Copyright is something which has been in and out of the media since the internet has come about, this is mainly because many people can take anything such as; music, films or television shows from the internet. After studying the subject in my network media group I had a strong opinion about whether it is good or bad that people can copyright. For my workshop we had to read an article by the famous blogger Cory Doctorow for ‘Boing Boing’ blogging site; about how copyright is wrong; Doctorow states within his article “the reason copyright exists is because culture creates a market for creative works. If there was no market for creative works, there'd be no reason to care about copyright.” After reading this I do agree with what Doctorow is stating, he basically shows that the reason copyright is there is because we want to hear music, watch films and play xbox games so we should pay for it. Also I feel that without our money then these cannot be produced and therefore our favourite music artists will not be able to produce songs.
Earlier this year the music downloader; Limewire was shut down for copyright infringement. Limewires argument was however that it was just filesharing so it cannot be copyright. I feel that there is a fine line between filesharing and copyright infringement; mainly because even before the internet became as big as it is now and as easy to copyright, people were still doing it... for example when cassette players were around, people would buy a cassette tape and lend it to their friends to record to their cassette players. I just can’t help but think is this copyright too? The answer is yes, even without the internet people will still copyright, and I do agree with Doctorow, infringement is put into place for a reason. Limewire did have a right to say they were just sharing music, however if everyone shared music then no artists would be able to earn a living as there would be no profit going into the music industry or any other media related industry.
However I do feel from a student’s point of view that I cannot afford to buy C.Ds or the latest films and that downloading it illegally is an easier option for me to take. I also think because it is so simple to find a copyright website on Google that I can just search for the latest film or song and watch them within minutes, the downfall to this is that films are never the same as watching them in the cinema as when watching them illegally they are normally filmed by someone sat in the cinema... also I have found that some websites are making it harder for people to watch music videos, for example in 2009 Youtube made it harder for people to watch music videos, and also if a music video comes out in America but not in the U.K I have found a law has been put into place so that it cannot be watched or heard in the U.K until the release date. With this the government are also taking extra precautions by taking measures such as slowing peoples internet down or cutting it off completely.
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