Wk1 Reading: Copyright Issues Part 1: Intro to Copyright
The current state of copyright law in the USA makes me very angry. As pointed out in the videos and reading, copyright law is specifically mentioned in the Constitution. However, Copyright was meant to provide the owner a ‘limited monopoly’ so that they could benefit financially from their creation. However, Copyright law now extends to 100 years for corporations or the authors life + 70 years. This makes absolutely no sense.
The reason our forefathers created a system where copyright expired was to encourage authors to make the next cultural contribution. This is the key. As a copyright holder, in exchange for benefiting our culture you receive a limited monopoly on your work as payback. However, in our current system, you can pass your copyrights onto your grandchildren and they can generate license fees. Are we creating a class of ‘idle rich’ that produce nothing? Limiting copyright length would also benefit the remix culture because copyright would actually expire on older works and they would be freely usable.
At the rate we are going, Copyright can soon be renamed to forever-right since congress continues to extend its length.
Michael,
I find myself agreeing completely with you! Especially after watching the videos and readings for this week, I’m unable to think our founding father’s desired to set up copyright legacy families that extend almost two centuries in some cases. It seems in our country that the industry has been navigating these waters in politics and pushing to keep the extensions rolling in on the works. While I do feel copyright law has a place in our society, the current incarnation is not workable for the digital age and I strongly feel its needs to approach the ideas in a more global manner for them to work. Great response and who knows, maybe in our lifetime something will finally change in regard to digital work and copyright.
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