When Charles Dickens came to America in 1842, one of his goals was to promote copyright laws as a way of protecting the creative product of artists, writers and musicians. This Thursday night (April 5 at 7 pm) at UMass Lowell’s O’Leary Library auditorium, Room 222, 61 Wilder Street, UMass Lowell South Campus, three UML faculty members (writer Andre Dubus III, photographer Arno Minkkinen, and musician Alan Williams) will participate in a panel discussion of the topic “Whose art is it anyway?” as part of the Parker Lecture Series.