Can Copyright Evolve With The Internet?

Today seems like a really good day to try and start a conversation about the complex relationship between copyright and the internet. This morning, the New York Times website posted an article about concerns that for-profit publications have when it comes to other websites excerpting their writing. Late last week, Creative Commons officially launched their CC0 license, which is designed to make it easier for content creators to officially place their work in the public domain.

Brian Stelter's New York Times article notes that a number of traditional publishers are starting to worry about the financial implications of giving their material away for free:

Generally, the excerpts have been considered legal, and for years they have been welcomed by major media companies, which were happy to receive links and pass-along traffic from the swarm of Web sites that regurgitate their news and information.

But some media executives are growing concerned that the increasingly popular curators of the Web that are taking large pieces of the original work -- a practice sometimes called scraping -- are shaving away potential readers and profiting from the content.

This is a valid concern. Most for-profit websites (including this one) get their income from advertising revenue. Pageviews are money. At the same time, while the concept of "fair use" may be fairly vague, there really are quite a few valid reasons to quote - and even quote extensively - from someone else's work.

The question, of course, is where the line is. And where the line should be. The two questions are: where the line is, and where the line should be. And if the line should be there at all. The three questions are...

Seriously, it's a complex issue.

Which Rights to Reserve?

The open source movement has been extraordinarily successful at demonstrating that allowing other people to freely access and freely modify your work can be a really good idea. This approach makes it possible for wide ranging communities to collaboratively develop various works in ways that simply would not be possible under a more traditional closed copyright.

Wikipedia demonstrated that a slightly more restrictive (but still very open) license can be successfully used in other kinds of mass collaboration projects.

At the same time, there are still people who depend on the income that their creations brings them. These people do not always benefit when a free version of their work is made available.

In many respects, I think the "best" form of intellectual property protection is going to depend on what the purpose of the work is. A software developer might benefit from being a part of - and able to tap into - the broad knowledge base of the open source movement. A freelance writer might be best served by being able to exert more active control over the conditions attached to use of his or her work. In some cases, it may simply come down to a matter of personal choice.

That's certainly the case here at ScienceBlogs. Many of the bloggers here have chosen to license their blogs using the tools provided by Creative Commons. Other bloggers, including myself, have not explicitly licensed their blogs, which effectively leaves them under traditional copyright. It's largely a matter of personal preference for most of us.

My own personal preference, if you were curious, is to place a "no commercial use" restriction on my material. I'm not morally opposed to people profiting from my material (if I was, I wouldn't be blogging here). I am, however, opposed to people making money from my work if I'm not one of them.

There's simply not going to be a single "right" choice when it comes to reserving rights.

When is Fair Use Fair?

I think it's fair to say that fair use has helped make blogs what they are. News, current events, and politics have all become much more interactive. Everyone has access to their own press, and everyone can be their own favorite pundit. We don't just read the news anymore. We read it, analyze it, comment on it, fold, spindle, and mutilate it.

Doing all of this frequently requires people to quote from other sources. When you're commenting on something, you really do need to explain what you're commenting upon. Paraphrasing is sometimes possible, but quoting is usually quicker, clearer, and - importantly - fairer to the source.

It's not always easy to figure out what is and isn't fair use, but there's something in Stelter's article that helps some:

To the extent that the site republishes articles produced by other organizations, "we excerpt to add value," Ms. Huffington said, sometimes by combining articles, videos and transcripts. Much of the Web works this way, skimming quotes and photos from other sources while trying to remain within the provisions of fair use.

As rough guidelines go, that probably isn't bad. Of course, it leads to the harder question of just what "adding value" means, but it's at least a start.

Where Next?

The final question is one that I'm going to leave to you - partly because it's a question that I really don't have a clear answer on. How should copyright be handled in the internet age. Are the rules that we have good enough? Do we need new ones? Should the concept be done away with entirely?

Where do we need to go from here?