The folks at American University's Center for Social Media, who have been doing good and interesting work on the subject of fair use in documentary filmmaking, have lately turned their attention to "participatory media". In a recent study, "The Good, the Bad, and the Confusing: User-Generated Video Creators on Copyright", they found some disturbing results. College students and recent graduates who create and upload videos to such sites as YouTube "showed themselves universally under-informed and misinformed about" copyright law and fair use, tending to think in "binary, good-bad categories" about what is and is not permitted:
In fact, respondents generally did not understand elementary facts about copyright, even though several noted that they had received both training and warning from professors about copyright use. . . . Although the great majority of survey respondents (76 percent) believed that the fair use doctrine permitted them to use copyrighted materials, none of the interviewees was able to describe this doctrine accurately. Two said that it stipulated a fixed amount of time, e.g., "over 15 seconds of someone else's song," or "less than 10 seconds." Another said that fair use is available "for purposes of public education," still another "if it's for a class project." The majority indicated that fair use would apply if there is no commercial transaction. "I believe in fair use laws," one said. "If I create something as an academic exercise, and never pursue monetary reward, then I believe I should be able to utilize other people's work." None of these beliefs is accurate. . . . [One] distinction on which respondents relied to justify or explain their practices was between an obligation to pay and an obligation to give credit or recognition. While payment was largely unjustified in their opinion, these users were very concerned about attribution as a sign of showing respect for artistry.
Even more disturbing: more than half the participants were studying or working in communications- and media-related fields.
To be sure, copyright law is neither clear-cut nor intuitive, but you'd like to think that all of the copyright education we've been doing in connection with P2P file-sharing would have had at least a little impact, particularly on those students interested in pursuing careers in copyright-intensive industries. But whether they result from simple lack of knowledge about, or self-rationalizing lack of respect for, copyright, it's views like these that fuel industry and Congressional calls for tighter restrictions and increased protections.
