[feminism and copyright]

In this month's issue (I believe it is also the first ever issue) of the International Journal of Internet Research Ethics there is a fascinating article by Erin Hvizdak. Her "Creating a Web of Attribution in the Feminist Blogosphere" takes a feminist look at issues of copyright. She begins by suggesting that although legal issues (such as copyright) have been criticised, little in fact has been written about it. Why might this be so? Well, because "women are more likely to participate in collaborate activities, such as quilting, knitting, or cooking, activities that produce domestic "works" not generally protected by Title 17, section 102(a)." (Bartow qtd. in Hvizdak).

Moving from to the very interesting idea of "author" as a singular "'heroic self-presentation of Romantic poets' (Woodmansee & Jaszi, 1994, p. 3)" to collaborative efforts which mean authorship is plural and distributed. Hvizdak (using Bartow) explains that women seeking copyright protection "violate the feminine social norms of caring, sharing, and nurturing, therefore deterring women from seeking this protection" (Bartow, 2007, p. 33). However, usual instantiations of copyright, according to Hvizdak, privilege the singular author over a composite notion of authorship, highlighting binaries as evidence of a certain kind of privileging:

"Feminist theory also deconstructs the binaries present in copyright doctrine, exposing patriarchal power structures. Dan L. Burk cites dualisms such as mind/body and nature/culture, (Burk, 2006) while Craig cites laborer/free-rider, creation/reproduction, and author/user (Craig, 2006). Each of these binaries holds the characteristic of one side being privileged over another, or one side being "inferior and feminized" (Burk, 2006, p.11). For example, the most prevalent binary, author/user, is invoked to determine infringement. The author is the creator, the sole owner of the work, and that who has control; the user, in any attempt to become involved with the piece, such as changing or borrowing from it, becomes an infringer and is punished by law. The user must separate him or herself from the author and his or her work, becoming an outside spectator rather than an active participant. Not only is this binary problematized by the assertion that
culture, and therefore creation, works in a dialogic manner, but also in the fact that it is the public, the audience, or the user that makes a work economically viable or worthy of copyright protection (Zemer, 2007, p. 5-6). In other words, without the user or consumer, the author or creator would have no reason to call him or herself a unique, autonomous, author-genius under copyright protection."

Considering writing in the blogosphere, Hvizdak notes that one might *expect* women bloggers to *not* copyright their work because

"Blogs are highly collaborative efforts, relying on information from external sources (news media, other individuals) to create meaning, and encouraging readers to add to the creation by posting comments. This is in stark contrast to the concept of the autonomous author as sole creator in copyright law, so bloggers might not see their blogs as created by a single person and therefore worthy of or needing protection. Additionally, rejecting copyright protection might align itself with feminist activity, subverting hierarchical patriarchal power by emphasizing and encouraging collaborative creation."

***However, women in the blogosphere do employ copyright.***

"Of 143 blogs surveyed, 55 had some type of copyright statement or a link to it present on the homepage, while 88 did not. These data can be further broken down into women's and feminists' blogs. Women-authored blogs expressed copyright-protected status in 31 out of 72 instances, while feminist blogs expressed it in 24 of 71 instances."

Hvizdak goes on to detail her findings and ends with her conclusion:

"Attribution is a way of bringing these two sides of the copyright binary together - it allows one to retain control over his or her creation and therefore obtain social gains while at the same time emphasizing the collaborative nature of knowledge production and the forging of social relationships. While many of the authors of texts on feminist perspectives of copyright call for a change in the law to embrace traditional 'women's' collaborative works such as quilting or cooking, the feminist focus should instead work to negotiate the author/user binary so that shared knowledge production is encouraged and the rights of authorial ownership and attribution are ensured."

I highly recommend reading the full article.