The History of copyright law vastly expanded since it was first enacted. Originally it was only for authors of published books so that people could not copy their work. The laws are now universally excepted and extend to almost anything that is originally yours. With the technology we have today and the growing trend of remixing songs and videos, copyright laws are being violated more and more. I feel that although these things are plagiarism and most of the time copyright infringements also, it is getting to where it would be virtually impossible to regulate. People constantly upload videos on YouTube and other video sites that contain other peoples music or videos. It typically isn't an issue until the video begins to get popular. Only prosecuting the popular videos is not fair, and it would be almost impossible to reprimanded everyone who violates copyright in this way.
Rachael-
This history suggests that copyright has grown over a substantial amount of time. Copyright only applied to books and today it now applies to things that are as silly as words coming out of a person’s mouth. Motivations behind copyright laws are people having their creativity robbed from them, you don’t want to create a big masterpiece and then have someone steal your idea and take credit for it do you? The motives do problematize our understanding of copyright as a moral issue. Not only because of the time and effort you put into something, but things you create are dear to you and you don’t want that swept out from under your feet.
Our ability to manipulate things with technology means for the future of copyright that laws should be more constricted. It’s too easy to take a video, perhaps like the Evolution Of Dance, and remake that and call it a parody. It would be different if the person that did the parody asked the original artist if they could take their work and remake it, but to do it without permission is downright disrespectful. I think it shapes our concepts of plagiarism and makes a more define clear line of whether it’s just students being lazy and not writing their own papers, and students stealing people’s work because their plotting against them.
Paige-
When copyright law was first made, it was only for the protection of books. In those times books were the main source of information which therefore was a reason to protect what was found inside these books. Later in time the protection further to translations and derivative. Now days, almost everything can be copyrighted, or automattically is protected by the laws established. These new limitations and new rules for copyrighting has been established by Berne Convention and also the European copyright directives. Even though most countries have these established laws the jurisdictions are different. In some countries copyrighting is a moral disrespect and in others it is just considered steal amoung people.
Christina-
What they said... Just kidding. But really. I know that copyright laws used to be so specific that it was fairly simple to regulate since hard copies of books were really the only things around to worry about stealing. Now-a-days, EVERYTHING can be copyrighted. For example, Paris Hilton had 'her' phrase "That's Hot" copyrighted. I guarantee that she was not the first person to utter those words in that respective order. That extremity is a little stupid. However I think that other things, like music are completely normal to copyright. If I were a musician and wrote a great song, and someone copied it and took it as their own and made millions, I would be kind of pissed. However, with all of the new modern ways to change something using technology, a tiny minor change could be made to a song so that they weren't 'exactly the same.' Yes, many You Tube videos could be seen as plagiarism and infringing copyright laws, but now it is too hard to even catch when someone breaks those laws. My personal opinion? If the information 'copied' isn't used to someone else's benefit and used without some sort of credit, then what's the hurt? After all, imitation is the biggest form of flattery.
Paige-
When copyright law was first made, it was only for the protection of books. In those times books were the main source of information which therefore was a reason to protect what was found inside these books. Later in time the protection further to translations and derivative. Now days, almost everything can be copyrighted, or automattically is protected by the laws established. These new limitations and new rules for copyrighting has been established by Berne Convention and also the European copyright directives. Even though most countries have these established laws the jurisdictions are different. In some countries copyrighting is a moral disrespect and in others it is just considered steal amoung people.
Christina-
What they said... Just kidding. But really. I know that copyright laws used to be so specific that it was fairly simple to regulate since hard copies of books were really the only things around to worry about stealing. Now-a-days, EVERYTHING can be copyrighted. For example, Paris Hilton had 'her' phrase "That's Hot" copyrighted. I guarantee that she was not the first person to utter those words in that respective order. That extremity is a little stupid. However I think that other things, like music are completely normal to copyright. If I were a musician and wrote a great song, and someone copied it and took it as their own and made millions, I would be kind of pissed. However, with all of the new modern ways to change something using technology, a tiny minor change could be made to a song so that they weren't 'exactly the same.' Yes, many You Tube videos could be seen as plagiarism and infringing copyright laws, but now it is too hard to even catch when someone breaks those laws. My personal opinion? If the information 'copied' isn't used to someone else's benefit and used without some sort of credit, then what's the hurt? After all, imitation is the biggest form of flattery.
Christine, I found it interesting that you ended your conversation by using the old saying "imitation is the biggest form of flattery" (a phrase surely written by someone. . .) This is an important point because before the days of copyright laws, authors and artists stole from one another all the time, as a way to show that they were familiar with the important works. In literary study, this is known as "allusion."
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