Portfolio 3: iTunes, an application that Apple created to distribute music for its iPod music platform, has had a negative effect on the music industry. iTunes introduced a brand new way of distributing music that the world has never seen before. Since the introduction of iTunes, selling individual songs has become the norm, but it was not always like that. Less than forty years ago, songs were sold as a part of albums, on vinyl records. There was no digital storage of songs and these records were being sold in record stores. Since the introduction of iTunes, record stores have been disappearing and the workers at the record stores have been losing their jobs.
Musical innovation has taken a hit from the introduction of iTunes also. Since songs are now being individually sold, some artists are just trying to make songs that are catchy that will sell a lot of copies. These selfish artists are further crippling the music industry.
iTunes has become the main online distributor for music, but that only benefits Apple and people who don’t want to buy full albums. For the music industry, iTunes has forever changed it for the worse.
Portfolio 2: The “Hope” poster, created by Fairey, was a controversial topic in the realm of copyright law. Fairey was arguing that he did not steal the Associated Press’ photograph that the poster was based off of at first, but then he argued that he was allowed to use the photograph under “fair use” later in the trial that happened. Goldstein wrote in his book different instances that painted what his opinions of the topic of copyright are. The essay explains his stances and how they relate to our stances about the trial and the outcome.
Currently, Fairey and the Associated Press are in an agreement with each other to work together to sell the picture. Each of them receives royalties and the Associated Press wants to work with Fairey on future projects.
This would not have been as big of problem if there were clear guidelines for copyright law. The court did not know how to deal with this case. Sadly, there was a settlement outside of court, so there was no documented outcome of this case in a court of law. Copyright law is very vague and non-specific to current technologies and should be updated to address the issues that are currently happening.
Portfolio 1: This essay is to explain how the use (or lack of use) of copyright laws in the music industry affects different aspects of innovation and creativity. There are suggestions on how to enforce laws that are already in place to take care of the problem of copyright infringement of popular music pieces.
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2013/01/obama-signs-fiscal-cliff-bill-with-autopen/
What’s the difference between an autopen and a printer?
I am really excited to take a look at intellectual property in other aspects of art, such as music. A lot of current music is not written by the people who are singing it; it is usually written by separate producers. Does this mean that these songs are the intellectual property of the producers/songwriters but the legal property of the recording studio/singer? I have no idea.
The trip to the library yesterday really tied together the readings for me. It was really cool to see the Egyptian papyrus, the Sumerian stones and the very early typography. I was able to visually see what I was reading about and it made me appreciate books more. It made me appreciate tablets even more than that though.