Scholarly Communications

Library Interns Spring 2023

Hi, hello

About me:

Maria Aghazarian
she/her/hers
Talk to me about copyrighting your works, finding publishing outlets, creating a scholarly profile for yourself
Also talk to me about mushrooms, birds, mysteries in the forest

About you?

Name
Pronouns
Subject[s] of academic interest
Subject[s] of non-academic interest

Important caveats

We will be discussing copyright specifically in the context of works created, displayed, performed etc. within the United States. Copyright law varies internationally
A lot of this discussion will involve interpretation of the law rather than immutable facts
If you have questions or need something clarified, please interrupt me!!

Reporting Back

Copyright

Reporting Back

Plagiarism

Reporting Back

Fair Use

Questions about the differences?

Case Study

Lil Nas X + FKA twigs

Andrew Thomas Huang directed the music video for "Cellophane"

Discuss

What are the similarities between the two videos?
Copyright infringement?
Plagiarism?
Fair use?
Something else?

"Copyright does not protect ideas, concepts, systems, or methods of doing something. You may express your ideas in writing or drawings and claim copyright in your description, but be aware that copyright will not protect the idea itself as revealed in your written or artistic work."

— "What Does Copyright Protect?"

Choreography is copyrightable

...however...

First we need to answer...

Is the "Cellophane" choreography copyrightable?
Is the "Montero" choreography copyrightable?
If yes to either, who is the copyright holder?
Does one choreographed act infringe upon the other?
Is pole a dance or a fitness routine?

Who is the copyright holder?

Both FKA twigs and Lil Nas X worked with the the pole choreographer, Kelly Yvonne.

Does Kelly own the copyright of the choreography in the videos?

Depends on contracts, licensed uses, and even then it might not be clear

Who is the copyright holder?

"Examples of compilations that are not copyrightable as choreography or pantomimes include: a series of aerobic exercises; a yoga sequence; a complicated routine consisting of classical ballet positions or other types of dance movements intended for use in a fitness class."

"Individual movements or dance steps by themselves are not copyrightable, such as the basic waltz step, the hustle step, the grapevine, or the second position in classical ballet."

Kyle Hanagami v.

Epic Games, Inc. (aka Fortnite)

Is this copyright infringement?

Why or why not?

"While the Court acknowledged that Hanagami’s steps and the emote were identical, the Court found that the choreography was composed of individual poses that, when viewed in isolation, were not protectable under copyright law."

— "Fortnite Crushes Choreographer’s Copyright Claims"

Copyright Registration

All copyright infringement lawsuits have an important prerequisite:

"...When he [Knight] first saw the 'Single Ladies' [Labanotation] score, "my jaw dropped,” he says. “It’s out of this world to see my hard work and sweat put on paper.”....For a Black creator in an industry that has long appropriated Black culture — and who often works with the industry’s most influential Black female artists — the score represented something bigger, too. “You feel like you stand for something,” says Knight, his voice cracking a bit."

— "Inside ‘Single Ladies’ Choreographer JaQuel Knight’s Quest to Copyright His Dances"

"As Kara Krakower…wrote in a 2018 paper for Fordham Law School’s intellectual property journal, it wasn’t until the mid-1900s that the reputation of dancers shifted “from prostitutes to artistic geniuses” and distanced itself “from vaudeville and ‘colored’ forms of choreography” — a shift that, not so coincidentally, paralleled the rise of white, male visionaries like George Balanchine in ballet and Jerome Robbins and Bob Fosse in musical theater."

— "Inside ‘Single Ladies’ Choreographer JaQuel Knight’s Quest to Copyright His Dances"

Krakower, K. (2018). Finding the Barre: Fitting the Untried Territory of Choreography Claims into Existing Copyright Law.

...which brings us back to pole, Lil Nas X, and FKA twigs

Is this a case of copyright infringement?

My conclusions:

The aesthetics (winged creature, iridescent faces, descent into darkness) are not copyrightable
Sliding/falling down a really long pole is not copyrightable
The moves used during the pole sequence in one video do not replicate the sequence in the other video
Pole dancing itself may not be copyrightable (remains to be seen)

However, the court of public opinion is another matter entirely

[break]

Open Access

and Copyright

"From the perspective of someone in the Northern hemisphere, most peer-reviewed publications are produced by market forces, meaning that published content emerges via organizations that seek to drive revenues and profit (or surpluses for charitable work) from their publishing activity. "

— "The ‘OA market’ – what is healthy? Part 1"

Scholarly Publishing Process*

Professor conducts research and authors a work (ex. article, book chapter, etc)
Author submits work to Publisher
Publisher coordinates peer review with volunteers in relevant disciplines
Author makes revisions to work based on peer review feedback
Work is accepted for publication
Publisher's [paid] staff format, copyedit, and prepare work for publication
Work is published

*from a United States-centered perspective

Scholarly Publishing Process

Professor conducts research and authors a work (ex. article, book chapter, etc)
Author submits work to Publisher
Publisher coordinates peer review with volunteers in relevant disciplines
Author makes revisions to work based on peer review feedback
Work is accepted for publication
Publisher's [paid] staff format, copyedit, and prepare work for publication
Work is published

Ⓒ

Open access provides

Immediate online availability of the work
Works for free to readers
Clarity regarding how the work can be used and reused without asking for permission

Open access is about

Sharing knowledge
Providing access to that knowledge
Allowing for everyone to participate in the open scholarly communication process, in an equitable way

"...[Open access] is not an end in itself, but a means to other ends, above all, to the equity, quality, usability, and sustainability of research."

— Budapest Open Access Initiative

Discuss

The "OA Market"— what is healthy?

Arianna Becerril García, keynote for United Nations 3rd Open Science Conference

Syon Bhanot (Political Science), The Journal of Economic Education: $2970
Paul Rablen (Chemistry), Journal of Physical Organic Chemistry: $3660
Donna Jo Napoli (Linguistics), Medical Research Archives: $3599 institutional / $1999 individual

“Cost is real, but price is unreal.”

In pursuit of open access, many publishers have decided to shift the potential lost profits of publishing back to the authors, their institutions, and funders (if applicable) through the form of Article Processing Charges (APCs)

Shifting costs...

"Library support of OA publishing is increasingly a norm in Europe. However, libraries in some parts of the world do not think of their role as being to enable or support OA publishing at all, and many have no budget to do so. With institutions and libraries at the heart of research communication, we need to consider the variable roles of the librarian in a range of countries in the context of any global transition to open access."

— "The ‘OA market’ – what is healthy? Part 1"

...compounds inequities

Arianna Becerril García, keynote for United Nations 3rd Open Science Conference

— Tony Ross-Hellauer

"Open science, done wrong, will compound inequities."

"Key threats include:

stratifications of publishing due to the exclusionary nature of the author-pays model of Open Access;
potential widening of the digital divide due to the infrastructure-dependent, highly situated nature of open data practices;
risks of diminishing qualitative methodologies as ‘reproducibility’ becomes synonymous with quality;
new risks of bias and exclusion in means of transparent evaluation;
and crucial asymmetries in the Open Science relationships with industry and the public, which privileges the former and fails to fully include the latter."

— "Dynamics of cumulative advantage and threats to equity in open science: a scoping review"

Arianna Becerril García, keynote for United Nations 3rd Open Science Conference

Arianna Becerril García, keynote for United Nations 3rd Open Science Conference