Artifact #8 (Week #9)
Objectives:
- Examine their own and others values and paradigms of ownership and authorship of cultural media.
Artifact:
Discussion Board Posting
Me: I think that copyright is immensely needed in the creative world. Without it people would re-create exactly what someone had just created and call it their own. This may stop the creative flow from individuals and our world would be a monotonous, boring place to live in. But I feel that if copyrights were to be so strictly enforced that people could not even come close to what was already created then there would be a problem. People draw from other individual’s creations. We build off of the past. Like the presentation stated “our culture is less and less a free society.” We use the previous ideas to spring forth our own stimulating concepts. This is one way to have great debates and communication with others. By analyzing and discussing what two people have in common sparks very knowledgeable discussion. So all in all copyrights have their pros and cons. What do you think? Do you believe copyrights are more positive than negative, or vice versa?
tapfer: I think copyrights are needed. I think that there can be copyrights on art but people can still draw inspiration from this work. Copyrights prevent people from reproducing the exact same thing or something that is similar enough to not be able to distinguish a difference. A work of art can be copyrighted and someone could look at it, then come up with their own ideas. Copyrights ensure that artists’ original ideas will not be stolen, which will given them the assurance they need to keep creating beautiful art.
dmank: There is a place for copyrights, but I don’t think things are quite so black and white. For example, many bands had the rights to their songs taken by their label as a part of the contract that they signed. This hampered the band later, when they no longer could do what they wanted with their own music. Should copyrights only be for the original artist? It’s hard to say. I also find it problematic when large corporations acquire the copyrights to many pieces of our cultural past. The large corporations are not preventing original ideas from being stolen because they are not the original artist. If I where to generalize, I would say that the more famous one is, the more money one has, or the bigger the company, the more beneficial copyrights are. On the other hand, if one is an up and coming artist copyrights are just a hindrance because one can’t use copyrighted materials in creative endeavors.
hross: One key part of the copyright debate that hasn’t been touched yet is the fact that these laws are virtually unenforceable in other countries. For example, something like 90 percent of DVDs in Russia are bootlegs. We may see the problem here as an issue, but we need to think more globally in addition. There are intellectual property rights laws supported by the U.N., yet any rational person knows that that will have little effect on anything. There needs to be a more effective, global push for respect for intellectual property and copyrights, or at least a joint effort by larger westernized nations.
jfreedm3: You bring up a good point about copyrights in other nations, and how they don’t really exist. I was in Europe a few years ago and bought a few bootlegged movies before they were available in the states, and it was great. But I know that the big large corporations make so much money off of these copyrights. I know that if I had a copyright on something, I would want to go after anybody who came up with something similar. On the other hand, it is hard to create something so new in today’s world because there is already so much out there. I think copyrights are very important, but also hard to get, I think it can take at least 6-8 months to get a copyright, which can be viewed as a big barrier in getting something created. I think the process of getting a copyright should be a lot faster.
Reflection:
At the beginning I was very confused on what to discuss in respects to copyrights. I do not have much background with how they work or exactly what they cover so I found it hard to write the first discussion posting. But as I did this 
and then read the responses I received from others in this class, I gained more insight into this copyright debate. Copyrights go much deeper then the idea that one cannot copy an idea. It is actually protecting the artist. It protects their creativity and effort and ensures they have and will want the ability to recreate future works of art. But the laws for these copyrights seem hard to enforce? Such as hross brought up. Other countries can take artists work without penalty. That does not seem fair to me. There should be some way to protect these artists. People work to hard and use too much effort to create something that should be kept all their own.
But like I said in the posting, people build off of other’s creations so to have copyrights be so strict that no one can reproduce anything would defeat the idea that people draw inspiration from what is already created. There seems to be this consistent battle between copying one’s work and completely doing a piece of work that is not connected to any other piece of work. But then this makes me think, doesn’t everything draw off of something else? Inspiration comes from events, the environment around us, and our values. These are all shaped by what we see and hear and so in essence everything is being copyrighted. So ownership is all in what is created. Not what is being copied. No one can ever be 100% original. It stems from somewhere.
The way I can use this in the future is when I am doing something I can take a step back and ask myself why am I doing it. Does this relate to something I have previously seen or heard and I can be aware that I am most likely drawing inspiration from something else in this world. But to be respectful I must give the original artist, that I first saw the idea from, the credit.
My original Remixing Culture Discussion can be found here.
