I never thought of mashups as copyright violations; for example, if you mash up crime data with Google maps so that people can look up all the pedophiles in their area, it is actually considered copyright violation. This makes no sense because you are in a sense harming the community more by not allowing this than you are harming the creator for taking his original work. Plus, I doubt that the crime statistitians would be offended if you “used” their work without permission. Sometimes you have to think about the purpose that the work is being used for; for example, why would crime statistics be published if the publisher did not want them to be made known to the public? Isn’t the publishing of these crime statistics for the benefit of the greater good? By knowing these, it can help keep families safe. These statistics can dictate where new schools should be built. It could dictate which bus route you take on the way home from work. It can dictate where you want to raise a family. It can tell you a lot about a neighborhood. It can potentially save your life if you avoid the places with high crime rates. It can make you better prepared for emergency situations should you come across one.
My tenative thesis is "Copyright law that restricts access to educational material should be reformed to allow free usage."
The problems with this thesis statement based on what ran through my head during the free write is that this seems to be too general of a statement. What is educational material? (What is considered "educational" versus "not educational") Where in copyright law does it dictate rules for "educational material"? (I feel like that may mean going through all hundreds of pages of the document...) I am not sure this thesis can be strongly supported within 2-3 pages simply because a bulk of it would need to be clearly defining the parameters of my meaning. Based on the ideas that I can up with in my free write, it seems that I would most be interested in focusing specifically on internet mashups...but that in itself may limit my topic too much. I feel that the ideas for support of internet site mashups that I have come up with are very shallow, like surface ideas that are easily stated in just a sentence. I kind of want to center my claims around the idea of improving well-being, but I am having a hard time narrowing it down into specific aspects that can actually be elaborated on. For example, when I say "we should allow internet site mashups that show the criminals within a 5 mile radius of schools because this will help keep kids safe", it's one of those "well duh" statements. I mean, who is really goig to argue that we should allow pedophiles to be near kids? I really don't have much I need to elaborate on there. I am coming to a road block in coming up with ways to prove that these internet site mashups can be beneficial, particularly by picking reasons that may not seem so obvious. Any ideas??
Teresa - I LOVE that you connect your argument to purpose and intention. I think this is a really important aspect that people often overlook in the copyright debate.
ReplyDeleteI think that this issue - one of purpose and intention - can help you to clarify your thesis and hurdle the roadblock you feel. Perhaps your thesis can be tied to intention more explicitly - benefit for common good (then it is helpful that your example of pedophiles within 5 miles of a school is a "well duh".
And because copyright really does come down to the 'money' - what might you say about the profit-making?