Lesson Plan: Digital Copyright, Peer Production and Review
Learning Goals: Students will recognize that ones viewpoint on issue is influenced by his or her standpoint. Students will obtain a basic understanding of file sharing.
Skill: Students will develop skills to argue and present an argument on an issue that does not necessarily reflect their own viewpoint.
Content (Prior to class): Benkler, 59-90 (Peer Production and File Sharing), Courtney Love, “Courtney Love Does the Math”
Content (In class): Excerpt from Bridgeport Music v. Dimension Films, 383 F. 3d (6th Cir. 2004).
Opening: Play a portion of George Clinton’s “Get Off Your Ass and Jam” and the NWA song, “100 Miles and Running,” the songs at issue in this case.
-Ask students if the songs sound similar.
-Ask students if they can define peer production or file sharing
-Ask students if they can see a connection between file sharing and sampling
-Explain that the NWA song contains a 3 second sample from Clinton’s work, and
that in a case they will read in class, a court found this sample to be illegal
Activity: Have students read the excerpt in class, hopefully this excerpt would only be a few pages in length. To summarize, in this case the court found that it was too difficult to determine how much sampling would be a violation of copyright laws. Therefore, the court found that any unauthorized sampling, even a sample that was three seconds long, was a violation of the law.
The purpose of this activity is to demonstrate to students that ones position may impact their perspective on a particular issue. In this activity, students are assigned to groups that represent various positions in the file sharing debate. Students may not develop a position that corresponds to the general perspective of the group they are assigned to. However, this is acceptable because some members of a group, such as Courtney Love, may not represent the dominant posiition in their industry.
Divide students into six groups which represent the following:
1. Members of the music industry.
2. Singers and performers.
3. Songwriters.
4. Members of the computer industry.
5. Students who download music.
6. Librarians.
Ask each group to write an outline for a brief speech they will give toward the end of class that represents the position of the group they were assigned to represent. Ask students to specifically consider how their assigned identity impacts their argument. Remind students that they should strongly consider citing examples from the assigned reading or other scholarly sources that they have read in the past.
Have each side present its position.
Discussion: The purpose of the discussion is for students to share their work with the class and uncover important principles related to file sharing and sampling. Likewise, students will develop basic skills in evaluating the credibility of evidence and arguments.
Ask students how their assigned identity impacted their argument.
Ask students if there were any arguments that they made in spite of their assigned identity.
Ask students what made each argument successful? Did the identity of the group represented affect their evaluation of the argument?
Ask students if they ever sample others work? Hint: what about when they write papers?
Closing The purpose of the closing is not only to summarize materials discussed in class but also to leave students with an idea to ponder after class is over. This closing encourages students to view activities they may have previously thought were apolitical, as potential forms of protest. This closer also encourages to recognize the poltiics involved in legal disputes over file sharing. It also emphasizes how strictly courts will punish sampling. I have heard the songs from Downhill Battle, and while they all contain the same three second sample, they sound nothing like Clinton's work or the NWA song.
Discuss the activism of Nicholas Reville and Holmes Wilson in regard to the Bridgeport case. Explore how sampling can be used as a form of cultural protest.
Play songs from Downhill Battle (if I could find them, the site has apparently been banned)