Hypothesis One.

As I have mentioned, I am undertaking this project as part of a doctoral seminar that I am taking with Dr. Alison Langmead at the University of Pittsburgh. Called Digital Studies and Methods (DSAM) 3000, the course asks students to consider the ways in which information is presented, organized and understood digitally, and the ways in which the assumptions that we make about our worlds are visible throughout our digital systems, tools and objects. For their final projects, students will employ digital humanities tools and methods to try to divine some meaning from a humanities text in the broadest possible sense of those terms.

I am an intellectual property nerd, and am particularly taken by the history and application of US copyright law. Broadly understood, copyright is a suite of protections afforded to original works fixed in a tangible medium. Very many things meet the criteria for copyright protection. Some others do not. The primary premise and initial hypothesis of this project is that by investigating rejections of copyright, we might be able to better understand what merits the term intellectual property. Property has value, after all. So what can we learn about our values by taking a look at those things that don't meet the criteria for such a formalized value? That there is something to be learned is my foundational hypothesis.

"One Over Sad Equals Happy", submitted for copyright registration by Alexander H.

Slocomb in 2016. Rejected for the second and final time in 2019.