http://www.abc15.com/dpp/sports/sports_blogs_national/ncaa-basketball-tournament-2013-pres-obama-reveals-final-four-picks

Despite this articles goal I thought of it a different way.  Everyone seems to fill out a bracket around the time of March Madness.  Often the opinions of analysts are listened to by the many fans and they use it to make certain picks.  My question is is this copyright if someones uses someone else’s article to pick a team and they aren’t given credit for it?  This may seem like a ridiculous question but my point is where does the use of others ideas stop being copyright and start being allowed.

The Brown Bag was very informative and once again it was curious to see the opinions of someone who actually has to deal with copyright.  She was a very good speaker and I liked how she incorporated media into her presentation.  I also found her opinion on copyright to be interesting as it was negative.  This opinion was probably formed by the many hoops she has to jump through to simply have a song in her movies.

“For the purpose of this honor system, the use by a student of someone else’s material with intention of using it for credit as if it were his own”   This is a quote which the is the definition of what plagiarism is.  I found it interesting the use of the word “intention.

Recently, Nintendo lost a lawsuit to Tomita Technologies over the 3DS, more specifically, the 3D technology used on the 3DS. Tomita Technologies owns the patent on a specific technology for 3D viewing without the need for extra devices, which ended up being used on the 3DS. Once this was found out, Nintendo was found guilty of infringement  and fined over $30 million.

The interesting thing is, while the idea and patent belong to Tomita Technologies, they did not use it. In the mean time, Nintendo used it, released a product and made a huge profit. In that regard, was Tomita Technologies actually “harmed” in anyway? Or were they merely fighting to say they had the idea first?

Article: Here

One sentence in Goldstein’s book Copyright’s Highway that really stuck out to me is when he plainly states, “private copying cannot be regulated”. As simple as this statement is, I feel it could not be more true. It was refreshing to hear Goldstein state this since I think it is something everyone has thought at one point or another in relation to America’s copyright system. No matter how much the copyright system improves in the years to come, I don’t think that private copying will ever become totally extinct. There will always be people who know how to get around copyright laws and possess both the technology and wit for doing so.

I recently stumbled upon this website that lists and discusses a bunch of famous copyright infringement cases in relation to the music industry. I thought it was really interesting to find that so many well-known artists have been accused of copyright infringement. It makes me wonder which of these artists are actually guilty of intended infringement and which of them simply chose an unlucky string of words to be in their song.

I thought that the brownbag on Thursday was extremely interesting and it taught me a lot of things about copyright that I had never really considered or put much thought into. For example, I found it really shocking how much trouble the creator of a documentary has to go through to get certain aspects of the film cleared. I would have never guessed that it is such an arduous process. What particularly shocked me was learning how much trouble the speaker went through in an attempt to get Ke$ha’s song cleared in her documentary. Upon learning this, I couldn’t help but think to myself what a persevering woman the creator of the documentary was. I am sure that a lot of artists would not have attempted to go through the trouble she did, and would instead be tempted to give up and just cut that clip from the film altogether.

I noticed that Ke$ha does have a history of going after those who infringe works she has copyrighted, and that she is a bit picky when it comes to allowing others to use her work. For example, here is a case I found in which Ke$ha is suing the Wimo Labs company for copyright infringement:

http://www.andpop.com/2011/05/10/kesha-sues-wimo-labs-for-copyright-infringement/

I thought we had a great conversation in class today. Something I wanted to expand on in this blog post is the point that was brought up by buying the license to show a movie to the public.  I think it is amazing how companies can charge hundreds, sometimes thousands of dollars for a movie to be shown legally to a public audience, but I can go to the DVD store or go on iTunes and buy a movie for a fraction of that price and watch it over and over again.  Would it be legal if I had a bunch of friends over (10 people) and watch a movie.  Would that situation change if I were to watch a movie and invite all of my closest friends over (200-300 people)? I would even let my dog watch.

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On an unrelated note, I am going to try to post a video of “Microwave This!” after each of my blog posts. Enjoy! What will happen to a bag of chips in the microwave? Find out here!

What is the difference between an imitation and a copy?  How far can an imitation go before it is considered copyright infringement?  Would it still be considered copyright infringement if the imitation was altered by culture?

This article by Hariqbal Basil titled “Indianizing Hollywood: The Debate Over Copyright Infringement by Bollywood” tackles some of these questions.  According to the author, some popular Hollywood films are reinterpreted by Bollywood to be more “Indianized” for Hindi audiences.  According to the author, these films may “be liable for copyright infringement if the subsequent film is found to be substantially similar to the initial copyrighted work” (Basil 35).  As a highly successful industry, do you believe Bollywood should pay the companies they are borrowing from?  Or is theirs not a form of copyright infringement due to the intention?

Dr. Sikand’s discussion of her documentary on PBS led me to another PBS documentary, Copyright Criminals (2010).  This film discusses many of the topics we have covered in class, such as fair use and sampling.  The filmmakers, Benjamin Franzen and Kembrew McLeod, said in an interview that, “this movie could not have been made and distributed without a legal doctrine called fair use.”  While a film like this has the potential to be educational and useful, is it fair that multiple recording companies were not paid for the use of their songs in the documentary?  Do you think that there should be a different standard for documentaries and big-budget Hollywood films?