According to the United States definition of the copyright law, the law protects "original works of authorship" (U.S. 1). This basic definition of what can and cannot be protected under the law is too broad and has become twisted to the benefit of big corporations. Brett Gaylor, the writer and director of the film Rip!: A Remix Manifesto, talks about the unfair level that copyrights have been taken to. Copyright laws have been skewed to the advantage of large corporations and no longer provide the public a service, rather they actually work to hinder an artist’s ability to use inspiration from another’s work to create something new. The United States government put the copyright law into place for the individuals who created something of value
…show more content…
Not a single human being is able to have a one-hundred percent original idea, they will always be influenced by the ideas of others (6:23-6:47). Copyrights on cartoons really took off with the career of Walt Disney and his seemingly “original” works. Disney didn’t think of new ideas for his cartoons, rather he took other artists past pieces and just “updated it and made it relevant for our age.” (Rip, 34:34-34:38). Disney is one of the most well-known cartoonists of this century and is often praised for his creativity, even though he never created those stories but merely adapted them. Disney was able to build off of the past but once he passed away, the Walt Disney Corporation made sure to stop this and create laws that prohibited others from using ideas from the past to create something new (Rip, 42:00-42:07). Copyright laws should not be so easily bent to benefit large corporations, especially when the artist they’re “protecting” is guilty of using another creator’s work. Copyright laws restrict the creative ideas of artists by putting limitations on what they can and cannot use from the past, especially when many of today’s famous artists used past culture to inspire their own
Not a single human being is able to have a one-hundred percent original idea, they will always be influenced by the ideas of others (6:23-6:47). Copyrights on cartoons really took off with the career of Walt Disney and his seemingly “original” works. Disney didn’t think of new ideas for his cartoons, rather he took other artists past pieces and just “updated it and made it relevant for our age.” (Rip, 34:34-34:38). Disney is one of the most well-known cartoonists of this century and is often praised for his creativity, even though he never created those stories but merely adapted them. Disney was able to build off of the past but once he passed away, the Walt Disney Corporation made sure to stop this and create laws that prohibited others from using ideas from the past to create something new (Rip, 42:00-42:07). Copyright laws should not be so easily bent to benefit large corporations, especially when the artist they’re “protecting” is guilty of using another creator’s work. Copyright laws restrict the creative ideas of artists by putting limitations on what they can and cannot use from the past, especially when many of today’s famous artists used past culture to inspire their own