Participations and the legal “grey”
Friday, October 16, 2009 by Wu Hao
Researches explained that following the development of Information technology, the model of Prosumer sweep on the Internet. However, while the netizens’ Participations are encouraged by the “user agency”, such as Youtobe, litter attention has been paid on the legal rights of protecting the rights of these participants as well as the copyrights of their works.
In the traditional media industry, the work of creators/producers gets protect by the law. Yet, when it come to the Prosumer era, the situation become complicated. There are two particular situations I’d like to address here.
The first one is the works of re-creation. Although it’s easy for the netziens participate in the progress of creation or production, their resource in limited. As a result, these works are frequently appeared to be the re-creation among other products which are owned by commercial companies. Some of these works are defined as derivative works (eg. The Lord of Weep, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gsvJSH7nK0, the films made by the vedio game The Movie, The Sims ), which legally should would place control of the copyright with the owner of that original work. Yet, following the trend of global participations, should this law still remain the same? If it is, then the creations that participants have done in these re-create works would be completely out of the protection of law.
The second situation is the works of the collective of online anonyms. Such as a song or a novel which created by a non-register community group. Although these works were normally created by those web users who have no attentions to gain financial benefits, the fact is that some of these works were used for commercial purpose, while the original creators are not even informed.
It’s not fresh that technology step ahead the law. Yet, years has passed, few work has been done and the legal “grey” remains still. While Time magazine designated “You”, the millions of web users, as the Person of the Year, a question must be asked: who’s going to protect the legal rights of “You”.
In the traditional media industry, the work of creators/producers gets protect by the law. Yet, when it come to the Prosumer era, the situation become complicated. There are two particular situations I’d like to address here.
The first one is the works of re-creation. Although it’s easy for the netziens participate in the progress of creation or production, their resource in limited. As a result, these works are frequently appeared to be the re-creation among other products which are owned by commercial companies. Some of these works are defined as derivative works (eg. The Lord of Weep, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gsvJSH7nK0, the films made by the vedio game The Movie, The Sims ), which legally should would place control of the copyright with the owner of that original work. Yet, following the trend of global participations, should this law still remain the same? If it is, then the creations that participants have done in these re-create works would be completely out of the protection of law.
The second situation is the works of the collective of online anonyms. Such as a song or a novel which created by a non-register community group. Although these works were normally created by those web users who have no attentions to gain financial benefits, the fact is that some of these works were used for commercial purpose, while the original creators are not even informed.
It’s not fresh that technology step ahead the law. Yet, years has passed, few work has been done and the legal “grey” remains still. While Time magazine designated “You”, the millions of web users, as the Person of the Year, a question must be asked: who’s going to protect the legal rights of “You”.