The Tyranny of Copyright?
I definitely agree with the 'Copy Left' that copyrights have gotten out of hand. The idea that record companies have settled out of court for thousands of dollars with 12 year-old kids is absurd in my mind. So there are large corporations suing young kids for downloading music, and at the same time, the man who wrote the “Happy Birthday” song is asking for royalties for his work, because he copyrighted it. Does this seem ridiculous to anyone else? I download music through limewire, and I see nothing wrong with it when used in my private collection. I am taking a few songs to play on my mp3 player, that I can just as easily download from their website, a cd, or their myspace page. The only time I have an issue with downloading music or any other material, is when someone then tries to sell the music or material they have taken. When I publish my photographs online, they are immediately copyrighted to me, and that stays embedded in my photos. If someone were to copy that image to put as the desktop of their computer, or use it in a paper, I wouldn't care. If they were to try to make copies and sell them, I would have a problem because they are making money on something I did. When a musical group covers another person's song, they only need the permission if they plan on selling a cd or dvd with that song on it. If they are just to perform it once at a concert, they don't need to pay the royalties because they aren't making funds off someone else's material. Another idea mentioned in the article for 'pro-copyright laws' was called micro payments. This is where people would pay a fee to download music, and then pay another fee to upload it to an mp3 player. I don't think that would work, because for every new copyright law, there is another person or another company finding a way around it. With the way they are pushing copyright laws, what will come next? Will we need to pay a fee to authors for citing their books in a paper? Will we need to pay royalties to our professors when we cite their lectures in our papers? It seems to me that people are just becoming money hungry, and are finding every possibility to make a dollar.
posted by Melissa Santorelli at 12:58 PM
17 Comments:
I agree with Melissa, I feel like this whole copyrighting issue is getting out of hand. I think everyone is becoming money hungry by wanting to copyright every single thing. I do think it was becoming out of hand with Napster and Limewire, becuase I will admit I never bought a CD, I would just download it. I do think that Itunes is a great compromise because you do pay a little bit for music yet it's not as much as an actual CD. I just hope in the future we won't have to pay royalties for singing happy birthday. But I guess we'll have to find out later what will happen.
I see both sides of this argument. I agree with Melissa about corporations becoming more and more money hungry. However, I can understand the need for copyright laws, fines and fees. If everyone just downloads music (illegally) on Limewire-type sites, then nobody will buy the artist's record.
I liked the idea the article suggested about taxing blank CDs, or CD burners. It seems like this could be a good middle ground for solving the problem.
In some aspect I feel for the musicians when it comes to downloading music. They actually receive zero royalties for radio time, so besides concert revenue they only receive a small profit from each cd sold. I do, however, think it is ridiculous that the music industry would go after a 12 year old, asking for huge sums of money.
I definitely agree with Melissa, about every issue she talked about on her blog. The one that really sticks out to me is people are just downloading music it should only be a big deal if someone is then selling someone elses work without permission.
superman returns that came out this summer was the first movie that was released on DVD at the regular price, and then you could pay a little more to be able to put in on a video mp3 player, all through walmart. sounds pretty ridiculous that you buy the movie and cant do what you personally want with it.
I agree with Melissa. I would say for the most part, especially a lot of bands that I listen to just want to get their music heard. That is why they have purevolume.com and myspace music pages. I also agree that if someone is trying to make money off of someone else's work, it is wrong, but for people to just share ideas and music isn't all that bad. Yes I am sure CD sales have gone down a bit because not as many people are buying CDs but I do believe too that music artists have enough fans that are dedicated and will buy the CD.
It seems to me that everything is getting out of hand these days. I mean, if you think about it, there are new laws being created everyday to protect identity theft, copy right, downloading.. etc. And most of this comes with the use of technology. But the reality is, are these laws really that powerful enough to keep us from downloading? I think Melissa made some very valid points in her post and the truth may be that the record companies are doing all they can to squeeze money out of every single person that listens to their song. For some reason, these downloading sites exist and since they exist, they're going to be used. I download, you download, we all download, but most of us don't think twice about FBI agents coming to the door and charging us with a $5,000 fee. If the record industry is so concerned with these downloading sites, maybe they should spend more time trying to figure out how to disenage it rather than waste time attacking all the people that use it.
I believe illegally downloading music is wrong. First of all, my moral dilemma is not with the record companies. I could not care less about taking music from faceless corporations like Sony, A&M, or Geffen. The deals they sign with their artist are more than likely set up to heavily favor the record company. Its the artists who composed the work of music i have a problem stealing from. It is their hard work that went into making the song, and they deserve to be compensated accordingly. However, copyrights cannot last forever. seventy years after the original author dies is a little extreme.
I agree with the Copy Left as well, corporations are getting out of hand with all the people they are suing. The RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) are suing little kids for downloading songs from limewire, that just seems wrong. Personally I am a very big fan of downloading music and movies, it is a big part of my life. I download whole albums and movies that I burn to dvd all the time. Copyright laws exist so people don't steal the work from others to make it their own, the laws don't exist to fine people who download a song to put on their mp3 player. That is just ridiculous.
Copyrighting has definitely gotten out of hand. Your example about having to pay an author or proffessor to cite something in your paper is probably not too much of stretch if the Happy Birthday guy can ask for royalities everytime someone in a public place sings his song. I also agree that copyrighting is only bad when you sell the copyrighted material for your own profit. This is when I believe it is illegal and should be punished in some way.
I would have to agree with Melissa. Copryrights have gotten out of hand. I believe in a free idea market. I like what one person in the article said about viewing other peoples work and picking and choosing what we like and re-mixing it into something new. I think that everyone should get paid for the work that they produce but they do not have the rights to their work forever because they released it to the public to make money. I think that ideas should be free. If we do not change the copyright system people will never be able to express themselves fully without having to pay royalties.
Maybe I am an outsider here but I fiercely defend the actions of the record companies. Patents and copyrights is one of the major pillars of our economy, and without them the United States would never be as successfull as it is today. While music may be a fringe issue, without these protections what motivation would one have to keep making music? Without a profit how would they have the will to keep on going? Sure, there are plenty musicians that might play for free, but on the whole, most of them are are in it for the money, and without the guarantee of a profit, much of today's music would simply not exist.
Patents are something that I respect to an even higher degree. Bill Gates sat in his garage designing software because he knew, that once patented, this software was his and no one elses to toy with. Without this guarantee of a safe "innovation ecology", invention, innovation, and progression is hard to realize.
I agree that copyright laws have gotten a bit out of control. They have passed legislation recently extending a copyright from 28 to 96 years. Isn't that a bit much? Who really needs a copyright for 96 years? By that time most of those people won't be around to collect royalties or give permission to use the material. I also agree that taking 12 year olds to court for copyright infringement is insane. How ridiculous is it that these music industry people are so determined to make every dollar they can that they are willing to take everyone and their brother to court? The copy left movement has some great ideas. At least some prominent people see that copyright can get ridiculous. I can only hope that within the next few years copyrights relax instead of getting extended.
I think that most of us will agree with you on downloading music. The music that we download we all keep in our private collections, is that truly hurting the artist or record company. In most cases I am not the least bit sympathetic to the labels that miss out on a little money becuase of music downloading. The main stream music industry is as over -paid as some major league sports. That is the most troubling topic when we get to copyright laws. The ideas of Copy Left seem to be hinting at the right things. Having a general availability of material that is out of copyright would be great. In many cases I think that a common place for material like this would generate more great ideas. Instead of paying roalaties you could make a change in your life and possibly others.
I like the idea of the cultural commons where the person with the copy rights decides how strict they want the laws to be for their creation. I think this is a good way to give people the chance to get ideas and be more creative using your creativeness.
I agree with Melissa. Copyright laws have definitely gotten out of control. If we keep going along the path we're on now, eventually, no one will be legally allowed to read anything or listen to anything unless they have created it themselves. It's ridiculous. In my opinion, copyright laws should only protect the author if someone is trying to make a profit or distribute the entire work in masses. (Although it's hard for me to say that the fat cat musicians, etc. deserve more money.)
I also think it's absurd to continually extend the length of copyright terms. In the Eldred v. Ashcroft decision, even the courts admitted that although it was probably unwise, Congress did have the power to do so. I think that's ridiculous.
downloading music today has become very commonplace and many of us would probably rather not think about how many times we have "stolen" music from certain mp3 websites. i dont think that there is anything wrong with downloading music for your own personal collection as long as you are not selling the music. at first i didnt think that the micro payments idea would work, but then i considered the success of itunes. at first i didnt think it made much sense to charge people for something they could get for free, but as we know today itunes is used my millions of people. while i dont agree with a fee to upload music to your mp3 player, i think that it is concievable that it will happen someday, and people will comply.
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