With all the technology that is used in the present it has become difficult to decipher what is breaking copyright and what is not. Last class when a student asked if something was actually infringing upon copyright the response was “I don’t know.” This begs the question does anyone actually explicitly know the limits of the copyright laws? The laws are so complex that there is no way of knowing what is copyright infringement. This undoubtedly leads to violations of the law even if the individual has no idea that they are violating it. There have been many ideas to try and limit copyright infringement as suggested in Copyright Highway with the description of a celestial jukebox. However, even if a method to enforce the laws are created the laws are too broad and misunderstood to convict a large number of people.
In popular consciousness, laws are often boiled down to one or two facts. Most people probably think of infringing copyright as copying another’s work, or something equally monolithic. There needs to be a better presentation of the law to laypeople. Center for Copyright Information actually does a fair job of this.