For the Lafayette vs. Bucknell Patriot League final for basketball I wasn’t able to go to Bucknell but I did however find a way to watch it.  I held a floor program because I sensed a numerous amount of students would like to watch the game but couldn’t travel the three hours to see it in person.  This experience of watching it on TV sparked a question about copyright.  As the television ads were shown it struck me that they had been made with the intention of being entertaining.  This led me to ask the question: what are the copyright laws for advertisements if any?

I researched this question at this website Link to find some answers.  It turns out that advertisements have the same legal boundaries as any other media does in terms of copyright.  Although I understand that the writer of the advertisement doesn’t want his work to be used by another company (even if it’s not put on television) I find it puzzling why companies would restrict consumers from spreading their commercials. The entire point of an advertisement is to grab the attention of many consumers about the companies’ product so they can sell more.  It doesn’t make sense to me that the companies would try and cap that spreading of it with copyright laws.

It seems to me that the copyright laws of advertisements should be revised so that other companies can’t steal ideas of ads as their own while still allowing consumers to share it with no limits.  It is essentially free advertising for consumers to spread a funny or entertaining commercial to their friends, which in turn would create more awareness of the product being advertised.  Companies need to take a look at the copyright laws to help themselves.