Digital History and Copyright
Last week, our starting discussion on Tuesday was about Digital History. I enjoyed this topic more than expected because I honestly did not fully realize what Digital History was until this class. Initially, I assumed it was about technology throughout history and not how digital tools are used to preserve it and give people more open access. I thought it was an engaging discussion, especially while taking the class Archives and Society since we have had discussions about repositories trying to digitize more of their collections to increase access to the general public. However, there are some conversations about how well online archived material will hold up in years to come. This was something I mentioned directly in class; while the internet is definitely impactful on the way we are preserving history, I do not think it should or will become something we fully rely on since we do not truly know how our digital content will hold up in the future.
As for our copyright discussion on Thursday, this was reminiscent of what I learned in my Intro to Digital Studies course, where we talked quite a bit about copyright laws and how they differ. My favorite part of this discussion was thinking about how copyright laws apply to AI “art.” Especially when Sarah mentioned how artwork coming from social media sites such as Instagram is technically owned by the company rather than the creator once the “terms and agreement” is signed. I also enjoyed the discussion about how certain corporations abuse copyright law, such as Disney when it comes to copyright on content that should be public domain based on its age.
Changing topics for a minute to give a small update about the final project. I decided to partner with three of my classmates to work on the George Washington Hall murals project. So far, we have divided up the work, storyboarded videos, and come up with an idea of what we need to do to complete the project. I think we have been working at a good pace thus far, and everyone seems excited to create a strong final project, so I am eager to see our results at the end.
