Although I am not very familiar with what is technically classified as copyright infringement, it seems to me that it would be very difficult to draw a line. For me personally, it is hard to develop a strong argument defending copyrights or not because I see both sides.
In the Ted talk, the speaker, Lawrence Lessig, mentions that he does not support people stealing someone’s work for commercial purpose but he believes it is necessary, especially for the younger generation, to use peoples work in order to foster creativity. Lessig gives examples of how the younger generation uses copyrighted music in a nonthreatening way when they take a song and put it so someone else’s lips line up with the words of the song. While the speaker was talking, I completely agreed with him that someone should not use someone else’s work for commercial use without their permission. In addition, I could also see where he was coming from regarding people reusing music for personal use. If it became illegal to use music in the ways he demonstrated, it would limit the way people could express their creativity.
In the Amen Break video, it reveals how a drum line has been altered numerous times and put in things ranging from other songs to commercials. Although this drum riff has been altered in some cases to the point where an untrained ear would not recognize it, is this still considered copyrighted?
While comparing these two videos and the assigned reading, I have come to the conclusion that copyright infringement caries a lot of value in modern society. With the internet being accessible to almost everyone in the world, people are able to share things with anyone instantaneously. As a result, this makes it very easy for people to illegally share copyrighted music and movies. Although copyright laws might limit creativity, I do not think those were its intentions. Lessig writes about this in our assigned reading when he says, “Artists want their expression framed just as they intend it…doctors or pharmaceutical companies want to assure that instructions or medial explanations are not translated by just anyone” (Lessig 85). I believe that copyright laws were set up to protect the people who created the work of art. When Leonardo da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa, he did not have to worry about people copying his work because the only way people could truly experience it was by going to see it. Nowadays, with a click of a button, someone can pirate a movie that someone created and send it to the rest of the world without their permission. As a result, this artist could lose a lot of money that should have been paid to him. Furthermore, this could lead to less people using their creativity because they feel it is not worth it due to the fact someone else is going to steal it once it is made. Finally, I think the copyright laws should remain the same. I believe they are doing the best job they can to maintains peoples original works without trying to curb peoples creativity.
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Hi, George. I agree with you that copyright laws doing well to protect people’s original works so you think the current copyright regulations should remain the same. However, I think the copyright regulations could relax in a certain extent to reduce its limitation to creativity. You also admit that the copyright regulations could limit creativity even though it is not intentioned. I believe that protecting original works is extreme important to our society so the copyright laws also cannot be eliminated. However, for some non-business use of original work, I think maybe the copyright laws could exempt it because it will not hurt the benefits of original creators.