CHARLES PRITCHARD
Staff Writer
“Fair use” is the practice of using something that is copyrighted without needing to pay the original copyright holders for its use, as long as it falls within certain categories. “Fair use” tends to affect students in a huge way, because copyrighted material can be used for educational purposes.
For example, the “Star Wars” theme song couldn’t be used in a commercial for used cars without a contract, but if students on campus wished to use it for a presentation, they are more than welcome to because it’s for a noncommercial purpose.
A few weeks ago, a new deal was signed by President Barack Obama after many of back-room negotiations and is now on its way to get signed by Congress. This deal is set to affect copyright laws.
Not many outlets are talking about the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or “TPP” for short.
But what is the TPP, exactly? And why does it matter?
In essence, the TPP is a deal between multiple countries that will change how businesses interact with other countries and their citizens. Little is known about the TPP, due to the secrecy of the negotiations, and for a while, the average Joe hasn’t really heard anything about it.
Things like expanding copyright laws and limiting “fair use”, punishing whistleblowers and the journalists who report on it, escalating file protection and issuing heavy criminal charges for file sharing have caused quite a few people to take a keen interest, whether it be proponents of “fair use” or advocates of file sharing, colloquially known as pirating.
However, “fair use” has gotten the most attention, with many advocates of freedom of expression up in arms about the implementation of a more stringent three-step test that leans heavily in the favor of the copyright holder.
“I’m pretty surprised I didn’t know about this,” said William Pihl, a graphics design major at Fredonia. “This could really hurt students. I mean, for one of my projects … I’m using images that I didn’t actually take, but from what I understand about “fair use”, I’m able to use these images because I’m a student using it for a student project.”
However, it also extends to things that have been around for years; it is known as public domain when the copyright expires. Normally, the life of a copyright is 50 years after the author dies, or 70 years after works created by individuals.
But there is talk of changing just how copyright laws are to be handled and when something can become “fair use” and public domain. Current negotiations wish to change the aforementioned 50 and 70 years to 95 and 120 years respectively, effectively robbing 20 years of work from use by the public.
Until these parts of the TPP started leaking to the public and the true nature of the agreement started surfacing, there didn’t seem to be much interest in it.
Professor Michael Igoe, assistant professor in the communication department, gave his opinion after being briefed on the nature of the TPP.
“This is not surprising,” said Igoe, “because generally there has been an erosion of our personal freedoms as evidenced by the Patriot Act. The real test is would it be enforced [or not]. There are many laws on the books that are never enforced or enforced with no consistency.”
While it is true that many laws “on the books” nowadays are not enforced as heavily — such a strange law in Alabama that forbids people to carry an ice cream cone in their back pocket — it is undoubtedly something that could be used against the general public if there is so much work going into keeping it under wraps.
But the people of the United States aren’t the only ones affected by this. It is, after all, the Trans Pacific Partnership. Many countries will feel themselves put under the eye of the TPP — countries that happen to be making copies of copyrighted materials not out of greed, but need.
“The devil’s in the details,” said Russell Boisjoly, dean of the School of Business and professor of finance. “Let’s suppose we’re in a developing country and there aren’t too many libraries. Are you going to allow them to make extra copies? I think publishers have been willing to say ‘well, that’s a special case and we’re not going to pursue it legally,’ but at some point, when a country moves away from developing and booms … no more of this activity is going to be allowed.”