As an intern at {} I’ve been given the responsibility of following and posting about blogs with ”lifestyle” content. This often includes saving photos and taking quotes or advice from various bloggers. My job is to compile all of the recent lifestyle trends, blog about them and create an internal bi-weekly magazine for the company. My first day on the job my supervisor asked me to create designer bios that she could refer to during interviews. Her exact instructions were to search the web and copy and paste tidbits I found “plagiarism is highly recommended – or it will take you too long.” I was thrilled that I was given permission to take the easy way out but couldn’t help but think about how the internal magazines were going to be created.
Sure enough when I asked why we can’t have our blog public and why we don’t try to publish our magazine, she responded there was too much risk with copyright infringement since we find a lot of our “trends” from bloggers. Recently, Germany has jumped on the bandwagon of protecting online content: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/29/business/global/29copy.html . “The goal is to level the playing field with Internet companies like Google, which German publishers accuse of exploiting their content to build lucrative businesses without sharing the rewards.” But a blogger quoted in the article is against a copyright filled internet, he claims open internet is better for society and that German publishers lacked a strong business plan-of-action for the internet.
The new policy Germany is releasing could mean bloggers having to pay for content they receive from news sources even if they have no commercial intentions. If I were in Germany working for {} all of the blogs I’d be accessing would have to pay for their content that is cited from outside sources, which I feel would certainly decrease the amount of creative works found online. The article uses a quote from Internet Manifesto to explain the issues of a new protection of online journalism that I found very compelling , ““Copyright must not be misused as a lever to protect outdated distribution methods and to secure new business and licensing models.””
I have not come to any solution but realize that everyday I come to {}I am potentially infringing. I do not know the future of blogger’s rights but I feel if posts (which can be argued to be free speech) will require buying a copyright – we will lose a new significant entity for human expression.
Some Rights Reserved
Don’t you think most of the blogs you access would, if Germany’s new laws were to reach America, rely on a fair use defense? If they’re not using the content in their blogs for commercial use, but for commentary, I think certainly the authors of these blogs could claim fair use.