16 December 2011, Amsterdam
The third workshop of the OOR project, where all the project teams got together with invited academics to hear presentations and discuss how authorship norms in copyright law map on actual creative practices including digital art, dance and peer production. Is there a disconnect between law and practices? Does it matter?
Programme:
| Perceptions of authorship & creative collaboration in arts | (chair Mireille van Eechoud) |
| Elena Cooper | Multiple Authorship: Law and Art in the Digital Sphere |
| Charlotte Waelde | The Authorship of Dance? |
| Yra van Dijk | Topdown digital literature: the effects of institutional collaborations and communities |
| Discussion | |
| Structuring collaborative authorship in science and peer production | |
| Mario Biagioli | Plagiarism & Ghostwriting in Science: Pathological or Emergent Forms of Multiauthorship? |
| Till Kreutzer | Open source software |
| Niva Elkin-Koren | Social production |
| Discussion, followed by wrap up |
Abstracts:
- Multiple Authorship: Law and Art in the Digital Sphere by Dr Elena Cooper, University of Cambridge
This paper presents findings from interviews conducted with 16 digital creators regarding their authorship practices. Using a number of detailed case studies, concepts of authorship in art are compared with those contained in the copyright laws of three jurisdictions: UK, France and USA. Identifying points of convergence and divergence between art and law, the paper concludes by drawing attention to the ways in which digital art in fact adds coherence to copyright, as well as considering proposals for legal reform to remedy certain instances of divergence. - The Authorship of Dance? by Prof Charlotte Waelde, University of Exeter
Who is the author of a dance? The choreographer? The dancer? Both? Someone else? Drawing on research done for an AHRC Beyond Text funded project – Music and Dance: Beyond Copyright Text? this talk will examine the requirements of UK law for the subsistence of dance copyright, the dance literature, and the views of a number of dancers, choreographers and others from within the dance community. It will challenge some preconceived notions surrounding authorship of dance and question whether the law reflects the reality of practice. - Topdown digital literature: the effects of institutional collaborations and communities by Dr Yra van Dijk, University of Amsterdam
Contrary to what one might think, institutions play an important role in the production, preservation and funding of electronic literature. Even the production of work often takes place in an academic or institutional setting. Literary festivals, conferences and workshops form temporary communities and collaborations in which planned collaboration takes place. This paper will addres some examples of institutionalized and planned collaboration and its effects on the production, the presentation and the content of digital literature. - Plagiarism & Ghostwriting in Science: Pathological or Emergent Forms of Multiauthorship? by Prof Mario Biagioli, STS Program & School of Law, UC Davis
I look at two author functions that are typically seen as improper and possibly unlawful – plagiarism and ghostwriting of scientific publications– as windows on the evolving scenarios of multi-authorship. The first (plagiarism) is a case of unacknowledged sequential authorship while the second (ghostwriting) is an unacknowledged form of multiauthorship. While both are vocally criticized and occasionally punished, they pose interesting conceptual challenges to definitions of the author, thus indicating that they may not as obviously ‘pathological’ as we tend to assume. - Multiple authorship in OSS developer communities by Dr Till Kreutzer, iRights.info
The phenomenon of Open Source Software (OSS) and Open Content (OC) confronted copyright lawyers, cultural scientists and psychologists with various new insights about the motivation to create and the assumed essential role of copyright law as an incentive to become creative. Moreover the peer production based, often decentralised creation of OSS and OC in heterarchichal communities raises questions about the legal perception of the author and challenges the traditional concepts of authorship. An analysis shows that the existent concepts hardly recognize, let alone solve, a number of fundamental questions concerning the allocation of authorship, the licensing and the enforcement of rights in collective works. However, before legislative reforms are considered it must be determined, whether solutions are needed after all and if so, whether legislative measures are the right way to address the unanswered questions. Fact is that Open Source Software production booms despite these regulative gaps. Another fact is that this success is obviously hardly supported by copyright law, which is little customized to the specific particularities of Open Source Software overall. Fact is finally that the involved peer groups apparently do not express any need for (legislative) solutions. Regarding the sensitivities of the freedom orientated Open Source Communities against governmental influencing legislative measures should be considered as the last resort anyway. To analyse if and what solutions are needed to address the problem of multiple authorship in Open Source Software a closer look at the motivation of individuals, enterprises and organisations to contribute to Open Source Software production is necessary. This should e.g. enable to assess, whether regulation is needed or self–regulation is sufficient or how both approaches can interact to find appropriate solutions.
Participants:
| Name | Affiliation (*research team member) |
|---|---|
| Prof Lionel Bently* | University of Cambridge, Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Law (CIPIL) |
| Prof Mario Biagioli | UC Davis School of Law, Science and Technology Studies (STS) |
| Dr Elena Cooper* | University of Cambridge, Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Law (CIPIL) |
| Dr Yra van Dijk | University of Amsterdam, Department of Dutch Studies, Humanities Faculty |
| Dr Mireille van Eechoud* | University of Amsterdam, Institute for Information Law (IViR) |
| Prof Niva Elkin-Koren | University of Haifa, Faculty of Law |
| Dr Stef van Gompel* | University of Amsterdam, Institute for Information Law (IViR) |
| Prof Jostein Gripsrud* | University of Bergen, Department of Information Science and Media Studies, The Media, ICT and Cultural Policy Research Group |
| Dr Lucie Guibault | University of Amsterdam, Institute for Information Law (IVIR) |
| Prof Bernt Hugenholtz* | University of Amsterdam, Institute for Information Law (IViR) |
| Dr Till Kreutzer | Institut für Rechtsfragen der Freien und Open Source Software (ifrOSS), Büro für informationsrechtliche Expertise Hamburg |
| Dr Erlend Lavik * | University of Bergen, Department of Information Science and Media Studies, The Media, ICT and Cultural Policy Research Group |
| Dr Geert Lovink | Hogeschool van Amsterdam, UvA, Institute of Network Cultures |
| Dr Mirko Schäfer | University of Utrecht, Media and Culture Studies |
| Prof Alain Strowel | Facultés universitaires Saint-Louis, Brussels and University of Liège |
| Dr Penny Travlou | Edinburgh College of Art |
| Prof Charlotte Waelde | University of Exeter, Science, Culture and the Law Research Group |