Copyright this

If music be the food of love, play on…right?

Looking at that lyric, the first thing I think about is ‘can I be sued for copyright for using that?’

Shudder. With the music industry cracking down on pirating and illegal downloading, many users are thinking twice before getting the latest episode of “True Blood” from the Internet.

But wait—isn’t the Internet supposed to be used for sharing information? How is it fair that file sharing be banned in the US but legal in other countries like Sweden?

It’s not fair, and the only people making big money off copyright are the musicians and the lawyers. Suing for copyright should be self-damning however—musicians are really slapping their biggest fans in the face by denying them full access to their music.

Plus, copyright helps to further the gap between rich and poor, like Lanier explains in his book You Are Not A Gadget. So what can we do to change this? Consider the producers in Good Copy, Bad Copy. There was a Brazilian who remixed a version of Gnarls Barkley’s song.

Maybe Americans need to follow his example. The more we use copyrighted material, the  more we expose ourselves to the law system for punishment. However, nothing will change unless it goes to court.

Copyrighted material has a long lifespan today, and it can be renewed so it stays in the same hands for years and years. We have the opportunity to file share, but with copyright controlled by a select number of power users this is impossible.

As Lanier points out, the media is connected to finance. Copyright law proves this point. The major players making money off copyright are the lawyers. Go figure.

Tags: copyright, illegal downloading, law, response