I have posted some essay titles on the course blog. Some students might want to pick one and make a start. I will provide more details on the requirements for the essay soon.
I have added a cases folder to the materials on Blackboard and a folder called papers. I will put some reading materials in there. More will be added as the module progresses. These are only available via Blackboard (no prizes for guessing why).
I introduced students to Audacity and gave them a sample audio file to mess around with. We looked at how to do noise reduction. However there was a problem with the audio settings on the machine in the lab. Hopefully that will be sorted soon.
We continued our look at copyright. We discussed copyrightable subject matter, the tangibility requirement, the originality requirement. We looked at the labour, skill, or judgement test.
Part 06
We discussed the idea/expression dichotomy and moral rights.
We began our look at copyright. Todays class included the Statute of Anne, the Berne Convention, and of course Finian v Columba. We asked the question what can be protected by copyright? We will go on to answer that in the next class.
Exam Questions:
1. Write a short note on each of the following cases: Finian v Columba, (AD 567) Millar v Taylor, (1769) 4 Burr. 2303; 98 ER 201 Hinton v Donaldson, SCS 1 July 1773 Donaldson v Becket, (1774) 2 Brown's Parl. Cases (2d ed.) 129 Phonographic Performance (Ireland) Ltd v Cody, [1998] 4 I.R. 504 at 511
2. Identify two objectives of the Berne Convention (1886)
Nobody turned up so I went away. I guess last night was a party night.
update: I felt a bit guilty so I went back to check. A few students had turned up in the meantime. They worked on the PhotoShop Tools training exercise.
We watched a video on US Law and compared the process to that in Ireland. It's largely the same except the President of Ireland has fewer powers.
Part 03: Justifications for Intellectual Property
I asked students to imagine we were starting a new colony and someone proposed that we should have Intellectual Property laws. What are the arguments for having such laws.
The students said this was a busy week so we held off on the planned task for his week.
I gave out a hand out on structuring a paper.
I spoke a bit about the importance of having an explicit structure and organising principle. We discussed each student's paper in turn and speculated on possible structures.
So this week's task is to write an outline for the paper.
It's probably time to commit to a topic one and for all now too.
We discussed the nature of property and how it is dependent on law. We discussed the differences between intellectual property and tangible property and concluded that the are more aline than we thing, not because intellectual property is more tangible than we first thought, but because tangible property is actually itself quite ephemeral. We also discussed how property rights are not absolute and can be justifiably constrained by the state.
We looked some more at cognitivism and then discussed constructivist views of learning. That concludes the learning theory part of the module. Upcoming classes will be less theoretical.