Copyright Laws and Regulations!

For our final seminar upon Copyright Laws surrounding New Media, we were divided into two groups; one group supporting the current copyright laws and one against the Copyright laws. We were asked to come up with arguments for a number of different aspects such as education and creativity in preparation for the class debate.

 The debate was a good way of learning the effects in which copyright laws and infringements can have as we heard both positive and negative comments for each as well as taking into consideration the role of the consumer and the creator.

This is the current Copyright Law in which we were debating about:

The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 is the current copyright law within the UK. Since 1988 the creators of literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works have had the right to control the ways in which their own material can be used. This copyright act covers any work by an individual or company which can be classified as original and “exhibits a degree of labour, skill or judgment.” (www.copyrightservice.co.uk/copyright/uk_law_summary(2009)) Normally the individual or collective who authored the work will exclusively own the rights to cover any copying, adapting, renting, distorting or public broadcasting of their work and only the owner or his exclusive licensee can bring proceedings in the courts against an infringement. Currently titles, colors and short phrases are not considered substantial enough to be covered under the Copyright law nor can an idea behind a creation be pre-owned. For example, someone is allowed to write a book on the same topic but is not allowed to use the actual content from a book prior to their own work. It is evident therefore that the current Copyright Act is favoured more by the creator than the consumer.  

Everyone has the rights to;

FREEDOM

CREATIVITY

CULTURE

EDUCATION

The copyright law is deemed as a moral act however is depriving us from these four factors, MORAL?

As you may be able to tell I was part of the ‘against’ team and below is an example of how the counter arguments were presented in our debate:

REMIX CULTURE FOR CONSUMERS:

One concern for the consumers is the restrictions the current copyright laws have upon remix culture. The current laws restrict freedom of the individual and limits their abilities to be creative. Law Professor and copyright expert Larry Lessig states that “Our intellectual property laws are behind the times and do not reflect the needs of our remix culture.” (http://greatdance.com/thekineticinterface/2009/03/remix-copyright-dance/(2008))

 Digital technology has developed and now anybody who owns a computer can edit, build upon and mix any type of digital content: music, videos, images and text. Due to the expansion of easily accessible internet people can share their remixed work with the global internet community via sites such as Youtube.

  It is not difficult to understand the perspective of artists who wish to maintain control over their artistic work and vision, and prefer for audiences not to be given free rein to revise and modify the underlying work however if the amateur artist identifies the original artist and only claims the new remix as their own, surely it would be profitable for both artists. It intern creates more recommendation for the original artist who has inspired the new media and allows the opportunity to advertise other material that they have done previously.

PROFITS FOR CREATORS:

 If the Copyright reform occurs and the laws become more lenient to consumers using and downloading the work of others, a serious concern is that there will be a decline in media industries as their work will be less profitable. With people having consent to legally download material from online sources, album sales, DVD sales will inevitably decline as well as a smaller income for cinemas and businesses alike.

  

 The counter to this argument is that despite the rise in illegally downloaded music and pirate copied films there is still a high gross profit for both industries. In 2009, Avatar was released and the film broke several box office records. It became the highest-grossing film of all time worldwide, surpassing Titanic. Avatar was the first film to gross more than $2 billion, $77million being produced in the opening weekend. Similarly, 2009 was an extremely profitable year for a variety of music artists and holds the title for the most UK single sales, “2009 surpassed the previous all-time record of 115.1m, set in 2008. After ten weeks trading £117m worth of singles had been sold.” (http://www.bpi.co.uk/press-area/news-amp3b-press-release/article/2009-is-record-year-for-uk-singles-sales.aspx(2009)) Can this be classified as a struggling industry?

EDUCATION:

One aspect which is often disregarded is the impact in which copyright laws have upon education. The A2K (Access to Knowledge Campaign) has carried out multiple research investigations based around the disruption of education due to copyright laws. As more constricting copyright laws are being introduced, the impacts upon education are evidently clear. Copyright law leads to excessive pricing, limited adaptability and unavailability of suitable learning materials. Increasingly governments will not be able to afford to put books in to schools. If the costs are therefore passed onto parents, parents will be unable to pay for their child’s education, forcing children out of the system. “More and more children are being forced to endure a second rate education in which they only ever capture momentary glimpses of text books or other primary sources.” (http://www.actionaid.org/main.aspx?PageID=134(2008)) Education is vital in order to progress. We have to use other people’s theories in order to develop our own unique theories. Children cannot instantly have original ideas about a topic they have never heard about, they need to research and learn using other people’s works. “Replication feeds a culture of creativity and might even be programmed into our DNA; it should be encouraged, not criminalized.”(http://www.utne.com/Media/Cory-Doctorow-Copyright-Activist-Reform-BoingBoing.aspx(2006)) Everything is developing due to the expansion of theories and the involvement of others knowledge, whether it is music, education, technology or even our own self-identity. Copyright is blocking children’s access to knowledge. Copyright laws are created in order to establish morality and justice, how can the restriction of our education be classified as a moral act?

COUNTER:

 Governments have responded to this and movements have occurred in the copyright laws in the form of The Berne Appendix, the IIPA (The International Intellectual Property Alliance) and WTO (World Trade Organization.) These associations allowed the competent authorities of a country to grant a compulsory license, authorizing companies or individuals to reproduce and publish works without the copyright owner's consent. This was introduced purely for the purposes of education and can still be classified as a copyright infringement if used for personal book piracy.

My overall view is that the UKs copyright law does need to be updated. When updated I do believe it is beneficial to both the consumer and even to some extents the creator to be more lenient with the infringements. As noted above both the music and film and other media industries are still extremely profitable despite the increasing amount of consumers buying illegally. Consumers will continue to buy illegally whilst the copyright laws remain so strict. I’m all about the NEW COPYRIGHT LAW!

This is the Future:

Jaguar Skills is forecasting new and innovative skills by using other peoples works (songs), adding creative new beats, remixing his own work to create what I classify as a totally unique sound.

Cory Doctorow is a copyright Activist who strongly believes that we need to fight against the current copyright laws. Doctorow claims, "There's a word for all the stuff we do with creative works — all the conversing, retelling, singing, acting out, drawing, and thinking: we call it culture." Doctorow goes on to explain that without culture the media industries wouldnt survive therefore the only reason we have copyright laws today is because of our rights to be creative and orginal individuals. We should have freedom. 

I follow everything that Doctorow states, i believe we do deserve to have freedom to create new ideas, in turn the artists involved in this process have increased promotion and recieve extra profits.

Doctorow believes that, "If culture loses the copyright wars, the reason for copyright dies with it." I agree!

*Reference - http://www.locusmag.com/Features/2008/11/cory-doctorow-why-i-copyfight.html (01/04/2011)