This page comprises a link to the Poetry Foundation discussion document, Code of Best Practices in Fair use for Poetry. It is worth studying, I am linking it here along with excerpts from the introductory herein. Those readers interested in Intellectual Property Rights can follow a variety of writer-advocacy organisations, including Poetry Foundation, Poetry Ireland, PEN International and the EFF , amongst others.
Bloggers may be interested in Creative Commons Licences , some readers here will be familiar with the CC licences, as they are attached to Poethead Reviews and original works. I will add in the links to the document by Poetry Foundation, as well as the Creative Commons licences at the end of this post.
Introduction to Code of Best Practices in Fair Use of Poetry.
“The impetus for developing this code of best practices arose from a broader conversation around poetry’s place in new media. During 2009, a group of poets, editors, publishers, and experts in copyright law and new media came together under the auspices of the Poetry Foundation’s Harriet Monroe Poetry Institute with the goal of identifying obstacles preventing poetry from coming fully into new media and, where possible, imagining how to remove or mitigate these obstacles. The group’s work culminated in a wide-ranging report.
“Embracing the overarching value of access to poetry as its theme, the group saw that business, technological, and societal shifts had profound implications for poets publishing both in new and in traditional media, and also that poets have an opportunity to take a central role in expanding access to a broad range of poetry in coming months and years. Almost immediately, the group’s conversation focused on barriers to poetic innovation and distribution caused by clearance issues. Some of these clearance issues develop from the business structures underlying poetry publishing, but a significant number, the group discovered, relate to institutional practices that might be reconsidered, including both poets’ and publishers’ approaches to quoting and other types of possible fair use. Soon after its first meeting, the group began discussing the possibility of developing “best practices” for poets and publishers. “
Center for Social-media article excerpted.
“Poetry is more than a body of writings or a typology of forms; first and foremost, it is an evolving set of practices that engage, and are engaged by, the creative work of others. During the extensive conversations leading up to this document, a few central themes about poetic practice emerged. The first was that poets generally (though not universally) want their poetry to be as widely available to potential audiences as possible, both during their lifetimes and beyond. However, poets, especially those not working in and for new media formats, expressed anxiety about how new media might affect their ability to make money from their work and to establish and advance academic careers. And they were concerned about the ease with which new media enable others to distribute and alter their poems without permission. At the same time, poets urgently expressed their need to use material derived from the poems of others (including twentieth and twenty-first century writers) in their own work, and their desire to do so in ways that were both ethically and legally appropriate.”
Related article Links.
