When: Wednesday 11:00 - 11:50 pm
Where: CFA 242
Instructor: Dave Pape
e-mail: depape@buffalo.edu
Office: CFA 250
Office hours: Wed 12-1pm; Tues/Thurs 1-2pm
Website: http://resumbrae.com/ub/ue141/
Intellectual property rights are an important and all-pervasive issue, for both creators and 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, battles being waged over copyright. We will explore both cases of "stealing" - hip-hop sampling, Napster, etc - and of "sharing" - the growth of the so-called gift economy.
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.
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).
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.
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 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.