Copyright and Copyleft

This week in class we learned about Copyright and Copyleft. It was a lot of information to learn, but it was very interesting to learn about different copyright laws and how it affects different groups. Copyright laws will affect a music artist in a completely different way it will affect a consumer of music.

First, we learned about the FCC. They are the Federal Communications Commission, and they control and regulate content on television, internet, radio, and so on. They can cause some controversy because of what they censor out of shows and artist's songs. We also learned about digital conversion, and how it benefits everybody. With digital conversion, television channels can have multiple sub-channels (for example, channel 8 can have channel 8-1, 8-2, 8-3, and so on) which provides more television stations per channel. This allows the FCC to gain more money in order to sell more bandwidth, allows broadcasting and cable companies to sell more advertisements, and have more content to be in demand by television watchers.

Next we talked about intellectual property, which I found to be very interesting. Intellectual property is property that belongs to a certain individual that is not tangible. It refers to the creations of the mind; such as inventions, literary works, and symbols. It's crazy to think that we as individuals can own property that isn't even tangible. They are things we view, see, and discuss every day, and people own them. The two categories of intellectual property are Industrial Property and Copyright. Industrial property refers to inventions, patents, trademarks, industrial designs, and geographic indications of source. Copyrighted intellectual property consists of artistic and literary works, novels, poems, plays, films, music, drawings, paintings, photos, sculptures, and architectural designs.

Copyright was a big topic of discussion in this past week's class. Copyright helps original artists, musical artists, designers, and more protect their work from being stolen and used by others for profit. Without copyright, anybody could claim something as their own and take credit for it.

Life without copyright.

I definitely understand the need for Copyrighting material. It helps original creators of different works to protect what is rightfully theirs. If a musical artist makes a hit song, it's their song to make profit off of, not any other musical artist's. Having protection from tampering and re-producing material is definitely a good thing to have.

Many people have different views on Copyright, however. Mark Helprin believes that Copyright is what protects all material from belonging to the rightful owners. This material, which could be a product of years and years of work, shouldn't just be available to anyone. In the wrong hands, it could cost a lot of money. Helprin believes that elongated Copyright years (100+ as of today) will help to benefit any beneficiary during the original creator's lifetime. Lessig, however, has a different view when it comes to Copyrighting material. He believes that it is important for us to make new material out of original concepts. To use previously created material as inspiration for future designs. With digital technology rapidly advancing, Lessig believes that we will continuously make new and improved content from original ideas.

I can see where both Helprin and Lessig are coming from in their standpoints on Copyright. On one hand, we need copyright to protect original works. But if we are so protective of them, it limits new content that can be released in the times to come. What will happen if we run out of ideas? What can we do to balance the two opposing sides of Copyrighting material? These are the questions that arise from this week's discussion.