During my research of films and music copyright, I stumbled on this essay written by a Yale Law School student.  Interestingly enough, the essay appears on a blog similar to ours, with comments from the author’s peers at the bottom of the webpage.  The author, Christina Mulligan, discusses how copyright is ignored in the popular show, Glee.  The characters often create mash-ups of preexisting songs, perform covers, and even make direct copies of music videos.  The show ignores the issue of copyright completely while, in reality, copyright lawsuits occur all the time.  According to Mulligan, the students of Glee would be on the losing side of a copyright lawsuit for their work.  Mulligan asserts that students who actually do this are doing so “to learn about themselves, to become better musicians, to build relationships with friends, and to pay homage to the artists who came before them” (Mulligan).

What do you think?  Should excuses be made for students in copyright law?  Do these excuses already exist?