The Speech That Could Have Been (But Wasn't)

I did a speech (oh man, if you can call it that) on copyright in Public Speaking on Wednesday. I had my notes all neat on one side of an index card, and a couple hours before class I wrote out a lovely essay based on them and the words just flowed and I was going to go FIRST and just get it over with and probably do pretty okay. Except I kept not taking my chances and ended up being the last. I was all jumpy and I stumbled over my words and made some sounds that weren't words in trying to articulate and had my eyes closed part of the time and was looking down a lot and somehow taking too long even though I was worried it would be too short. I had to rush through my last point and the conclusion in about a minute (out of 6 minutes). I probably missed some things and didn't explain other things well at all. Overall, I think I sounded really dumb, which is awful. It's not that I didn't prepare or that I didn't know what I was talking about. It's that my mouth refused to move to make the right words in an eloquent order. I also don't like to have lots of people paying attention to me at once. I'm just fine with people admiring my work after I've done it (like a story or blog post or art) but it sets me on edge if lots of people are watching me make the lines or if I'm saying something that I haven't perfectly thought out and memorized.

To make myself feel better, I'm going to type up what I wrote before the class because I am just fine at writing and it actually sounds like a respectable speech.

We've all heard the horror stories. Normal people being charged enormous fines for pirating music; users banned from YouTube for posting episodes of a TV show. And those FBI warnings show up before every movie, ever. The charges may appear to be random and out of the blue, but they all have a common factor--copyright violations. How does copyright affect you? You can face fines and do time for something that is so easy to write off as "no big deal." Here's some information that's good to know. What and who does US copyright law protect? What are the rules regarding use of copyrighted material? And how can you protect your own work?

It is important to be able to identify what material is copyrighted. In a 2011 Licensing Journal, Leonard Rubin reviews the US copyright law, which he notes covers authors, writings, inventors, and discoveries. This sounds limiting, but he goes on to explain that this actually encompasses all original work, in visual, written, or recorded form. An example of visual work would be a sculpture, a painting, or digital art. Written works are anything from novels to articles to the code in computer programs! Recorded works include music and film. The creators of these materials hold the exclusive liscensing and distribution rights for their lifetime plus seventy years after they die. Wow! That's great for the authors and artists. But man, sometimes that song lyric illustrates your point perfectly!

Although it seems counter-intuitive, finding a picture on Google Images doesn't give you the right to put it on your blog. And buying a song legally from iTunes DOESN'T give you the right to use it in a video. You may see people claiming "Fair Use," but what does that really mean? In 2009, Linda Bartrom wrote an article for TechTrends about the implications of fair use for students. As it turns out, students are allowed to use portions of copyrighted material in educational presentations. There are some rules to this, however. You can use a video in your project, but only up to 10% of it or 3 minutes, whichever is less. You can also use up to 10% or 30 seconds of a sound recording like an interview or song. The rule is a little different when it comes to pictures. It's nearly pointless to use only 10% of a picture, so you can use up to 5 pictures per artist, and credit must be given to them on the picture. These are only the basic rules You ought to play on the safe side and read the law for yourself before using copyrighted material.

Fair use is really handy for people who don't usually make source material themselves. But some of us do make things. Why should we make it easy for people to steal our stuff? In a TechTrends article from 2011, Leonard DuBoff and Christy King review how to protect your copyrighted material. Copyright is actually automatic, as soon as you put your original work into a "tangible and fixed" form--whether putting it on paper, carving it in stone, or making it on the computer--that counts, too! This means ou don't have to do much, but unfortunately it doesn't hold up very well in court. there are two things you can do to help yourself. Think about those rage faces on the Internet. Somebody made them, but nobody really knows who and everybody uses them. If somehow your picture gets spread around like that, how do you prove you made it first? You can right away put that circle with a c in it on your work somewhere along with your name and the date. That way, nobody can argue that they "didn't know" it was copyrighted Secondly, you can register your work by submitting it to the Library of Congress within 3 months of its creation. That way, you have solid grounds to sue someone if they're illegally using your stuff. While the notice and registration aren't technically required, they can save you a lot of grief and possibly money later on.

In conclusion, creators have rights. There are rules to follow so that you don't infringe on those rights. When you make things, you also have those rights, and you can protect them. These effects of copyright should be obvious and taken seriously, especially in this media age. Be careful, and think about it before you get sued.

Okay, so I know there are a few things that could have used a better order. But I'm pretty happy with it. Of course, my speech actually came out with about half of that and made probably 3/4 as much sense and the last big paragraph was my favorite but I had to rush through it and then the psychology major guy who likes to debate things was telling me about how the maker of the rage faces was trying to claim the copyright and I was trying to explain that if they didn't put the notice and register it that there really wasn't a way to hold that up in court because it's just too widespread and would be exceedingly difficult to prove he did it first and all that but
WHATEVER I'm just not gonna try to have an argument in which I am not well informed because honestly the rage faces was a last-hour addition to my speech that I thought would connect well with the audience, hopefully.

I doubt I'll be making an A in this class...