Tuesday, 7 March 2017

What is Fair in The Digital Age?

In this digital age especially in Indonesia with the democration system, many people feel free to express their emotions and words. People think this freedom is a privilege that you can not waste for futile thing. Well, it seems good to being more open mind up; can critize something that we don't agree, see the work of someone via online, or search informations that helped your work/tasks with 'uncle' Google. But, this freedom somehow is being asked. We can access a lot of things in online and offline media, then we copy and paste the works of someone if we'd love to, furthemore we share it to our own social media like it is our own work. A question is spinning around my head. Will the freedom of using the media make people want to take of someone's work without their permission? 

The first book that I read titled "Media Today: Mass Communication In a Converging World" by Joseph Turow. I will be focus on his chapter fifth that discuss about "Controls on Media Content: Goverment regulation, Self-Regulation, and Ethics." I invite you to elaborate more about the regulation specially with this key terms; copyright and fair use. These three things will have a relation with another references.

Joseph Turow told us that "we speak about copyright, we mean the legal protection of a creator’s right to a work." Legal and protection must be underlined as the main points of this sentence. We often think that freedom does not have a limit. People's work need to be appreciated through this kind of protection called copyright. Joseph Turow also explained two reasons why copyright becomes important. "The first is that authors ought to be able to control how their work—their intellectual property—is used. The second is that authors should be paid fairly for the use of their work."  I more agree with the second reason, at least those people with their hard work should be paid "fairly". We've gained already free way to look up for their work through online, so the authority thing like reporting the source is a small appreciation that we can give to them.

Next, I read the article about http://internetsehat.id/2016/12/hak-cipta-indonesia-raya-kena-klaim-kanal-id-igf-kena-takedown/ showing copyright things. This article explained how small things can cause a big problem. The point is people often forget to read about term conditions of some social media because they think their freedom is a every thing that you can do as much as you like. Let's take a look of this picture below:


Some of you ought to ignore this things. This picture shows half of terms that you should know when you decide to engage in Youtube including about copyright things. Not only in Yotube actually, in our own country there is also law that protect about copyright things that is regulated by Law of Republic Indonesia number 28, 2014 about copyright. It explains that "..copyright is the intellectual property in the field of science, art, and literature that have a strategic role in supporting the development of the nation and advancing general welfare as mandated by the 1945 Constitution of the Republic of Indonesia." You can't underestimate the power of laws that already settled in this country. 

However, copyright is being critized by some people. "How about using some parts of someone's work, can't I?" Well, this question is being answered through the law called "Fair Use". Joseph Turow mentioned that "a person or company may use small portions of a copyrighted work without asking permission. Nonprofit, educational purposes have more leeway than for-profit ventures." In his journal, "Recovering Fair Use" by Steve Collins explained that focus on how this "fair use" thing play the role in our context of fairness in the digital age. I conclud that we can use some somene's work without their permission for some case especially for education reasons. Here's a picture that explain some examples of fair use:

Three references can be summarized that copyright is something that is important for us. You can't blame if someone use your work if the copyright doesn't exist in this world. Imagine that this freedom without copyright already create some problems with taking someone's work for his/her own profit things. At least nowadays, you have something that can protect your great effort or magnificient work through law of copyright. Although we have "fair use". we need to use it wisely. Funny thing comes up in my mind; "When someone cites page 100 of 1000 pages of a book, is it still considered as fair? #FairUse". This question reminds us that we should take this copyright thing seriously. Understand what kind of conditions we should take and not disobey them. 

Let's be a good user of media. Let's be fair when using "fair use". Let's be creative and responsible with your work. You will be respected with your own work especially when you will use some of peole's words/ideas/works make sure you write down the source. 

What is fair is that you know how to use the freedom you've got as responsible and do not cross the line of copyright things.

'Cause you are just too pathetic to take other's property unilaterally.


Reference:
http://internetsehat.id/2016/12/hak-cipta-indonesia-raya-kena-klaim-kanal-id-igf-kena-takedown/
http://www.indolaw.org/UU/Law%20No.%2028%20of%202014%20on%20Copyright.pdf
Collins, Steve. 2008. Recovering Fair Use. Australia. M/C Journal.
Turow, Joseph. 2014. Media Today: Mass Communication in a Converging World. New York. Routledge.

Margaretha Nazhesda
1506686135

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