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| Dog Images Have Copyrights, Too! |
Copyright Dilemma…
Being someone who had a very limited knowledge of the copyright issues for music and film in our new social society, it was interesting to examine copyright issues this week, and learn so much about the issues with copyright for this century.
In the documentary Good Copy, Bad Copy, the essence and complexity of copyright law and copyright infringement is explored through personal experiences.
From my learning this week, I do see the trouble for artist creation of music and film if it were to be left open to change without revenue for the creators of the songs, videos, etc. Artists put their talent, heart, and soul into creations and want to have the rights to those items. That makes a lot of sense to me. What about an image of my dog? Yes, even that has a copyright for me. Interesting.
I also enjoy the ability to use materials on Creative Commons to express my own ideas in the classroom using images, video, and audio designed by other creative individuals. I can imagine the change if teachers and students had access and the right to use original works, and could take parts and pieces of those works, put them together to share a part of history and retell a story, or express content in a new way. It could be very powerful for students. In the film Good Copy, Bad Copy this was illustrated through sampling and techno brega being created from original works.
It seems absurd that it is millions of dollars to buy out copyrights of songs from artists in order to simply use parts of the songs, or beats of the music in new creative ways. In my opinion, this aspect of copyright needs to change as we have a shift in culture to protect the artist from piracy.
If artists could share original content through a site like Creative Commons and give rights to others to use the works in new and creative ways while they still got credit and possibly profit, it could be more effective for today’s culture.
I see the use of sharing sites like Creative Commons becoming more and more popular in our 21st century culture of Internet song sharing and digital creation sharing electronically. I do, however, also see the trouble for artists ability to keep the music, video, or work as it was intended. Quite an interesting time as this change comes. As for my dog, I plan to post him on Creative Commons!
Kristi,
ReplyDeleteFirst of all your dog is very cute and should be shared.:) I agree that our current copyright system is outdated, it is comforting to know that there are alternate venues popping up online where we can find and share content. I too see the other side of the problem, where protection is needed. For instance, in the portrait photography industry there is a real need for protection from copyright infringement. Most portrait photographers make their money from reprints of images - not the actual shoot. Many people get upset about not having the right to reprint an image of themselves and it causes a lot of conflict between photographers & customers. But...without protection most photographers would go out of business...I do think we should revert back to the 14 year law instead of these lifetime +70 years or 100 year terms for the protections. Chances are...even 1 or 2 years after I take an image I will give someone a copyright release form to print it on their own. I have added an option for customers to buy a disk with retouches & release forms included now - and I could be losing money from reprints, but it seems to even out. Beyond the business aspect, I am pretty liberal with my works and their use.
Kristi, Love the picture of your dog; he is adorable! I am in the same boat with you in that I too do not have a lot of knowledge about copyright laws for music and film. It was definitely very interesting to hear both sides of the argument. I am not familiar with Creative Commons and look forward to checking it out. I hope I will be able to use it a lot as your description of it sounds very inviting. Also, I had not thought of pictures that I take as being copyrighted by me. With so many social networking sites, where everyone seems to use pictures posted on others' sites, that could be a big issue. I agree with you in that the copyright laws need to be changed in order to meet the needs in our high-media society.
ReplyDeleteKristi, I agree that resources like creative commons are a necessity for online content creation for the purposes of sharing ideas in a social networking environment free from the issues of copyright law that limits and prohibits the use of so many IP’s.
ReplyDeleteIn education, students should be aloud the right of temporary use of IP content without any worries of copyright infringement. Ultimately its about protecting the financial interests of the content creators so as long as no money is being made, all that is really happening is the free advertising and communication of properties that may or may not be readily available to everyone.
The remix culture is the most controversial to me when considering the examples from the film good copy bad copy. In those cases, the individuals weren’t changing the appropriated material enough so that it became their own, other times they were. How to draw the lines on whats acceptable and what isn’t is a topic yet to be defined if it can be at all.