The way I will be doing this post, is I will be quoting what the person said on the podcast and then giving my opinion and interpretation of what they were saying. So without further ado, on I go.
The first quote is from Catherine Douglas who is talking about trademarks on the internet. She is quoted saying,“The power of the web has only magnified the age old IP threats. The same threats are there, there’s still infringement, there’s still copyright issues there’s still all these others, but it’s made it fast and it’s made it worldwide.”I believe that we have all seen this in one way or another. If you post something on a social website or even just a blog or business website; it can easily be copy and pasted from those sites and used for someone else's enjoyment or benefit. Even if you copyright the material, people will still try to take it for themselves and claim it under fair use or parody rights. The thing that truly makes dealing with this difficult is the speed at which they do it. Within an hour hundreds if not thousands or millions could have taken and altered the material for themselves. What I get from this is simply that you need to be decisive and very protective about what you post online. Especially pictures and videos.
The next quote I am going to analyze is that of Mr. Craig Cardon who talks about user generated content and copyright laws. Here is his quote about user generated content,“There is a big difference between creating your own content and posting it, and not taking somebody else’s content and posting it and calling it user generated content. User generated content now no longer means user created, it simply means user posted content.”What I gather from Mr. Cardon's words is that most people on viral video websites these days rarely create their own content. The few that do, and do it well, are almost immediately copied and posted by other users. Sometimes these users even claim the creation of the content. If you were to look up a popular viral video there is a very good chance that there will be multiple copies of the same video and only one of those is most likely the original. Craig is also talking about how formal media can also be taken and put up on internet sites without a companies consent. Include the idea that Catherine stated above and there is quite a lot of work on your hands if you think you are going to stifle infringement of your work or media on the internet.
Our last quite is from Mr. Marty Schwimmer. In this quote he is talking about the infringement possibilities of virtual gaming, namely that of Second Life. As a side note Second Life is a sort of virtual community where you can build almost anything you want, as well as buy from and sell this created material to other users. Marty is quoted saying, “Lets assume I create an infringing Nike t-shirt to someone. Have I sold something that is related to what Nike sells or have I sold a picture or a decoration? Is it an Andy Warhol Campbell’s soup can, which is an artistic representation of a good, and I don’t need the authorization of the trademark owner or copyright owner? Or is it like a die cast model of a car, where through the expectations of the audience; expectations of the owner; if you saw a Ferrari licensed car, you assume Ferrari has licensed that?”Mr. Schwimmer asks a very interesting question. What is considered going over the line when it comes to infringement in a virtual world. Personally I am in agreement with the very last statement. If I were to see the Nike symbol on some virtual character's clothing, I would almost instantly recognize it as the Nike symbol. He poses a good question indeed.
What do you think? Would you find this to be infringement of a copyright or trademark? Or do you believe that it is fair to use?
That concludes this session of blogging. I hope that all who read this blog can find something useful from this post, from entrepreneurs to animators. Just below are the names of the podcasts. I warn you though, in my opinion they can be a bit dry at some points. Also each is a little over 30 minutes.
All podcasts are by and found under - Trademark & Copyright Law Forum
The specific names of the podcasts mentioned and quoted from today.
Catherine's podcast - Corporate Trademark in a Web 2.0 World
Craig's podcast - User Generated Content and Copyright Law
Marty's podcast - Trademarks on the Internet - a survey of legal online branding issues
