iPhone blog- copyright

iPhone blog post number one, we’ll see how this ends up. I’ll remind everyone that formatting we be poor, there will be no links (apple give me copy and paste abilities already!) and spelling errors may abound. With those rules, let’s get to it.

First, themattscott is now viewable on the iphone in a much easier to deal with format. I’ve forgotten the name of the app that does it, but I’ll find it and update the post later (and break the second rule, no links) from home. If all wordpress blogs could kindly install the addon my day would be that much brighter.

Now the point of the post, blog copy rights. There is a good deal of information sharing that goes on in the blogosphere, and most blogs denote copyrights at the bottom of there pages. That copyright in no way stops another blogger, or an author of a book for that matter, from using said material in their own work, without propperly crediting the source. The current format of “works citing” on a blog is either a hat tip (denoted as HT) or by inserting a link to track back to the original post. These would never pass as acceptable citations in the academic publishing yet academics (scholars, whatever term you wish to insert) seemingly have no qualms about citing materials in this way on there informal blog settings.

My question then: “Is web 2.0 in general, and blogging specifically, beggining to alter our view of copyright and works citation?”

email2friend
  • I remember having to use "Last Accessed" during my introduction to English Writing classes, back in freshmen year. I was always really bad at proper MLA formatting, so I think I forgot to do that use "last accessed" and got busted for it.
  • Well, as an academic, I have to bite, don't I?

    The sole purpose of citation is surely to enable the diligent reader to chase down the original version of the material referenced.

    A good, persistent link is a fine way to do that, provided the publication medium is itself digital. On the other hand, if the publication is conceived of as primarily a print medium, then you can't rely on the reader to type in a URL and so more conventional referencing continues to be the norm.

    Of course, I work in a technological discipline, where we've always been much less bothered about the "right" way to reference digital materials - all those social science papers which give a URL and then say "last referenced on Feb 4th, 2009" leave me utterly cold. I don't frankly care when you did your web browsing :-).

    To answer your question, though, citation and copyright are very different issues: the first has to do with giving due respect to the originator of ideas, and not passing off someone else's work as your own. The necessity for that isn't going to go away. Copyright is chiefly about protecting your property against others using it without paying a licence: and it's close to being dead, I think, because the scope for copying and linking in the digital domain is just too great.

    Hm. Note to self: mustn't get into professor mode so easily.
  • the wife
    random info from your nerdy wife: They just changed the MLA rules for citing websites in academic papers to no longer require URLS effective April 2009.
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