The Internet is a vast source of information on
any topic a person could possibly imagine. If a person needs to know a
definition of a word, or the birthday of a celebrity, they can simply look it
up online and find the answer. As the Internet grows, keeping track of an
author’s work becomes a more difficult task than it was in the past. After
reading the article by Charles W. Bailey Jr., Strong Copyright +DRM + Weak
Net Neutrality= Digital Dystopia, it
dawned on me that our copyright laws may be a little out of date. Bailey begins
the article by explaining how media and media consumers have
changed along with the growth of the Internet. “In the subsequent twenty-odd
years, publishing and media production went from being highly centralized,
capital-intensive analog activities with limited and well- defined distribution
channels, to being diffuse, relatively low-cost digital activities with the
global Internet as their distribution medium” (Bailey Jr. 116). Bailey believes
that the digital world is the future, but with this new future comes issues we
are unfamiliar with to the Copyright Laws that we currently have.
When these laws were originally passed, they gave
the rights of works to the initial author or publisher. Since the growth of the
Internet, it is much harder to for authors to control what users are
downloading and using for their own interests. This issue has become a much
bigger mission for the people enforcing copyright laws but, on the other hand,
has neglected the rights of “fair use” for users. While yes, authors should
have the rights to their work, there are some things that can be considered
fair use, which individuals utilize daily.
“Congress has the power to promote the Progress
of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and
Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries”
(Bailey Jr. 2). The purpose of copyright laws is to protect authors from having
their works stolen or used without their permission. This law has generally
worked with things like books or art in the past, but there was not an active
presence on the Internet like there is now. Meaning, there were no people who
were knowledgeable in the area of hacking, or users taking random information
off the web for their personal use. “Copyright was a bargain: society would
grant creators a time-limited ability to control and profit from their works
before they fell into the public domain (where works are unprotected) because
doing so resulted in “Progress of Science and useful Arts” (Bailey Jr. 117).
Now, copyright protects a wider range of works. This list includes literary
works, musical works, dramatic works, pantomimes and choreographed work,
pictorial and graphic work as well as motion pictures, sound recordings and
architectural work. With this extensive of a list, there is almost nothing out
there that is not protected by these laws.
In Paul Sieminski’s article, Corporations
Abusing Copyright Laws Are Ruining the Web for Everyone, he discusses
the assorted issues that these copyright laws bring up. Copyright owners can
send notices to web companies who use their content and have it taken down.
This is supported by the DMCA system. This notice provides copyright owners a
legal way to have content removed. Although the idea of “fair use” is legal,
copyright holders often misuse the DMCA to their benefit. “And the current DMCA
system enables these aggressive copyright owners by providing virtually no
penalties for failing to consider common exceptions to infringement — like fair
use” (Sieminski). There have been cases where people were sent this notice to take down
work, but they had just visited a random web address. There are faults in the
DMCA system, such as knowing what cases are serious and what cases have
copyright holders misusing these notices.
In this digital sphere, these copyright laws seem
unproductive. “The thing about the future is that it is rooted in the past.
Culture, even digital culture, builds on what has gone before” (Bailey Jr.
116). Virtually every type of work imaginable is under protection for extended
periods of time. In Brad Stone’s article, The Inexact Science Behind
D.M.C.A Takedown Notices, he brings up a study done at the University
of Washington about these takedown notices being misused. “The paper finds that
there is a serious flaw in how these trade groups finger reported file-sharers.
It also suggests that some people might be getting improperly accused of
sharing copyrighted content, and could even be purposely framed by other users”
(Stone). This research reported that enforcement agencies are not looking into
this matter fully, but rather looking only at the I.P. address of people who
use these peer-to-peer networks.
Attorney Michael Godwin defines DRM, or Digital
Rights Management, as “A collective name for technologies that prevent you from
using a copyrighted digital work beyond the degree to which the copyright owner
(or a publisher who many not actually hold a copyright) wishes to allow you to
use it” (Bailey Jr. 120). Godwin suggested that DRM might inhibit a variety of
legitimate uses of these protected works. Once again, the idea of “fair use” is
overlooked. If the laws were going to be updated, fair use should be considered
as a piece of it, so that the content is available to users.
With the current laws being misused, I wonder why
they have not been truly looked at, with the digital age in mind, and revamped
for this generation. With the Internet being something that is used constantly,
nothing is original anymore, it all comes from something else we heard or saw.
As the Internet becomes a bigger part of our daily lives, copyright laws need
to be looked at in a new sense of where, digitally, we are headed.
Works Cited:
Works Cited:
Jr. Charles W. Bailey. “Strong Copyright DRM Weak Net Neutrality =
Digital Dystopia?” Information Technology
and Libraries 25.3 (2013) Web.
Sieminski, Paul. “Corporations Abusing Copyright Laws Are Ruining the Web for Everyone.” Wired.com. Conde Nast Digital, 15 Jan. 0014. Web. 26 Sept 2014.
Stone, Brad. “The Inexact Science Behind D.M.C.A. Takedown Notices.” New York Times Blog. 5 June 2008. Web. 26 Sept .2014.
