Eventhough it's important that before we take or copy anything from others, we should knowledge the existence of Copyright and understand the consequences of it, I think there's definitely people out there who doesn't obey the rules. Honestly, I would admit that I hardly ever paid any attention to the concept of copyright. The closest to it that I know of is Plagiarism. Which I believe is only at the slightest bit similar. The reason why I hardly paid any attention to it, is because when I 'take' somebody's idea while writing an essay, I would cite them, and make a list of references, which we're constantly told by our tutors. Unlike copyright, you might have been told about it, but the rest is up to you to do your research on it.
With copyright, sometimes it is hard for an artist to sell their music out to the public, therefore they would outsource and search for various ways for them to 'sell' their music indirectly. A common example would be free downloading from iTunes Store, Napster and etc. Although I would say that I don't really know how they would earn they money by allowing public to download their music for free, but somehow they do. I found this cool graph that shows how much artists in the UK earn online. Click Here
So do artists earn more money by allowing the public to download their music for free, or is it just a way for them to gain popularity? However, would you rather live in a world where people could take your ideas freely without permission, and face no consequences? OR would you prefer to be in a world where you can easily be caught, even if you took a bite on others' idea without having the permission from them?
Natalie
Your statement that copyright has become apart of our culture really got me thinking. When I first read it I did not agree but once you explained your opinion with the happy birthday song as the example I understood your point and I see where you are coming from. Many of us have grown up with this song being sung to us every year and we have sung it to others many more times. It is crazy to think that we are breaching copyright laws every time we sing it. It makes me wonder if other songs I have sung all my life have copyright laws placed on them as well such as Christmas songs. It is silly really, the idea that I have been breaking the law by singing a song all these years.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Sophie! It is so crazy that we are breaching copyright every time we sing that song. I never realised that, and I am guessing there are many, many other people are oblivious. Imagine if they tried to enforce copyright on all the birthday and Christmas songs. Half the world would end up with fines or in jail!
ReplyDeleteWhat would we sing if we couldn't sing Happy Birthday?
ReplyDeleteIt would be pretty boring if it was just silence while the birthday person blew out their candles....