DMS 417/516: Copyright & All That
Spring 2005

Course Info

When: Tuesday/Thursday 3:00 - 4:50 pm
Where: CFA 232

Instructor: Dave Pape
e-mail: depape@buffalo.edu
Office: CFA 250
Office hours: Tues/Wed 2-3 pm

Website: http://resumbrae.com/ub/dms417/

Course Description

Media "content" and similar creative activities - music, movies, games, software - have become a major businesses in modern, industrialized societies. Intellectual property rights are an important and all-pervasive issue, for both media creators and media consumers. As more and more people spend their time creating new works, and as corporations strive to increase their control over creative works, it becomes vital to understand how copyright operates and how it affects us.

This course will discuss the current state of copyright and other intellectual property, the effects of digital technologies and the Internet on copyright, and the battles being waged over copyright. Topics will include file sharing, sampling/appropriation/re-use, the public domain, open source software, software patents, etc.

Note: This is not a law class, and the instructor is not a lawyer or legal scholar. Nothing in this class should be taken as legal advice that will stand up in a court of law; consult a lawyer if you need advice on a specific case or activity.

Textbooks

The Illustrated Story of Copyright, Edward Samuels, 2000.
(readable online at www.edwardsamuels.com/illustratedstory/

Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity, Lawrence Lessig, 2004.
(available online at free-culture.org)

We will also make use of various websites and on-line articles (some available to UB students via the University library's database subscriptions).

Course Grading

• 20% - show & tell demo (+ 1-page writeup)
  You will give a 20-30 minute, in-class presentation on some practical topic related to the course. This should be a concrete demonstration of how to use whatever it is you're presenting, and a brief discussion of how it relates to the course topics. You must also turn in a 1 page written summary of your presentation. A list of suggested topics is on the course website.
• 30% - research 2 class topics (+ 2-page writeups)
  It is hoped that students will be regularly reading up on the course topics and participating in the discussion. But to ensure some participation, you will be required to prepare in detail for 2 classes and help lead the discussion. You should research each topic on the web and/or in books, and be prepared to summarize some of what you've researched to the class. You must also turn in a 2 (or more) page written summary of the results of your research (that's a 2+ page summary for each of the 2 classes).
• 15% - ~3 homeworks
  You will be given between 2 and 4 small homework tasks to perform, sometime over the course of the semester.
• 20% - 2 quizzes
  There will be 1 quiz near the middle of the semester, and one for Finals Week. The final one will cover all topics from the course.
• 15% - attendance & participation
  You are allowed up to two free absences; after that, each absence will cost you 2% of your overall grade. Furthermore, students who have done the readings and participate in class discussion will score better on this.

Draft Schedule

Other details

E-mail

I will send any e-mail relating to this course to your official buffalo.edu address. Be sure that you check this address. Do not ask me to send e-mail to another address instead - if you don't want to use the buffalo.edu mail system, forward your mail from there to whatever system you do use.

Also, be warned that mail from free services like Hotmail or Yahoo has a strong chance of being caught by spam filters. Hence, I recommend not sending me e-mail from such an address, if you want to be certain that I'll receive it.

Incompletes

(Borrowed from CS Department)

Generally, incomplete ("I") grades are not given. However, very rarely, circumstances truly beyond the student's control prevent him or her from completing work in the course. In such cases the instructor may give a grade of "I". The student will be given instructions and a deadline for completing the work, usually no more than 30 days past the end of the semester. "I" grades can be given only if the following conditions are met:

• An Incomplete will only be given for missing a small part of the course.
• An Incomplete will only be given when the student misses work due to circumstances beyond his/her control.
• An Incomplete will only be given when the student is passing the course except for the missed material.
• An Incomplete is to be made up with the original course instructor within the time specified by the appropriate University regulation (see appropriate document above), and usually within the following semester.
• An Incomplete will not be given to allow the student to informally retake the entire course, and have that grade count as the grade of the original course.

Incompletes cannot be given as a shelter from poor grades. It is the student's responsibility to make a timely resignation from the course if he or she is doing poorly for any reason.

Students with Disabilities

If you have a disability (physical, learning or psychological) which may make it difficult for you to carry out the course work as outlined, and/or requires accomodations such as recruiting note takers, readers, or extended time on exams and assignments, please contact the Office of Disability Services, 25 Capen Hall, 645-2608, and also your instructor during the first two weeks of class. ODS will provide you with information and will review appropriate arrangements for reasonable accomodations.

Plagiarism

Plagiarism is literary theft and a betrayal of trust. The term is derived from the Latin word for kidnapper and refers to the act of signing one's own name to words, phrases, or ideas which are the literary property of another. Plagiarism comes in many forms, all to be avoided: outright copying, or paraphrase, or a mosaic or disguised use of words and phrases from an unacknowledged source. To avoid plagiarism, make it your habit to put quotation marks around words and phrases, or to isolate and indent longer passages, that you are using from someone else's writing. And be sure to cite the source, in a footnote or endnote, or within parentheses in your text. The penalties for plagiarism can be severe: from an F for the particular assignment, to an F for the course, to referral of the case to the Dean of Undergraduate Education for administrative judgment. If you are unsure about how to use and document sources, please consult with your instructor.