Digital media has been a "game changer" for copyright issues, creative products, and distribution of intellectual property. The "Wild West" of the last decades are now being tamed with new laws, better understanding of the new media, and new technological controls.
The lectures by Prof. Ewell and the video on Jam Studio are there to give you some insights into how technology can now create music. Ownership of a creative product has become all the more complex. For instance, when composition was created with paper and pencil, the manufacturer of the paper or pencil could hardly have any claim over the creation. But you might now perceive a certain problem with defining who is the creator of a composition when it is made online. For instance, isn't a composition created on Jam Studio in some sense not only the creation of the new user but also of the programmer who created Jam Studio? Could that programmer claim rights over the creation since his/her music instruments, presentation of chords and harmonies, format, etc. were an important part of the finished product? Determining where one person's creation stops and another begins is much more difficult to determine with these new media.
Pay close attention to the brilliant series of lectures by Tarleton Gillespie. He makes a point that technological choic constraints on users are often determined by corporations seeking financial gain. Restrictive controls thus often punish the users in order to ensure the rights of the property holders. I highly recommend reading this book when you have time:
Lessig, L. Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity. New York: the Penguin Press, 2004.
Lessig reinforces Gillespie's argument but provides some interesting background on several large corporations (such as Disney) that started as renegades--often flaunting the law--but now are some of the most fierce advocates for enforcing their rights.
Dr. E.
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