Copyright Problems

Tuesday in class we discussed copyright laws.  I knew just about the same that every other kid knew about them, nothing.  Jason's lecture really opened me up to how many different ways people infringe on copyright laws.  I had no idea that burning CD's was a form of infringement.  I thought that was crazy. That means almost every single kid in the US had committed one if not more kinds of infringement, and probably by the time they are fifteen. And then Jason went on further to say that when 10 copies or more copies and/or a value of more than $2,500 is involved, it turns into a felony.  At first I thought most of these laws were just stupid, but I didn't really think of how it affects more people than just the music industry.  Copyright laws can affect almost everyone, in good and bad ways.  In his speech, Jason taught us that a copyright law last the life of the author and then 70 more years.  I don't understand why some don't last longer.  Companies such as Disney still make billions of dollars off of the cartoon characters that Walt Disney created, but once the 70 years is up, they won't have the legal rights to be the sole owner of their cartoons anymore, and therefore will lose billions of dollars.  To help alleviate this problem I think there should be different forms of copyright laws.  Companies such as Disney should be able to file for stricter laws that make the copyright last much longer, if not forever.  A big problem surrounding copyright is Youtube.com.  Although showing these videos in the manner that Youtube does is legal, many applications can be downloaded from the Internet that can copy these videos straight off of the site.  Therefore Youtube is providing the opportunity for viewers to copy the videos, although the site is technically not doing anything illegal itself.  Although Youtube may hurt some artists, it helps many as well.  Many artists today can say they got started by posting their videos on Youtube.  In this debate I would have to side with Youtube, because the majority of artists that are getting hurt by Youtube are ones that are already millionaires.



Copyright Problems by Heath Hopson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.