DIGC335 - Copyrights and Copywrongs

In my experience, discussions surrounding copyright regulation have focused largely on the protection of content producers through the prosecution of end-users, ignoring the periphery issue of copyright law application to intermediaries. I was previously unaware of a carriage service provider’s protection under a ‘safe haven scheme’ and was delighted to find that unlike the majority of Australian legislation, a review is under way to properly locate this policy in a digital world (Attorney-General’s Department 2011).  A key issue in this review will be whether or not internet service providers, or ISPs, fall under ‘safe haven’ protection. After examining the Roadshow Films Pty Ltd & Ors v iiNet Limited case (High Court of Australia 2012), I believe a precedent has been rightfully set to remove an ISP’s responsibility from the wrongdoing of its customers, and hope this influences revisions of Australian copyright law.

Digitally prompted revisions to Australian copyright law have not all been positive though, with the Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement pressuring local replication of three incredibly contentious American copyright laws (Moore 2005, pp.71). I take particular issue with the criminalisation of circumventing digital rights management, or DRM. I have personally had countless encounters with DRM in ways that have invariably limited desired functionality, with the most frustrating being the inability to use two legitimately purchased Apple products until I entered a long-forgotten password. I now find myself not only circumventing, but actively avoiding DRM in all forms because I morally object to the idea of having the ways I can consume my content dictated to me, even if that means having to obtain said content illegally until legal distribution catches up. Cases such as those outlined by Martin (2013) demonstrate the over-zealous desperation of governments, particularly the U.S., to exemplify cases of copyright infringement through callous punishment and while I understand the need to appease content creators, I believe this could be better achieved by focusing on the creation of functional frameworks for legal content distribution.

References:

Attorney-General’s Department 2011, Revising the Scope of the Copyright ‘Safe Harbour Scheme’, consultation paper, viewed 19 May 2014 <http://www.ag.gov.au/Consultations/Documents/Revising+the+Scope+of+the+Copyright+Safe+Harbour+Scheme.pdf>

High Court of Australia 2012, Roadshow Films Pty Ltd & Ors v iiNet Limited, judgement summary, 20 April, viewed 19 May 2014, <http://www.hcourt.gov.au/assets/publications/judgment-summaries/2012/hcasum16_2012_04_20_iiNet.pdf>

Martin, P 2013, ‘Legal anvil hovers over the unwary tech user’, Sydney Morning Herald, 23 January, viewed 19 May 2014, <http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/legal-anvil-hovers-over-the-unwary-tech-user-20130122-2d51x.html>

Moore, C 2005, ‘Creative Choices: Changes to Australian Copyright Law and the Future of the Public Domain’, Media International Australia, no.114, pp.71-82

DIGC335 - Employers Blunder Through the Brave New World

The World Wide Web is a drastically different digital landscape to that present at its inception, with the Web 2.0 revolution ushering in a new age of utility and co-development that has seen the creation of rich, ever-evolving content, largely superseding the rigid, stagnant, single author webpage of yesteryear (O’Reilly 2005). Evolutions in Internet architecture have allowed users to add and/or modify website content in new participatory forms (Howard 2008, pp.490-491), with Hypertext Markup Language Standard, or HTML, now incorporating a host of previously unimaginable features in its fifth version (W3C 2014). Howard (2008) conceptualises contemporary practices as inherently hybrid on what he describes as the ‘vernacular web’, with non-institutional participatory expressions thriving in a technological space largely produced, funded and maintained by institutions.

It is in this uneasy balance between the institutional and the contrary that I believe many employers have difficulty, with what was once simply a vast resource through which one could collate information becoming increasingly participatory and ubiquitous. As demonstrated by a Bank’s recent mishandling of issues related to social media (Hannan 2011), businesses are struggling to adequately comprehend the diversity of new media, instead attempting to locate employee practices within existing legal frameworks in ways that are detrimental to both parties. Similarly, the choice to dismiss Barminco miners due to breaches of Occupational Health & Safety laws whilst participating in the ‘Harlem Shake’ viral video meme in an effort to boost workplace morale is but one case of an institution’s missed opportunity for free, positive publicity, instead producing an antithetic achievement.

Having spent close to two years under the employ of an institution with an open social media policy, similar to that of Cisco (Earnhardt 2010), I have come to the conclusion that an employee’s workplace motivation is largely unchanged by their choices in media consumption. During my employ, projects were assigned with a deadline and as long as that deadline was met, workplace practices were largely unregulated. Employees used social media or other online material as a mental break, returning to their work refreshed and motivated. Speaking to others in the industry in restrictive workplaces, I found that they too took similar breaks but due to workplace regulation, they simply did so on their own mobile devices.

I believe this is a beneficial strategy for all businesses; choosing to find a balance that results in productivity and only punishing those who abuse it. The idiom of motivation through the carrot and not the stick comes to mind here, with employers offered the opportunity to seemingly reward staff rather than punishing them for accessing content that is realistically a part of everyday life in this digital world.

References:

Note: the Barminco ‘Harlem Shake’ video cannot be properly referenced as the original was taken down during legal proceedings. A number of versions are still available online, and can be found here: <https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=barminco+harlem+shake>

Earnhardt, J 2010, ‘Cisco Social Media Guidelines, Policies and FAQ’, Cisco, 15 June, viewed 5 May 2014, <https://blogs.cisco.com/news/cisco_social_media_guidelines_policies_and_faq/>

Hannan, E 2011, ‘Bank’s Facebook Sacking Threat’, The Australian, 5 February, viewed 5 May 2014, Factiva database

Howard, R G 2008, ‘The Vernacular Web of Participatory Media’, Critical Studies in Media Communication, vol.25, no.5, pp.490-513

O’Reilly, T 2005, ‘What is Web 2.0: Design patterns and business models for the next generation of software’, 9 September, viewed 5 May 2014, <http://www.oreillynet.com/lpt/a/6228>

W3C 2014, ‘HTML5’, W3C, 29 April, viewed 5 May 2014, <http://www.w3.org/TR/html5/>