Copyright has been a controversial topic since the day it was created. It’s intentionally written for protecting intelligent properties, yet turns out causing a lot of pernicious side effects.
In the editorial “In Defense of Piracy” of Lawrence Lessig, he criticized that the “copyrights wars” chokes creativity and criminalizes people who share stuff online. He provided an example which was about a mother posted her 13-month-old son dancing video with Prince’s music playing on the background on YouTube. But YouTube was asked to remove this video by Universal Music Group due to its unauthorized usage of Prince’s music. Although EFF’s lawyers thought it was fair use and Mrs. Lenz argued about this case, yet Universal Music Group still insists …show more content…
Lenz’s are becoming common and it is certain that there is a battle between our Internet culture and Media Corporations. Not just video sharing, remix songs from independent musicians or amateur creators are also accused for copyright infringement. These Creators share their works on platforms like YouTube and inspire other users to create in return, which could be a potential economic growth. Yet they’re criminalized as thieves and pirates. However, Lessig considered that this situation could be changed; copyright law could be crafted to encourage a wide range of both professional and amateur creativity, without threatening media industry, if people and laws all accept changes. He suggested five changes in the copyright law which I will discuss specifically in the following text.
This article is mostly against the current copyright law. But no doubt there are plausible reasons that copyright must exist. The most significant one is that it protects people’s intellectual properties. Copyright gives the creators the rights and abilities to defend their works against copycats and piracy. Hence people have the motivation to do their creative works. So technically, the longer the intellectual proprieties rights last, the greater that motivation is (Harford, …show more content…
The first one is deregulating amateur remix, leaving amateur creativity free from regulation. But there are two things needed to be clarified first, who is counted for amateur and what kind of works are amateur creation? There are hundreds of thousands individual musicians who have or don’t have music educated background, it is important to set up a standard. As for the business model, it is reasonable that the original creators get compensation if the remixed works go public. But who is going to pay for this compensation? As Online sharing Platform like YouTube claim that they are not responsible for the users’ actions, all they do is providing a platform for people hence it’s not likely that they are going to bear this burden. Lessig also suggests restoring the efficiency of copyright which means reduce the length of copyright term. Current copyright law typically expires 50 to 100 years after the author dies, depending on the jurisdiction which is absurdly long. However, the length of copyright should be determined by the value of the works, it is not reasonable to generalize all the copyright term in 14 years. Hence there are still some standards needed to be clarified. Finally, it is no doubt that peer-to-peer file-sharing should not be criminalized and assuring artists get paid instead of stop people sharing files seems
In the editorial “In Defense of Piracy” of Lawrence Lessig, he criticized that the “copyrights wars” chokes creativity and criminalizes people who share stuff online. He provided an example which was about a mother posted her 13-month-old son dancing video with Prince’s music playing on the background on YouTube. But YouTube was asked to remove this video by Universal Music Group due to its unauthorized usage of Prince’s music. Although EFF’s lawyers thought it was fair use and Mrs. Lenz argued about this case, yet Universal Music Group still insists …show more content…
Lenz’s are becoming common and it is certain that there is a battle between our Internet culture and Media Corporations. Not just video sharing, remix songs from independent musicians or amateur creators are also accused for copyright infringement. These Creators share their works on platforms like YouTube and inspire other users to create in return, which could be a potential economic growth. Yet they’re criminalized as thieves and pirates. However, Lessig considered that this situation could be changed; copyright law could be crafted to encourage a wide range of both professional and amateur creativity, without threatening media industry, if people and laws all accept changes. He suggested five changes in the copyright law which I will discuss specifically in the following text.
This article is mostly against the current copyright law. But no doubt there are plausible reasons that copyright must exist. The most significant one is that it protects people’s intellectual properties. Copyright gives the creators the rights and abilities to defend their works against copycats and piracy. Hence people have the motivation to do their creative works. So technically, the longer the intellectual proprieties rights last, the greater that motivation is (Harford, …show more content…
The first one is deregulating amateur remix, leaving amateur creativity free from regulation. But there are two things needed to be clarified first, who is counted for amateur and what kind of works are amateur creation? There are hundreds of thousands individual musicians who have or don’t have music educated background, it is important to set up a standard. As for the business model, it is reasonable that the original creators get compensation if the remixed works go public. But who is going to pay for this compensation? As Online sharing Platform like YouTube claim that they are not responsible for the users’ actions, all they do is providing a platform for people hence it’s not likely that they are going to bear this burden. Lessig also suggests restoring the efficiency of copyright which means reduce the length of copyright term. Current copyright law typically expires 50 to 100 years after the author dies, depending on the jurisdiction which is absurdly long. However, the length of copyright should be determined by the value of the works, it is not reasonable to generalize all the copyright term in 14 years. Hence there are still some standards needed to be clarified. Finally, it is no doubt that peer-to-peer file-sharing should not be criminalized and assuring artists get paid instead of stop people sharing files seems