Hybrid Assignment #3
Copyright laws have become much more complicated with the rise of digital media. The framers of the Constitution modeled our copyright laws after Great Britain’s Statute of Anne, which gave authors exclusive rights to their work for twenty-eight years. It was designed to limit access and stimulate production by giving writers a reward and an incentive to continue creating. At first only works such as books and maps received this protection but over the years it has come to apply to any form of expression and to extend to up to 120 years after creation or 95 years after publication. Since most people do not live 120 years, the original intent of the laws is irrelevant. But, as Taylor states, “new technologies threaten to overturn this situation,” (149) forcing almost anyone who uses the Internet into violating copyright, simply by pasting, sharing and downloading. And if the majority of citizens are in violation of copyright laws, can the laws be considered appropriate for the digital age?
When one buys a hard copy of a book or record, one can lend the book to or share the record with hundreds of friends and copyright holders have little they can do about it. But on the Internet, while culture is easily exchanged, it is also easily monitored by the copyright holders and it is easy to see a future where “all cultural encounters are classified as ‘copyright events.’ ” (150)
There are two distinct camps in the “Copyright Wars”: those who believe that all art and culture should be free and open to the public and that any restriction is an assault on an individual’s freedom; and those who believe that culture can be owned outright, does not belong to the general public, and that all downloading is theft.
The free culture proponents see copyright as profiting large corporations, not the individual artists, and equate file sharing with activism. They believe abolishing copyright will lead to a more inclusive and democratic society, in which no ideas are created in isolation, therefore they should be free for all to experience.
As Thomas Jefferson wrote, “He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.” In other words, sharing does not create a loss to the creator.
In the second camp are groups such as the Recording Industry and the Motion Picture Association who see art as property and are fighting for more copyright restrictions on the Internet. But they are not fighting to help the artists.
Ironically, it is the artists themselves who are caught in the middle of the Copyright Wars. The industry often cuts them out of profiting from their own work so stricter copyright laws will not help them. And many emerging artists benefit from the exposure of their work when it is shared online so are not necessarily against file sharing. As Taylor states, “Most cultural producers, however, sympathize with both sides and wind up somewhere in between.” (169)
