Are copyright rules ruining the creativity of children?
After watching this weeks Teds Talk video on “Laws That Choke Creativity” Lawrence Lessig discusses one point that really stood out to me. During Lessig’s speech he discusses the rules of copyright and how they are affecting the way children think and get their ideas across. “These tools of creativity have become tools of speech. It is literacy for this generation. This is how our kids speak. It is how our kids think” (8:29). Copyright rules have made it almost impossible to get your ideas across via using someone else’s work to create something new, something fresher, and something people will learn to love. These copyright rules that have been put in place by the government and they are making it impossible. Due to the fact that one has to get permission and without it, one becomes a “trespasser” which Lessig discusses in his Ted talk. “One side builds new technologies, such as one recently announced that will enable them to automatically take down from sites like YouTube any content that has any copyrighted content in it, whether or not there’s a judgment of fair use that might be applied to the use of that content” (14:02). From personal experience I had a YouTube video that was created from a vacation that was taken over the summer with my family. The video was completely erased off of YouTube because I had used an artist’s song “Summer” as the background music. In no way was I copyrighting or trying to use someone else’s work but since I did not have “permission” the video was destroyed. To answer the question above, I believe that copyright rules are completely destroying this generation. Everything one seems to do is now copyrighting when really it is pure creativity. Copyright has gone to far in my opinion; we need to embrace Lessigs opinion and resolution on this issue.
You make a very good argument in your post. I also agree with you to a certain extent, that copyright laws are definitely harming children’s creativity more than helping it. I like how you used your YouTube video as an example. If I was in your shoes, and my video was taken down after I’ve put in the time and effort to make it, that would strongly discourage me to make another one in the future. To me, it seems very ironic, that copyright laws negatively reinforces creativity by making children think they are “stealing creativity” from other people. When in fact, they are only using other people’s material as tools to express their own creativity; similar to how artists use paint, pestles, or other drawing mediums. However, with that said, I believe we do have to draw some sort of line between what is fine to “copy” and what isn’t; which is why the government even made copyright laws in the first place. However, I believe if someone were to use a piece of “art” by another artist (like in your YouTube video), credit should be given to the artist; and that should be the end of that. But as we know, that usually isn’t enough, according to the copyright laws. So the question I would like to ask you: how do you think the copyright laws now should be changed? How can it still restrict plagiarism, but still promote creativity? Or do you think there should even be copyright laws?