David Beck’s Blog

Although copyright law can be a very complex issue, I actually found the articles by Dr. Cohen and the other one by Lawrence Lessig to be very interesting. The original copyright law was a very simple and straightforward law. It was also a very balanced law. It protected the rights of the artists for a specified period of time, but allowed the material to become part of the public domain after a period of, at the most, 28 years. The law today is much more complicated, although one must acknowledge that the world of copyright is much more complex too, especially when one factors in that individuals and corporations are creating properties that they want to control at all costs. As Lessig points out in his chapter on property rights, the original checks and balances that made copyright laws fair for almost everyone have been pushed aside. What we now have is a law that is unbalanced and does not take into account the needs of the “commons”.

In some ways, I think current copyrights laws exist to circumvent the death tax and other inheritance tax laws. Mark Twain felt that copyright should extend through his grandchildren’s generation. Why? His grandchildern had nothing to do with Twain’s artistic creations. Why should that person or persons, perhaps born long after the book, song, or poem was produce get to participate in the control and use of that creation? People who have been dead for many years are able, thanks to the changes in copyright laws, to make more money now than they did when they were alive. Just look at Elvis Presley as a prime example. His ex-wife and daughter have inherited much more money due to his death than they could have ever dreamed of if were still alive. Is this fair? No, and it demonstrates another way the government has increased the power and control it has over every facet of life in America. It also demonstrates how Lisa Marie and Priscilla have access to a steady stream of money that is not being taxed the same as if Elvis left them the same amount in his will.

Copyright protections for individuals now are automatic for life plus fifty years. For corporations, it is 95 years. Modern age marketing is most responsible for this madness. The internet has not helped either. When I initially thought about my project, I thought I would be safe from copyright licenses because anything dealing with Ancient Rome is so old that it is certainly in the public domain. And while most of my site will have no problems, there is one aspect of my site that may cause me problems.

As I explained last week, there will be four categories one can choose from to explain the fall of the Western Roman Empire. Emperors, Army, Economy, and Moral Decay are the four main topics. I planned on then having several additional screens that will weave the user through the most salient points under each category. There will be some written text, primary sources and I wanted to also embed little clips of video within the page. This is where I will run into problems. I will have to ask for permission to use the video clips, unless I shoot the videos myself. (This is not as crazy as it may seem, my undergraduate degree is in communications and I wanted to be a documentary filmmaker when I was in college.) However, I doubt I have the time or resources to do that project myself. If I do decide to ask for videos, I face the following choices. Obviously, I could first approach the History Channel about using clips from their videos, but I’m sure they will ask for a very steep price. They may give me a break since my site is purely educational and maybe I could convince them it would be a great ad for their History Channel store. Another site that lets teachers download videos in the classroom is United Streaming. However, they are owned by Discovery Education and from what I gather are quite protective of anyone using their videos. That’s probably why the videos on United Streaming are terrible for the most part.

I have to think that somewhere out there, someone has done a video on Rome and would be willing to let me use segments of it for free. I even saw on www.Roman-Empire.net that the webmaster has simply put up a You Tube video of Roman legions. I’m sure You Tube could sue for this, but it has been up there for a while so maybe they aren’t concerned.  In any case, I will have to deal with copyright laws in the making of my website and will hopefully find a solution to show small clips, while keeping the site as focused and entertaining as I can.