It seems like change could happen in the future for copyright law. It is refreshing to see that the head of the Copyright Office acknowledges the fact that the system has some issues. I am not surprised that this is going to take a great deal of time to fix things but you cannot expect such an overhaul to happen over night. I also didn’t realize how many stakeholders this could potentially affect.
The brown bag today was incredibly interesting and insightful. I
never thought about what was on the TV when filming or what song could be heard
in the background. There are so many elements that I feel we as viewers take for
granted. The clip we saw about the Texas Two Step and getting permission to show
that was also interesting. It was a group of people dancing but contacting the
original creator was necessary in order to get permission and show the clip.
As I mentioned earlier in the week I am the president of the radio station
on campus. I have taken a lot of music from CD’s that I have found and
downloaded it to my iTunes. I know of at least 30 other people that have done this even though it is technically illegal. I know that the number of people taking the work impacts whether or not it is a problem. I have thought about how much money has been taken from the artist by all of us downloading the entire album from sharing the CD. Assuming 50 people have downloaded the CD over the years and saying the album costs $7.99 on iTunes that is $399.50 that the artist and associates did not see. At that point the music isn’t just being used for personal use but there is nobody to enforce it. I do feel kind of bad for what I have done but it isn’t going to stop me because there is basically no way of getting accused of stealing music.
In my high school sex ed class, we had an assignment in which we had to make an advertisement (on paper) for condom use. Of course this assignment allowed for a ton of creativity. What I chose to do, however, was use the Nike slogan, with a bit of a twist. So, my advertisement read: “Just Do It…but with a condom.” In addition to that I had drawn the Nike swoosh and some sports equipments and condoms. Looking back at this now it seems as if I could have been engaging in copyright infringement, as I “stole” Nike’s slogan. However, because this was for educational purposes does that make my actions okay? And if this wasn’t okay, why did my teacher not inform me of this?
Today in the brown bag, we learned that there are different websites that have free music available for producers and directors to use in their videos. I found this extremely interesting, so I decided to look into one of these websites. When searching the internet, I found the Free Music Archive. The Free Music Archive is a portal for producers to find free music for their videos. I looked around the website a little bit and explored some of the music. A lot of the music on the Free Music Archive was really strange, but there were some really great songs. I found this website to be a great idea for both the producers looking for music and the artist looking to get their music out there. It is interesting how artist just place their work out there in hopes of having someone use it. It is also interesting to think that a producer has the potential to make one of these artist famous by using their work. I think this is a great example of how copyright laws can be worked around and be used to an artist advantage.
In regard to the part of the documentary we got to see about David, it was very heartfelt, humbling, and touching to say the least. Your heart really went out to David in the scene in which it showed him dancing to Ke$ha’s song “We R Who We R.” There he was just a little ten year old boy having fun, as if everything was okay, despite his looming death. It was truly inspiring. But the fact that Ke$ha and her “crew” needed to profit off of this scene of the documentary almost makes me sick. The fact that this scene was almost deleted from the documentary to avoid charges, is terrible, as it definitely is crucial in showing David’s character and strength. There should be some exceptions to copyright, and in my opinion, this definitely should be one of them.
This scene about David reminded me a lot of Katy Perry’s music video for her song “Firework.” It is interesting how one artist can seemingly be so sensitive to the world problems that kids suffer from, while another artist can take away (maybe by accident) so much from that world.
I never really thought about all of the small technicalities in putting together a film. All I ever thought of was the script and the actors memorizing the lines correctly. But when professor Sikand mentioned the example of shooting an important scene and it “getting ruined” by a car driving by playing an Adele song, I realized just how easily things could get complicated. The scene that the filmmakers were shooting now probably costs them double the amount of money, just from the brief background of a popular song. And because of this large amount of money being owed to Adele and her “crew,” a lot of smaller film makers will shy away from using their crucial footage, just because they can’t afford to pay for the few seconds of Adele in the backgroud. It is sad that a lot of important films are being thrown by the way side because of these types of monetary problems. This example reminds me of a quote from the epilogue of Vaidhyanathan’s book, Copyrights & Copywrongs, “Isn’t copyright supposed to encourage art?…Instead, more and more, excessive and almost perpetual copyright protection seems to be squelching beauty, impeding exposure, stifling creativity” ( Vaidhyanathan 185).
The brown bag today was extremely interesting. I thought it was interesting to learn that a person doing a documentary would have to get writes for a song that just happened to be playing in the background. Hearing this made me really dislike our copyright laws. Although I understand why artist and producers would do this, I feel like this part of copyright has come to a bit of an extreme. Many directors can not predict a car passing by playing a song, yet they will get punished for having the music in their movie. I wish there was a way to work around this in our many copyright laws to protect these directors.
Today’s brownbag brought up some really interesting points. One point that Professor Sikand mentioned was that many times documentary filmmakers become discouraged by the price of licensing copyrighted works. This is a shame because most filmmakers do not have the budget of a Hollywood feature film and upon realizing how much the licensing of a song for their movie can be, they often decide against producing or finishing their work. This prevents many important stories from being told. Professor Sikand did mention that their is a light at the end of the tunnel. She mentioned that there are websites that feature music that can be used freely in movies as long as the artist is credited. While reflecting on the short clip we watched where filmmakers were discussing copyrighted works in relation to their films, I decided to look a little bit more into this issue. While searching the web I cam across this website which highlights documentary filmmakers’ statement of best practices in fair use.
The videos and discussion at the brownbag today led to the common problem copyright causes today: diminishing creativity. Professor Sikand explained and showed many examples where creativity is stifled by copyright. Its sad to know that many producers and directors cannot begin their career because of the initial costs due to copyright. Theres much less incentive to become a movie director when your first film costs thousands in copyright compensation. This brings me back to Vaidhyanathan’s quotation that copyright “rewards the established at the expense of the emerging.” What was most interesting to me was how rebellious directors become because of these laws. Professor Sikand seems like a professor that would normally obey rules and laws, but when it comes to copyright she embodies the quotation: “its better to ask for forgiveness than permission.” Her justification for this mindset is legitimate: If you ask for permission, the owners expect that you have money to pay for their work; on the other hand, if you just use the work and ask for forgiveness, you can be viewed as an innocent, destitute producer trying to make a living.
The website she showed us is very detailed and up to date in the laws of fair use with regards to social media. It explains the rules and even gives tips on what steps to take if one of your works is in violation of fair use.
The glimmer of hope from Professor Sikand was her explanation of the site for free music. With our counter argument to copyright being exposure, im glad that this site is in existence. I thought it would be slightly difficult to find this type of website, but once I looked up “free music for exposure” in google, the first 3 websites were Noise Trade, Ustream, and NumberOneMusic; all of which were created to share music in hopes to promote emerging artists.
