CMN450 (03) Participatory Media

New media is evolving and it is important for consumers and businesses to adapt and learn how to properly use it, and protect themselves from copyright laws.

Interviews can be intimidating and there are many rules to follow to be successful. This article talks about the 10 interview mistakes that should be avoided, in order to secure the job position.

A religious group dedicated to worshiping the act of copyrighting. One part of this groups religious practices is copying information as a way of worshipping it.

How copyright allows for scarcity and how copyleft allows for collaboration and creativity.

A not-for-profit website that have work that fall out of copyright and enter the public domain. This website has collections of text, images, films, articles and more.

Can piracy actually help to increase sales? Is copy protection fading in the music industry?

Taking advantage of Fair Use protections of copyright law, a problem the publishers are responsible for, not Creative Commons. This article is about a case of Open Access as rights - laundering and how expensive it can be to the owner.

No one can own a physical person, so why would that be different for fictional characters? This article argues how fictional characters should belong to the fans, and not the authors.

Creative Commons many not be as gracious as we think. The contract between content creators and users are not always understood by both, and may generate issues in the future when using another person's work without giving proper credit.

Continuing the discussion on piracy, this article explains how piracy may not be as detrimental to the entertainment industry as it is described. Although piracy has allowed people to have free access to content they once had to pay for, the initial thought would be that Hollywood feels the effects, and loses money because of it. On the contrary, the article explains that last year was Hollywood's best theater attendance in history. Despite what is being said about piracy, it helped to spread "the word of mouth". As said by writer Julie Bush, "I believe torrents are the libraries of the future," Julie Bush says. "The more people who see and enjoy my work, the more opportunities I will have to be compensated." In addition, piracy may not be an option for those who are technologically inept. Thus the creation of Netflix, or HBO subscriptions has allowed access as easy as piracy, but on simpler and legal terms.

An article contrasting all that we've been studying about intellectual property rights, accusing Hollywood to be encouraging illegal downloading. The article explains how Hollywood has learned to work with the cards they were given; instead fighting our accessibility to download, Hollywood is teaming up with streaming platforms to give us movies without forcing audiences to pay per video. In attempts to make some profit, the price for music has been lowered to $1 (so we'll be less hesitant to buy it), and TV shows have teamed up with streaming sites like Hulu, who makes their money from ads. Even though there may be many who don't want to pay for entertainment anymore, there are ways around it: whether it be the easy way, or the legal way.

Vancouver artist, Samantha Ravndahl is accusing hip-hop star, Lil' Kim of stealing her photo and using it to promote and profit her new album, Dead Girl Walking. First posted on Ravndahl's personal Instagram account, the stolen image is of Ravndahl wearing an original zombie makeup design. A coincidentally identical image was later found on Lil' Kim's new album cover, with Lil Kim's name and copyright notice on the image. Their dispute on copyright and intellectual property rights has yet to be resolved.

Canada has a political party called the Pirate Party which has existed since 2009, in which exists to attempt and loosen the laws regarding copyright and the movement of content. 

This is describing the new intellectual property law Spain is enforcing in order to receive money from search engines such as Google for providing results of content that is copyrighted. Spain are one of many European countries implementing laws such as this one.

Creative Commons copyright licenses allow anyone from individual creators to large companies/institutions a simple way to grant copyright permissions to their IP. Every license helps the creator retain copyright while still allowing others to copy, distribute and use their work, non-commercially. This ensures that the rightful creator gets all the credit they deserve. There are different scales and levels of licensing available for creators at the bottom of the page.

This article thoroughly explains Bill C-11, Canada's revised Copyright Act, and lays it out in more simplified terms with relation to a wide spectrum of IP.

The CEO of Netflix, Reed Hastings, states that torrent piracy in Canada has gone down by 50% since the establishment of Netflix three years ago, although no research or statistics have been able to support his claim. Hastings claims that piracy helps "create a demand" for legal ways to watch video through the internet. Is this true?

This article summarizes the history of Canadian fair dealing and explains the transition from fair dealing to fair use from three different scholars' perspectives. It also includes case-based examples, such as Access Copyright's legal action against York University.

This article is about a firm called Canipre, which is the only anti-piracy enforcement firm that provides forensic services to copyright holders in Canada. The firm has been monitoring Canadian users' downloading for several months from Ontario-based internet provider, Teksavvy.

This contains a list of Disney movies that have used plots from movies, songs, and books in the public domain. This makes me question how many other movies outside of Disney have followed suit in taking ideas from public domain. Is there actually any original inventive ideas?