002, p. A24). The purpose of this essay is to discuss current copyright laws, which are not related to the Internet age any more, and how hegemony works in the current copyright laws will be also discussed in detail. Also, this essay will show how hegemony would work current and future law if copyright laws were reformed as well as a couple of examples and evidence for the changes in the future is as follows: It will illustrate how copyright laws operated in ancient times. Digital Media Shifting, which refers to the practice of copying genuine copyright material from one medium to another (2008)_._ Final example is regarding parodies and satires, which are protected by the copyright in the Australian Parliament currently (Waladan, 2006)_.__ _ In ancient times, the written work was carved to several materials, such as stone, papyrus, vellum and tablet. In order to copy works ancestors had to painstakingly imitate by hand through many months. To copy a text was seen as a form of adulation. It was many centuries before the printing (2007)_. _As technology has developed, the numbers of products have to be protected from the copyright law that has climbed gradually. At the first time, the copyright law was to avert purely literary works being violated and to strike a balance between encouragement of creative works and the legitimate interests of the copyright owner through the use of copyright material. But now includes artistic works, the performance of musical, music, movies, books, artistic works, many derived rights, and intellectual property rights (2002). The beginning of copyright was in Britain in 1710 with the Statute of Anne. It was built up as some publishers who controlled reproduction in different authors’ work without notice and permission. It was created to enable the author to have a control over the printing of his work, thus can get the financial benefits from his work done (2002). After the period, the law had continued until the beginning of the 20th Century. The first modern copyright laws were in the US in 1909 and the UK in 1911 respectively. These Acts were different from the earlier laws by introducing specific areas, such as maps, photographs, prints and so on. With respect to Australia Act, The UK Act was adopted into Australian law, which had remained almost unchanged until 1968, when the Australian Copyright Act 1968 became law. Moreover, the Australia Act introduced the concept of ‘library exceptions’ and the ‘fair dealing’ and was in response to the widespread use of the photocopier. The pace of change of the Act was relatively slow until the mid 90s even after 1968. It is interesting to compare the sizes of the Acts of the last 100 years (2007). In 1968, amounts of pages were only 104 when the Australia Act was introduced, whereas current copyright law has 651 pages in 2007. As time goes by, the number of restriction of copyright law has steadily increased. There are two reasons for the restriction. Initial, the value of copyright has been changed due to the huge multimedia firms such as, Disney. Copyright is now large business and these firms are determined to exercise their rights. The copyright law of Mickey Mouse is one of example to support. Goofy and Donald duck, which are characters of Disney lands, was extended guarantee at least two more decades by the U.S. Supreme Court in order to protect loyalty of Walt Disney (2003). So, Walt Disney Co. would grasp hegemony of copyright for two more decades. Second, the advent of the new devices has also made the opportunities for piracy easier, but at the same time made detection more likely. The second example is that two decades ago, an estimated 16 million people in Britain broke the copyright laws every year by the recording music on to blank tapes at home, costing copyright owners - from song composers to record companies - about pounds 67 million in lost royalties (1986). In addition to this, "Piracy is a big problem for the film industry," said Mark Harrod, spokesman for the Motion Picture Association of America, the trade group that represents the Hollywood movie studios, which own the rights to films converted to video. "We estimate that worldwide we lose $1.2 billiona year annually from piracy." And more than $100 million of that loss is attributed to video store owners who sell or rent duplicate tapes illegally copied off the originals (1989). The number of musicians and directors had lost their income and royalties due to illicit copying video and home taping. A lot of consumers in a music market grasped the hegemony of the copyright law in the past because there was the specific and easy way to duplicate cassette tapes, which breaks copyright law. However, the hegemony in the copyright law has changed rapidly since the world entered the digital revolution and an era of the Internet. In recent times, people who upload a picture on blog, knowledge, music, movie files without permission have been in control of the current law. They have widely distributed countless information that is infringed on the copyright law without penalty, which accelerate more and more distribution, so that their power would be strong gradually unless a government revises the law against the digital age. On the one hand, as time goes by, the number of new technical devices and creative inventions, such as a MP3 player, a DVD player, a scanner and so on has rapidly increased, whereas the number of video tape and cassette tape has fallen. However, things went from bad to worse. Due to the advent of the Internet, obtaining illicit files that include MP3 files, movie files, and image files has become normal by peer-to-peer programs without difficulty, which break current copyright law critically. To cope with these critical problems, organisations related to copyright in Australia, New Zealand and the UK entreated a government to accept several proposals. For example, the owner of a non-infringing copy of a photograph may make a copy of the photograph, in hard copy form if the original photograph is in electronic form or in electronic form if the original photograph is in hardcopy form, for his private and domestic use (including the private and domestic use of his family and household member) (2008). Similarly, a book, newspapers, periodical publication, videotape and sound recording were launched as well. By executing the Digital Media Shifting, they killed two birds with one stone. Despite people download and duplicate contents, they would not need to pay for them as long as his private and domestic use. As well as prestigious musicians, directors and artists would be repaid their profits and loyalties. The final example is parodies and satires. One of the copyright laws that Copyright Act 1968 in Australia rolled out new exceptions in 2006 is use of copyright material for certain purposes, including parodies and satires. A parody is a humorous or satirical imitation of a serious piece of literature or writing, and the kind of literary composition represented by such imitations. A satire is the use of irony, sarcasm, ridicule, etc in exposing, denouncing, or deriding vice, folly and so on (2009). A start in which parodies and satires has qualified protection is that the record company EMI threatened to sue the Australian cricket supporters, the Fanatics, for breach of copyright over a number of musical works contained in its song-book. The songs included parodies of The Monkees' Daydream Believer, the Village People's Go West and Robbie Williams' Rock DJ. In the wake of the Ashes controversy, the Australian Digital Alliance (ADA) has once again called on the Federal Government to offer a wide defence of fair use, which consumers will be easily able to interpret as protecting parody, satire, and other transformative uses of copyright works (Waladan, 2006). The parody and satire exceptions do not directly affect a creator’s right to take legal action if his or her work is treated in a derogatory way. However, in many cases the use of a copyright work for parodic purposes may be defensible as “reasonable” under the moral rights provisions. It is not so clear that use of a copyright work for satiric purposes would be as likely to be “reasonable”. This is because, unlike parody, the object of satire is generally not the copyright material itself or its creators. The copyright material used may enhance a work that has a satirical purpose, but is unlikely to be necessary for the satirical purpose. According to Dr Matthew Rimmer, a senior lecturer of the Australian National University College of Law, and a board member of the ADA, "The United States has recognised that the defence of fair use under copyright law embraces parody. The European Union Informative Society Directive has accepted that caricature, parody, and pastiche can be fair dealings. Australia should follow suit, and recognise that such creative uses of copyright works are protected as a fair use” (Waladan, 2006). People live in an era where any person of any age can email, blog, podcast make entries in Wikipedia or upload a home crafted or user generated video to YouTube in the blink of an eye to a world wide audience of hundreds of millions of people. This indicates that creativity and sharing have taken incredible new dimensions (2006,_ _p. 174). However, infringement of copyright laws has been a universal issue since an Internet was introduced. In the past, piracy was limited in a specific field, such as home taping, copying CDs, quoting without permission and so on, whereas innumerable information and data, including MP3 files, movie files, could be duplicated without difficulty. In recent times, these enormous amounts of data are usually provided by the peer-to-peer (P2P) network, which is a type of Internet network that allows users with the same program to connect to each other and access files. P2P networks are used for sharing content such as audio, video, data or anything in digital format (2009). Thus, current copyright laws in Australia are not appropriate to the Internet age, which need changes. The present writer will suggest three ideas that need to be reformed copyright laws in the future. First of all, downloading and uploading contents or data by users need to be limited. Some Internet service companies in Australia, such as Adam, Big pond already rolled out usage-based Internet pricing policy, but there are still a lot of people who upload data carelessly, which breaks the copyright laws. Therefore, uploading data and information that infringe copyright need be strongly restricted through imposing a penalty on the person. Second, one other way is to propose a new concept which is obtaining uploading license except private use, such as sending an email or attaching image and so on. The current law allows every person to upload and download, which cause letting people careless and neglectful. Existence of the license in uploading would largely affect on Internet service. It would protect copyright properly, which may be up-ward in a music market that is currently issued as well as a range of occupation and an opportunity to work as an uploader would be provided. The license could apply to a driver license. As a police man imposes a penalty on a driver who is drunken, if people who have the license upload data or information that violate the copyright law, a government would levy a large amount of fine. Finally, as part of the way of solving copyright issues in the digital environment and moving with the technology, commerce must explore new business models that facilitate access in the name of creativity and knowledge. In some instances, by allowing broader access people open up more social and economic opportunity – downstream multipliers that are otherwise choked by revenue seeking too early in the process. In the words of Varian and Shapiro from Information Rules we need to “maximise value not protection” (2006,_ _p. 182). Several proposals would induce many changes in the hegemony. Although people who upload (Uploader) data are being dominant over the copyright law, only if the government rolls out new proposals, including obtaining a license and imposing a penalty, the dominance in the copyright law would change. There would be established a number of organisations that have qualification of the uploading and could levy a penalty. The organisations would significantly influence on the world of the copyright and grasp the hegemony in an era of the Internet, which will directly have responsibility in the laws. To sum up, this essay discussed the history of copyright law and several examples that are no more relevant to the copyright laws in the digital environment. First, it showed how ancestors could duplicate some works in ancient times and information about the history of the copyright law. Next, the things that people infringe copyright law in the past through home taping and video copying were highlighted. In addition to this, creative new devices, such as a scanner and a MP3 player and a revised copyright law in order to cope with the new inventions, which a government rolled out, were also shown in detail. Lastly, as a new exception in the Australia law, use of copyright material for specific purposes, such as parody and satire was composed in the last example. To solve inevitable the digital issues, this essay suggested a few directions that could apply to in the near future: imposing a fine on people who upload data or information that break the copyright law, creating a new license, which enable people to upload properly, exploring new business models that assist access in the name of creativity and knowledge. Finally, the essay has showed that group hold the hegemony in the current law as well as how the hegemony would be able to operate in some directions that this essay proposed. The copyright law has been changed and destroyed a lot due to the digital revolution. A government has to appropriately revise the law and grasp hegemony in order to protect the precious property rights of creators and their loyalties. Protecting the rights, which encourage authors to make inspired creations would facilitate better works and after all people would be able to enjoy their works. Therefore, copyright protection profits from not only individual income but also cultural development, and by extension, it would significantly influence on economic gains through exporting the cultural products. References Coyle, M 2002, The History of Copyright, Lawdit readingroom_, _viewed 15 September 2009, http://www.lawdit.co.uk/reading_room/room/view_article.asp'name=../articles/The%20History%20of%20Copyright.htm Evans, R 1986, ‘Cabinet to battle over tape levy - Government measures over illegal home taping of music’, Times Newspapers 8 January. Fitzgerald, B, Gao, F, O’Brien, D & Shi, S 2006, Copyright law, digital content and the internet in the Asia-Pacific, Sydney University Press, NSW. ipd.gov.hk, A Limited Copyright Exception for Digital Media Shifting, viewed 15 September 2009, < http://www.ipd.gov.hk/eng/ip_practitioners/1117Consultation_Document_Media_Shifting_Eng_(full).pdf> McAllister, M 2007 ‘From Illuminated Manuscript to iPod - Copyright Problems in the Digital Age’, Australian Library and Information Association, vol 27, Issue 1/2, viewed 15 September 2009, http://search.informit.com.au.ezlibproxy.unisa.edu.au/documentSummary;dn=073426260751597;res=IELHSS Nealon, P 1989, ‘GROWING VIDEO PIRACY PROBLEM PROMPTS BROCKTON RAIDS MOVIE INDUSTRY SAYS SOME RENTAL STORES ARE BUYING AND MAKING ILLICIT COPIES’, Globe Newspaper Company 3 September, p. 4 Peer to peer FA Q 2009, Whirlpool, viewed 15 September 2009, http://whirlpool.net.au/wiki/'tag=p2p Pusey, A 2003, ‘Court protects Mickey Mouse- Justices uphold law extending copyrights for 20 years’,_ Dallas Morning News_ 17 January 2003, p. 1D. Using copyright material for parody and satire, 2009, Australian Copyright Council, viewed 15 September 2009, < http://www.copyright.org.au/information/cit028/wp0063> Waladan, S (Executive Officer) 2006, COPYRIGHT FANATICS THREATEN AUSTRALIAN WAY OF HUMOUR, media release, 27 November, AUSTRALIAN DIGITAL ALLIANCE, viewed 15 September 2009, http://www.digital.org.au/media/documents/MediaRelease27Nov06.pdf Washington Post_ _16 October 2002, ‘Copyright and wrongs’, p. A24.