Funferal » Online communication http://funferal.org/blog engraved and retouched and edgewiped and pudden-padded Tue, 07 Feb 2012 06:08:26 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 The interplay of copyright and creativity – a Storify collection http://funferal.org/blog/2012/02/04/the-interplay-of-copyright-and-creativity-a-storify-collection/ http://funferal.org/blog/2012/02/04/the-interplay-of-copyright-and-creativity-a-storify-collection/#comments Sun, 05 Feb 2012 04:42:40 +0000 Andrew Ó Baoill http://funferal.org/blog/?p=1530 I’ve recently started playing around with Storify. In the piece embedded below, I’m gathering together various different snippets concerning the interplay of copyright and creativity.

Storified by Andrew Ó Baoill
Mon, Feb 06 2012 01:43:55 ·
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Copyright and creativity

The interplay between copyright and creativity – the extent to which legal tools for enforcing copyright help or hinder the creative process – is a live issue, with the recent defeat of SOPA in the United States, and the debate over ACTA in the EU.

  1. Many scholars of copyright stress the importance of a permissive approach to appropriation and reuse, if we are to continue to have space for the emergence of new creative voices. From Lawrence Lessig, who has written on the importance of Remix, to Patricia Aufderheide’s work on strengthening Fair Use, there is a strong intellectual current pushing for a copyright regime that facilitates and protects new ways of using and exploring the act of remix, collage, and creative appropriation. That current is at odds with the strong lobby of the industries founded on intellectual property, on maintaining control of libraries of creative work, locking it up like De Beer’s diamonds, to create an artificial scarcity, and releasing it in drip-feed fashion, in a time and manner that maximizes financial return.
  2. EU leaders have approved the ACTA treaty – which implements SOPA-style provisions, but implementation may be challenged by the European Parliament, with leaders there charging the European Commission with ‘bad faith’ in the negotiation process. The protests and challenges have attracted the attention of the EU Observer – chronicler of activities in the EU institutions – and the New York Times.
  3. It can be amusing to see professional politicians shot down over copyright violations, particularly the use of popular music in their events and promotional materials, but for a proponent of permissive copyright laws, the legal issues at play can be unclear. Where a politician simply doesn’t bother to license music, the situation is clear – just as when any event organizer doesn’t pay licensing fees. But what professional operator is going to overlook that detail these days? This piece from the NY Times illustrates that the legal dispute usually involves not copyright law (which, in the US, is primarily focused on the market for a work, and the revenue accrued) but issues of reputation and endorsement, which are bundled with copyright law (under author rights) in some other countries, but in the US involves use of trademark law and, in some cases, charges that the association with the politician (even if they have paid a blanket licensing fee) can damage the original market for the work. (In this case, then, you have someone who falls foul of an element of the Fair Use test, without having asserted Fair Use!).
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    “
    Andrea Saul, a spokeswoman for Mr. Romney, said the campaign had stopped using K’naan’s song out of respect for his political views, even though the campaign bought blanket licenses from two public-performance societies — Ascap and BMI — which pay royalties to members.

    Experts on copyright law said such licenses, usually bought by restaurants and other businesses that play recorded music, do protect the campaign from many copyright complaints, but a politician can still be sued under the federal trademark law for false advertising if the use of the song implies that the musician has endorsed the candidate.

    Romney and Gingrich Pull Songs After …
    Wed, Feb 01 2012 17:25:08

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]]> http://funferal.org/blog/2012/02/04/the-interplay-of-copyright-and-creativity-a-storify-collection/feed/ 0 The perils of poor copy-editing http://funferal.org/blog/2011/12/27/the-perils-of-poor-copy-editing/ http://funferal.org/blog/2011/12/27/the-perils-of-poor-copy-editing/#comments Tue, 27 Dec 2011 18:58:58 +0000 Andrew Ó Baoill http://funferal.org/blog/?p=1506 This article about PhoneDog’s suing of a former employee, Noah Kravitz, over his twitter account is interesting in itself (they’re claiming rights to the account followers, as a customer list, and seeking compensation on that basis). However, what caught my eye was the claim in the RTÉ sub-heading that Kravitz “must pay” $2.50 per user, which matched rather too well what PhoneDog are listed, later in the piece, as seeking.

A quick search reveals that the case is still being litigated. Thus, the ‘must pay’ is merely the claim being made by his former employer, and no damages have yet been assessed. Indeed, if what Kravitz says is correct, it looks like this is a counter-suit aimed at balancing out his claim for a share of PhoneDog’s advertising revenue.

RTÉ’s headline is fine, but the sub-heading implies that the suit has been settled, and compensation levels set. I’m not sure how much copy-editing RTÉ employs before adding news articles to its site, but this is something that could have been caught (and easily corrected) by a good copy-editor – or caused by poor editing that sought to simplify an overly complex construction in the draft lead.

]]> http://funferal.org/blog/2011/12/27/the-perils-of-poor-copy-editing/feed/ 0 Global Facebook subject to Irish Data Protection rules http://funferal.org/blog/2011/09/28/global-facebook-subject-to-irish-data-protection-rules/ http://funferal.org/blog/2011/09/28/global-facebook-subject-to-irish-data-protection-rules/#comments Thu, 29 Sep 2011 03:29:04 +0000 Andrew Ó Baoill http://funferal.org/blog/?p=1482 Turns out that all Facebook user accounts, outside of the US and Canada, are overseen by its European headquarters in Ireland. That means that it’s subject to Irish data protection rules, and the Irish data protection commissioner has now launched an investigation. This is one to watch.

]]> http://funferal.org/blog/2011/09/28/global-facebook-subject-to-irish-data-protection-rules/feed/ 0 Lessons from Chile: workers’ rights, safety http://funferal.org/blog/2010/10/13/lessons-from-chile-workers-rights-safety/ http://funferal.org/blog/2010/10/13/lessons-from-chile-workers-rights-safety/#comments Wed, 13 Oct 2010 16:25:21 +0000 Andrew Ó Baoill http://funferal.org/blog/?p=1416 Posted on the BBC’s live coverage of the miners’ rescue effort in Chile:

Daniel Owusu-Koranteng, a former Ghanian miner and head of a miners’ rights lobby group, tells BBC Focus on Africa that African mining could learn valuable lessons from Chile’s experience. “It is a wake up call for all of us that we cannot take safety issues for granted,” he says. “They have survived because they had basic needs with them – some rations, probably some water. And this is a lesson to us.”

]]> http://funferal.org/blog/2010/10/13/lessons-from-chile-workers-rights-safety/feed/ 0 Media Participation at IAMCR2010 http://funferal.org/blog/2010/07/19/media-participation-at-iamcr2010/ http://funferal.org/blog/2010/07/19/media-participation-at-iamcr2010/#comments Mon, 19 Jul 2010 11:24:24 +0000 Andrew Ó Baoill http://funferal.org/blog/?p=1402 Sitting in on my first IAMCR session – past of the Participatory Communication theme. Interesting to see some of the techniques used to facilitate participation in news programming, in particular. Currently watching a presentation about PeoPo in Taiwan. Nice schematic by the presenter, explicating the different ways in which users can participate:

  1. Citizen Production – report on events
  2. Citizen Dialogue – engage in discussion on forums
  3. Citizen Action – move to action, arranging events, etc.

The website is wholly in Mandarin, so the labelled guide provided (in one of the slides) was useful! Some stories from the site are picked up and given wider coverage on Taiwan TV – which users (in the study) valued for the validation it gave, in terms of attention to an issue that might not have got previous coverage, and validation of their own concern.

As I write this Pradip Thomas has started his response (as discussant). His claims:

  1. Citizens’ Journalism is here to stay
  2. Mainstreams are integrating elements of it, in order to retain audiences
  3. Arguments based on Habermas’ rational public sphere are ‘overblown’ because decisions in the real world aren’t based only on rationality. (One speaker had done a content analysis that noted prevalence of incivility, etc.)
  4. There are individual participants in Taiwan, but many are linked with NGOs, etc.
  5. Crisis: How can the media be involved in finding a dignified closure to crises. (This in response to a Finnish speaker who critiqued the coverage of crisis situations by Finnish media.)
  6. We need better theorizing of ht nature of interactivity, including “Why?” – who gets what out of it? What do audiences/the corporate sector get out of it?
]]> http://funferal.org/blog/2010/07/19/media-participation-at-iamcr2010/feed/ 1 In Portugal, web radio gains while digital radio stalls http://funferal.org/blog/2009/12/30/in-portugal-web-radio-gains-while-digital-radio-stalls/ http://funferal.org/blog/2009/12/30/in-portugal-web-radio-gains-while-digital-radio-stalls/#comments Wed, 30 Dec 2009 18:08:26 +0000 Andrew Ó Baoill http://funferal.org/blog/?p=1387 More grist to the mill of those hammering home the failure of digital terrestrial radio forms, this time from a Portuguese-language article by Nair Prata in Studies in Communication:

Como acontece no Brasil, a webradio vem ganhando forc¸ a e presenc¸ a em Portugal, ao contrário do rádio digital, que apenas engatinha.

In translation, I get:

As in Brazil, webradio is gaining strength and presence in Portugal, as opposed to digital radio, which just crawls.

Given my lack of Portuguese, I’m still working my way through the rest of the article….

]]> http://funferal.org/blog/2009/12/30/in-portugal-web-radio-gains-while-digital-radio-stalls/feed/ 0 Community radio podcasting in Namibia http://funferal.org/blog/2008/08/12/1330/ http://funferal.org/blog/2008/08/12/1330/#comments Tue, 12 Aug 2008 22:10:23 +0000 Andrew Ó Baoill http://funferal.org/blog/?p=1330 Many readers will know that my current research is focused on the ways that community radio stations are grappling with podcasting and similar technologies. I was excited, then, to see this story, about students from Utah Valley College, who travelled to Namibia to help the Katutura community radio station launch a podcast – bringing equipment and manuals with them. The project grew out of the Digital Namibian Archive Project.

]]> http://funferal.org/blog/2008/08/12/1330/feed/ 0 GRC summary http://funferal.org/blog/2008/07/29/grc-summary/ http://funferal.org/blog/2008/07/29/grc-summary/#comments Tue, 29 Jul 2008 07:39:37 +0000 Andrew Ó Baoill http://funferal.org/blog/?p=1325 I had planned to blog more from GRC, but my airport card stopped working on Friday, which was somewhat of an annoyance. I was pleased that my session on podcasting was reasonably successful – we didn’t get into discussing much of the more arcane aspects of adopting podcasting for community radio, such as the impact on localism, but we did have some useful discussion of concerns around copyright, and managed to swap some resources in that and other areas. More generally, the conversations about podcasting, community radio, and more – both in sessions and in between – were informative and thought-provoking. Sessions on AMARC, wikis in news-programming (by the wonderful Rustbelt radio folks) and other topics reminded me why I love this area, and gave me ideas both for my research and other projects.

The keynotes, by independent journalists from Oaxaca and Palestine, were humbling and inspiring. I look forward to downloading the promised audio soon and making it available through A Critical Ear.

The food… the food was abundant and delicious. Props to the various caterers and restaurants used. The scenery, in Portland and on the train journey from and to Seattle, was beautiful and refreshing. Powell’s was a rare treat (as was a return visit to Left Bank Books in Seattle this afternoon).

Finally, the KBOO studios were impressive and inspiring. Their audio archive – with 40 years of public affairs tapes, cassettes, and more, from independent and radical sources – is the sort of place I’d love to have an opportunity to ensconce myself in for a considerable period.

More detail when I return to Urbana and am able to compile some of my notes and recordings from the event. Until then, a fair summary is: inspiring and useful. Both Portland and GRC demand return visits.

]]> http://funferal.org/blog/2008/07/29/grc-summary/feed/ 1 Using Twitter to promote radio shows http://funferal.org/blog/2008/01/26/using-twitter-to-promote-radio-shows/ http://funferal.org/blog/2008/01/26/using-twitter-to-promote-radio-shows/#comments Sun, 27 Jan 2008 03:47:32 +0000 Andrew Ó Baoill http://funferal.org/blog/2008/01/26/using-twitter-to-promote-radio-shows/ I’ve recently started using Twitter for a number of different radio shows I’m involved with. For those who are interested, you can now follow A Critical Ear and Media Matters show updates via Twitter. There’s also my personal Twitter stream, which is somewhat more established (though still rather eclectic in content).

]]> http://funferal.org/blog/2008/01/26/using-twitter-to-promote-radio-shows/feed/ 0 A Critical Ear http://funferal.org/blog/2008/01/24/a-critical-ear/ http://funferal.org/blog/2008/01/24/a-critical-ear/#comments Thu, 24 Jan 2008 20:05:15 +0000 Andrew Ó Baoill http://funferal.org/blog/2008/01/24/a-critical-ear/ I’m in the process of building out resources for the radio show I do on WRFU with Robert Naiman, and have registered a domain – which is currently pointing at this site (funferal.org).

So, for those of you arriving here to learn about the show – we’re still working on the full site. However, for now it’s enough to know that we broadcast at 6pm on Thursdays on WRFU (104.5FM in Urbana, IL) and that we’ll be posting links to show audio here (and on the new site when it’s available).

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