Laws That Choke Creativity:
The video I watched on TED.com by Larry Lessig was concerning Copyright and the digital age. Lessig "has built a reputation as the king of Internet law and as the most important next-wave thinker on intellectual property" (New York Magazine, 2008). His unique look at how copyright law should be is revolutionary, not only to the owner of the copyright but also for the public that wants to use specific copy written material and does not know about copyright laws, namely kids. Lessig give examples of how kids take what is old and worn out and “remixes” it to become something new and refreshing. He explains that these remixes are a way for this new generation to speak (how this generation expresses themselves).
How YouTube Thinks About Copyright:
Margaret Stewart is the head of user experience at YouTube. Stewart explains how YouTube finds any form of copyright infringement through software that analyzes the “20 hours of video a minute and over 100 years of video per day” that is uploaded in to YouTube and how it is “referenced against the millions of content already in the database”. She then goes on to explain that the copyright owner has the right to say which videos can be posted. She then gave an example of a wedding video that used a song owned by a record company and it received over 40 million views. The song used had been off the charts for 18 month and was suddenly back at number 4 because of the allowed use of the song in the video.
Dennis S. Karjala
International Copyright in the Digital Age
Dennis Karjala is a professor of law at Arizona State University. Throughout his video he explains what intellectual property is and the differences between a copyright and a patent. He also goes on to explain just how hard it is to implement copyright protection in today’s digital age.
Together all three videos form a solution to the problem that Karjala explains. Since the internet is so vast and there are so many form of technology in the world that help the average person create a copyright infringement with the click of a button, why not embrace it instead of fight it? Stewart’s video shows how a home video brought a song that was no longer popular back into the main stream. Lessig shows that there is an up and coming generation that has grown up with the basic knowledge to “remix” content to create a fresh new concept. Putting all three aspects together will not only help the industry grow but help put a stop to the “war” that Lessig referred to in his video.
References:
Ted.com
YouTube.com
