It’s never fun when I have to head to campus on a day where I don’t have class.
After forgetting the gift cards for my Honors networking panel game on Wednesday like a dolt, I had to make arrangements with the winners to deliver their prizes.
One of them was most available today around 12:30 p.m.
Because I was the one who fucked up, I couldn’t try to waive off their best time because it wasn’t convenient for my do-nothing day. So I went to Fullerton to deliver the card.
The whole meeting took literally two seconds. It was ostensibly just a hand-off, and they left immediately after the product was given.
So yay. An hour’s worth of a drive for two seconds of pay-off.
On days such as these I usually try to find things to do so that my time is not wasted. When my attempts to reach out to a couple local friends all ended in failures, I resigned myself to whittling time away in the Honors Center with homework.
By working on homework, I mean working on Comm Law homework. Because that stuff takes hours — and in fact I was working on it all four hours I sat in the Center until it closed at 5:00 p.m.
Then I spent even more time on it after I got home from my ~hour & fifteen minute drive.
As much as I’m enjoying the class, the sheer amount of work is absolutely killer.
Yet, the lectures we had to look over this weekend spoke to me more than usual. Our topic was the one and only:
Now I know what you must be asking yourself. “You don’t have any intellectual property, Jason. Why did this speak to you?”
First off, rude.
Second, given the requirements for copyright (having an original work of authorship fixed in a tangible medium of expression), I would say I have copyrighted intellectual property in both my journalism and whatever I’ve written on this blog.
Especially given the fact that copyright is written into the Constitution as pertaining to works beginning at the moment of their creation.
Unlike trademarks, which pertain to brands and aim to create an association with product quality so consumers can knowing what they’re buying. Because capitalism.
I don’t have a brand to protect, and trademarks only begin the moment they are put into commercial use. So I can’t claim I own that as easily as I do copyright to an extent.
Now. I’m sure some of you must be asking yourselves a different question. “Jason, why the hell are you spouting Comm Law nonsense at us? This isn’t a lecture.”
The point I’m aiming toward is that I’ve taken the opportunity to think about copyright further than just my journalistic writings. I’ve been thinking about a copyright that, at least to me, feels a bit more important in the moment.
I’m working on having a copyrighted work in the completely original intellectual property of my Senior Honors Project novel.
Though it’s obviously a pipe dream for a product I haven’t finished yet, something about learning the bundle of rights that come with a copyrighted work made me kind of giddy.
Five rights come with copyright that pertain to how one wants to divide up and license out their work:
- Distribution
- Display
- Reproduction
- Adaptation
- Performance
I’m not going to say I expect my novel to hit the same heights as, say, the Harry Potter series (which we used as an example).
A series of books which were licensed out to be reproduced and distributed by a publishing company. Then a series of movies which were adapted from those books that, in turn, had their own bundle of rights as an independent copyright.
But hey. It’s a nice dream, isn’t it?
The kind of dream that I may have more to talk about in the near future. Hint hint, wink wink.
Until then… Who would’ve guessed that Comm Law, of all classes, would help contribute to that dream in the most clinical, detached way imaginable.
Jason's Blog - Work in Progress 