Elizabeth Malin

EDLD 5316
September 3, 2020
Dr. Still

Week 3 Discussion Questions

Prompt 1.

The white paper addresses why both offices, the U.S. Copyright Office and the Library of
Congress should be separated. Upon reading the white paper it is easy to confirm we are dealing
with apples and oranges. Even a witness representing the American Bar Association concluded
“The Copyright Office requires autonomy to effectively support copyright owners and users in
the 21st century” (Tepp et al., 2015, p. 10). The Software and Information Industry Association
stated, “Despite the critical nature of the services provided by the Office, many of these services
have failed to keep pace with technology and the marketplace. While the Office should be held
accountable for its shortcomings to some extent, in truth many of these deficiencies have been
caused by many years of budgetary neglect and structural deficits that would make it difficult for
any agency to merely keep pace, to say nothing about modernization” (Tepp et al., 2015, p. 1.).
With regards to budget and staff cuts at almost 50% of the budget, the Library of Congress puts
the Copyright Office basically to the side (Tepp et al., 2015, p. 9). I agree with the sentiment
Tepp states throughout his paper. The “arrangement is no longer satisfactory” (Tepp et al., 2015,
p. 22). It seems like the Library of Congress should resort to research and aspects of that nature
and a whole division separate from the Library of Congress should be devoted to Copyright Law.
Even though the Copyright Office is its own entity, it acts under the Library of Congress. It
needs to be an autonomous and sovereign government entity. There is a whole law genre devoted
to copyright law. Why not free itself of the burdens of the Copyright Office and overburden their
budget. The neglected step-child of the Library of Congress is ready to move on. It’s dusted its
cobwebs and advanced to the next level.

Reference

Tepp, S. & Oman, R. (2015, October). A 21st century copyright office: The conservative case

for reform. Hudson Institute. https://www.hudson.org/research/11772-a-21st-century-

copyright-office-the-conservative-case-for-reform.

Prompt 2.

The four terms plagiarism, copyright infringement, attribution, and transformation are
related to each other in some manner. Copyright infringement is simply any infringement upon
the rights of a copyright holder (Bailey, 2013). Copyright law gives a copyright holder (usually
the creator of the work) a set of rights that they can and they alone can exploit legally (save for
expectations such as fair use) (Bailey, 2013). Writing an unauthorized sequel to a work as Bailey
(2013) is an example of copyright infringement. He continues to define what plagiarism is.
Where copyright infringement is a construct of the law, plagiarism is a construct of ethics
(Bailey, 2013). This is when one takes someone’s original work and uses this work as their own.
According to Bailey (2013), “plagiarism is defined as the taking of the original work or works of
another and presenting it as your own.” Both overlap. Bailey (2013) most plagiarism deals with
either creative or academic works and those types of works, typically, qualify for copyright
protection when they are new. An example of plagiarism is when a student uses a resource in
their paper without properly citing their source. Many times this could be using synonyms of
words, changing the order of sentences around, copying and pasting direct texts, and putting
passages into your own words without giving proper credit to the original
author. Attribution according to Creative Commons [is when one] must attribute the work in the
manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse
you or your use of the work). An example and good rule of thumb is to use the TASL (Title,
Author, Source, License) when attributing works. For example, according to Creative
Commons (2010) on a webpage featuring your audio recording, provide a credit list of material
you used that adheres to best practices [regarding TASL]. Finally, transformation is when
copyrighted work qualifies as fair use. Quoting portions of a work (Wikipedia, 2019) [such as a]
book review qualifies as transformative.

Reference

Bailey, J. (2013). The difference between copyright infringement and plagiarism. Plagiarism

Today. https://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2013/10/07/difference-copyright-

infringement-plagiarism/.

Creative Commons (2010). Creative commons attribution. Creative Commons.

https://wiki.creativecommons.org/wiki/Creative_Commons_Attribution.

Wikipedia. (2019). Transformation (law). Wikipedia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transformation_(law)