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Participants quoted in the Evolutions of IP: The Past and Future video point to how intellectual property (IP) changes over time—that is, how the IP landscape is ever-changing—often without writing studies practitioners being aware of the changes, which contributes to the challenge of understanding and teaching IP to students. Participants emphasize that understandings of IP have evolved over time, an idea common across those we interviewed. Joyce Carter begins the video noting the contextual nature of IP approaches; when one variable changes laws and practices from one situation may no longer be applicable. Other interview participants explain ways in which they help students take this perspective and see IP as historically situated and dynamic. John Logie shares that he historicizes IP for students by explaining that the very idea of IP, as well as the associated concepts of plagiarism and copyright, did not exist before certain periods of time. Next, Charlie Lowe reinforces that conversations with students today are different than they were a decade ago and shares that he discusses with students that issues of IP extend beyond traditional understandings of writing to things like genetically modified foods. In the final clip, Jeff Galin looks to the future, predicting that what he calls the Georgia State case (Cambridge University Press et al. v. Patton) will set the precedent for universities' use of online reserves. He also predicts that universities' policies regarding ownership of teaching materials will shape future possibilities for distance education. Taken together, these participants point to ways in which the ever-changing landscape of IP intersects (and can interfere) with their own teaching about IP as well as how students come to understand IP.
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Video Summary
Participants quoted in the Evolutions of IP: The Past and Future video point to how IP changes over time—that is, how the IP landscape is ever-changing—often without writing studies practitioners being aware of the changes, which contributes to the challenge of understanding and teaching IP to students. Participants emphasize that understandings of IP have evolved over time, an idea common across those we interviewed. Joyce Carter begins the video noting the contextual nature of IP approaches; when one variable changes laws and practices from one situation may no longer be applicable. Other interview participants explain ways in which they help students take this perspective and see IP as historically situated and dynamic. John Logie shares that he historicizes IP for students by explaining that the very idea of IP, as well as the associated concepts of plagiarism and copyright, did not exist before certain periods of time. Next, Charlie Lowe reinforces that conversations with students today are different than they were a decade ago and shares that he discusses with students that issues of IP extend beyond traditional understandings of writing to things like genetically modified foods. In the final clip, Jeff Galin looks to the future, predicting that what he calls the Georgia State case (Cambridge University Press et al. v. Patton) will set the precedent for universities' use of online reserves. He also predicts that universities' policies regarding ownership of teaching materials will shape future possibilities for distance education. Taken together, these participants point to ways in which the ever-changing landscape of IP intersects (and can interfere) with their own teaching about IP as well as how students come to understand IP.
Dimension: The Evolution of IP: The Past and Future
We draw attention to the evolution of IP as a dimension that writing studies practitioners should include in their IP instruction because IP legislation, policies, and practices are moving targets. As the study participants we interviewed emphasized—and as scholarship both inside and outside writing studies has explained (e.g., Woodmansee & Jaszi, 1994; Rooksby, 2016, respectively)—what IP is and how it is understood and protected has changed over time. Thus, when writing studies practitioners make IP-related decisions—and when they prepare students to make those decisions—they need to consider that past decisions may not apply. Moreover, future developments may change what IP decisions practitioners make as well as the choices available for consideration. As writing studies practitioners, we benefit from carrying the process orientation that characterizes writing instruction to IP. That is, we do well to teach IP as in process, not as fixed and monolithic but rather as contextually situated in time and place.
Video pedagogical takeaways
In the Evolutions of IP: The Past and Future video, interview participants suggest several options for having IP conversations with students and colleagues regarding its history and future. We offer the following pedagogical takeaways, based on these interview responses, our larger study, our review of the literature, and our experiences on the IP Caucus:
- Address explicitly that notions of IP, including copyright and plagiarism, have evolved over time and prevailing understandings are relatively recent developments historically.
- Discuss to what texts IP applies—noting its reach beyond print publications to other productions, including creations like genetically modified fruit and hybrid animals—and the implications of such applications of IP, including how they define and read texts and understand what property can be owned.
- Ask what they know about copyright—what it is, what it does, and how long it lasts. Ground discussions in their popular (mis)understandings.
- Ask them to prognosticate the consequences of recent IP developments (e.g., court cases, events in the news).
- Provide examples of ways in which their educational experience is shaped by IP policies (e.g., what course texts instructors assign, whether courses are offered online).
These options ask us as writing studies practitioners to reinforce for students and colleagues that prevailing approaches to IP are not natural but are constructed. They reflect certain ideologies and ways of thinking at particular points in time and place, and identifying these can help students (and other academics) better understand the motivations behind IP decisions and policies.
Resources
As ways of getting the historical conversation started among ourselves and our students and colleagues, we suggest below five resources connected with the Evolution of IP:
- 1. Bently, Lionel,&Kretschmer, Martin. (n.d.). Primary sources on copyright (1450-1900). Faculty of Law, University of Cambridge. Retrieved from http://www.copyrighthistory.org/
- 2. International Society for the History and Theory of Intellectual Property (ISHTIP). (n.d.). About. ISHTIP. Retrieved from http://www.ishtip.org/
- 3. Ratliff, Clancy. Plagiarism and authorship: A review and retrospective of the CCCC IP Annual [from this special issue], as well as previous publications of the IP Annual, the annual publication of the Conference on College Composition and Communication's Intellectual Property Caucus, available at http://cccc.ncte.org/cccc/committees/ip/
- 4. Rife, Martine Courant. (2006). Why Kairos matters to writing: A reflection on its intellectual property conversation and developing law during the last ten years. Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy, 11(1). Retrieved from http://kairos.technorhetoric.net/11.1/binder.html?topoi/rife/index.html
- 5. Woodmansee, Martha,& Jaszi, Peter. (Eds.). (1994). The construction of authorship: Textual appropriation in law and literature. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Certainly more texts than those listed discuss the historical contexts and predicted future of IP, but these suggestions can serve as productive starting points. As with all the resource lists we provide, this list is not intended to be comprehensive but a beginning.
Moreover, as with the resources we recommend for other dimensions, the resources listed here might be associated with more than one dimension. For instance, we might suggest Martha Woodmansee and Peter Jaszi's (1994) The Construction of Authorship as a text to use for starting conversations with students and colleagues about legal as well as historical aspects of IP. We might also reference the Conference of College Composition and Communication IP Caucus's IP Annual as a resource for discussing the legal dimension of IP, given its coverage of major IP legislation each calendar year. Or we might recommend Peter Baldwin's (2016) The Copyright Wars as a resource for discussing the evolution of IP as well as IP's grounding in economic systems. These and many other resources we selected provide helpful perspectives across our four dimensions, but we ultimately chose to list resources under the dimension with which they arguably most engage.
