Computer Ethics Paper 1
See Sakai for the due dates.
Final version due date will be announced after I get the draft versions
graded
You are to pick one of the topics below. Both topics
relate to the impact of copyright on what might be seen as otherwise
legitimate activity. In both topics, numerous questions are posed. These are
included only as suggestions, to help you get started. You
do not have to answer them all!
After you submit this, I will comment on your paper and you will be asked to
submit a rewritten version incorporating at least some of my suggestions,
and also other improvements you think of.
Topic option 1: Does the DMCA need to be changed to prevent unlawful
cloud-based filesharing?
And, if so, what should we do about it? Do we need to change the DMCA
takedown rules in favor of content owners? Or do websites that accept
user-contributed content need some sort of protection for users
posting copyrighted content?
Peer-to-peer filesharing is one thing, but that has been followed by the
rise of server-based filesharing. How do sites get away with
serving up someone else's copyrighted content? How will the
content-creation industries survive? YouTube pioneered the DMCA
defense: they would take down copyrighted content as soon as
they were notified, but then some anonymous user would post it right back,
and the cycle would repeat. Content providers found it very difficult to
keep up. (YouTube has since implemented a "fingerprinting" system to block
most copyrighted content from being posted.)
It is straightforward to rein in the DMCA, but the resulting effects on
other, legitimate websites might be dire. Probably YouTube would manage,
and Facebook, but what about Wikipedia? People post all sorts of
copyrighted media there (often to the edit-discussion pages; it's tricky
to post media content to the actual encyclopedia pages), because for many
international users Wikipedia is one of the few user-editable sites their
free "Internet" plan allows. What about SoundCloud? What about future
SoundCloud-like startups? What about Github, which has been plagued with
bizarre DMCA takedown notices?
(What other sites can you think of that primarily host user-contributed
content?)
MegaUpload.com, run by Kim Dotcom, was seized by the FBI in 2012, though
closely related sites MegaDownload.net
and Mega.co.nz are still in business.
These sites support server-based file sharing of entire movies: they allow
users to upload content (usually pirated) and share it with others. The site
was protected by the DMCA, and the users by anonymity.
In practice, MegaUpload.com gave away upload space, and
- Charged users for premium download bandwidth
- Gave financial incentives to those who uploaded content. Sometimes the
incentive was tied to the number of downloads, making it much more
profitable for someone to upload Game of Thrones episodes than home cat
videos
- Took down only the specific link requested, and not other links to the
same file
- May have excessively delayed its takedown process
Was Kim Dotcom running an illegal operation? Or did he simply outdo YouTube
founders Hurley, Chen and Karim in finding a way to profit legally from the
DMCA? If the latter, should the DMCA be changed?
What are the obligations of a cloud provider to prevent illegal
file-sharing, under the DMCA? Is a YouTube-like content-fingerprinting
system required (the approach taken recently by the EU)? Cloud-site users
presumably are entitled to use the cloud to store their own
library of copyrighted content, though. It is only sharing that is
illegal. Content-fingerprinting systems are very expensive to develop, and
serve as a barrier to entry.
The theory in the Viacom
v YouTube decision was that sites are protected unless they are aware
of a specific infringing file. Should that rule be relaxed? If so,
how? Wikipedia, after all, depends on a huge amount of user-contributed
content. So do many other sites, both commercial and noncommercial. If you
propose changes to the DMCA, you should either explain how Wikipedia and
YouTube could continue to exist, or else explain why they are too risky to
tolerate. In most of the world, Wikipedia editors post relatively few video
and sound files, but in places where Wikipedia is one of the few sites
available, lots of pirated content sneaks on. For YouTube, of course, video
is all they offer.
Dropbox appears to take copyright
infringement seriously; here is their copyright
policy. What rules would be needed in order to require cloud sites to
behave like Dropbox? Rapidshare
went broke after they were forced to change their rules.
Would it be sufficient to prevent anonymous accounts, so that if someone
uploaded copyrighted content and tried to share it, that individual could be
sued, or at least prevented from uploading the same content again? Would
this even be possible, given that many accounts are free? Do
anonymous accounts have a social value?
In constructing your paper, one approach is to consider some specific
proposals, and then argue either that they would be effective, or that they
would not be.
Topic option 2: Music sampling
Sampling involves taking snippets of someone else's recorded work, and
reusing them in your own work, possibly with some sort of electronic
modification. It can involve words, chords, notes, melody, drums, rhythm,
textures, other background, or whatever, and can be done in varying lengths.
More information on sampling can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sampling_(music);
a large database of examples is at http://www.whosampled.com.
(Although the word is sometimes used to describe using someone else's
musical ideas in your own composition, we will stick
here to the use of recorded snippets.)
Is sampling a legitimate way of creating new music? Or, if permission is not
obtained, is it simply copyright infringement? In your paper you are to
address either (or both) of the following:
- the ethical obligations of
the new artist to the original performer
- the potential for a Fair Use
justification of sampling
These two are related in the sense that Fair Use can be seen as an ethical
use of copyrighted material, though not everyone agrees with this. Arguably,
in fact, ethical use of copyrighted material may be more similar to de
minimis use.
Music sampling takes many forms, but for the purposes of this paper
assume that the samples are of modest length (1-5 seconds). Sometimes an
entire performance is "sampled", as part of a "remix", but that is a
separate case entirely.
Assume the sampling is taken from
published recordings; ie the samples are not recreated in the
studio.
In 1991, in Grand
Upright Music v Warner, a district court ruled that clearly
recognizable sampling constituted infringement. In the case Bridgeport
Music v Dimension Films, the 6th Circuit Court [the 6th Circuit
includes Nashville] ruled in 2005 that use without permission of a 2-second
chord from a song by the Funkadelics constituted infringement. More
specifically, they ruled that the de
minimus defense (ie that the sample was "too small to matter") did
not apply. However, the court left open
the possibility of a Fair Use defense. (The court left this open
because the defense did not raise the Fair Use argument at trial, and you
cannot add new arguments on appeal.) The court wrote "Get a license or do
not sample.... We do not see this as stifling creativity in any significant
way." Is that true? Some observers thought the ruling was strongly
influenced by the goal of legal convenience: a flat ban on sampling without
permission would eliminate innumerable cases as to just what sampling was
allowed.
Neither of these cases addressed Fair Use. Furthermore, since then, a series
of court decisions have expanded Fair Use. In Cariou
v Prince, Richard Prince's use of Patrick Cariou's photographs in what
is sometimes called a collage was held to be Fair Use; see
here in the class notes. Prince's use seems to be rather substantial,
as compared to "small-scale" sampling. In Authors
Guild v Google Books, the Second Circuit ruled that Google's
digitizing of a vast number of books, in order to support search, was Fair
Use.
The music industry line here is
that any use
of copyrighted material requires permission; this gives the rights-holder
the opportunity to set a fee limited only by the law of supply and demand.
Fair Use is the one exception to this, but is not recognized by the
industry and there are few music-related legal cases. While
clearly there is no effect whatsoever of modest-length sampling on the
market for the original, there
might be (and in fact is) a "secondary" market for sampling rights that is affected. The copyright law itself
only refers (§107(4)) to "the effect of the use upon the potential market
for or value of the copyrighted work". Some have tried to argue that this
also includes the market value of any portion of the entire
copyrighted work, though this is a stretch.
For a discussion as to why Fair Use sometimes seems to be avoided in
music lawsuits, see Edward
Lee's Fair Use Avoidance in Music Cases.
If you prefer to take an ethical approach, here are a few ideas you might
wish to consider. When sampling, what exactly is your obligation to the
original artist? Must the sample be some form of homage? If so, why? Is it
simply a matter of acknowledging credit for the sample? Can the credit be implicit, or must the original artist's
name be spelled out? What if the sampling is not about "homage" at all (as
in the Schnauss v Guns 'n Roses case)? Are artists really entitled to
royalties when their work is sampled? Is making money from someone else's
work without compensation ever permissible? Does it matter if the use in
question is of someone's voice, versus an instrumental segment? After all,
the instrumental segment can in principle be reproduced by other musicians,
but imitating someone else's voice can be impossible.
The basic Fair Use argument is that sampling is small and has no effect on
the market for the original work. If you do not accept this argument
entirely, explain why! In this case, what conditions might be necessary for
Fair Use to apply? Must there be some sort of "transformative" use? Does
electronic transformation count? Is sampling fundamentally a "productive"
use, ie use that is associated with some benefit to society? Or is
it a "consumptive", or even parasitic, use? Must the sample be recognizable?
Not recognizable? When considering the effect on the market, should the
secondary market for sampling rights count, or just the market for the
original work?
Chuck D, of Public Enemy, has claimed that "sampling [in hip-hop] basically
comes from the fact that rap music is not music. It's rap over music" (http://www.stayfreemagazine.org/archives/20/public_enemy.html)
Does this matter?
When making Fair Use arguments, make clear your position on how you balance
creators' rights with rights of the public. In general, if you are in favor
of sampling, you should respond to those who would say that it is unfair to
the original musicians. Similarly, if you are against sampling, you should
respond to the basic Fair Use argument above. In
addressing the ethical components, make it clear whether you are arguing
from a utilitarian perspective (what is best for all musicians, or all
people), or a deontological one (what duty do musicians (or people) owe one
another).
At least some musicians believe that Fair Use does not apply, and so
permission must be secured, and so the original artist may dictate any
price. However, this stands in sharp contrast to many other understandings
of Fair Use.
Your paper will be graded primarily on organization (that is, how you lay
out your sequence of paragraphs), focus (that is, whether you stick to the
topic), and the nature and completeness of your arguments.
It is essential that all material
from other sources be enclosed in quotation marks (or set off as a block
quote), and preferably with a citation to the original source as well.
Expected length: 3-5 pages (1000+ words)