Copyright Laws Essay

Further, in court rulings related to the DMCA, "the courts have imposed liability and enjoined conduct for what in other contexts would be considered fair use or freedom of the press. In addition, the DMCA has been used to stifle academic research, and to arrest and indict a Russian programmer who had come to the United States to present a paper at a conference. These cases and actions raise questions as to whether Congress has changed the established rules, rather than just modernizing them, for the digital era." (Ottaviani C1) This conduct demonstrates the great abuse of the DMCA in relation to the First Amendment; freedom of speech is the most important freedom granted to United States citizens and it must be protected.

of having to buy the book for themselves. While this is a noble act by the

Fair use is an exemption within copyright law that basically permits anyone to use copyrighted materials without payment and without approval, subject to certain conditions.

Giving out the identity of a person accused of a crime, whether they are guilty or not is a breach of the Harmful communications act. By posting the identity of the person you are liable what happens to them as they are now at risk, and you are breaching the privacy laws because you gave out personal information. The name, photograph, phone number, car registration details and home address of a man accused of theft were posted on a Facebook group with tens of thousands of members recently. This was a serious breach of the harmful communications act. If any of the members of that group decide to take matters into their own hands to stop the theft, that has not been proven guilty, the person who posted all of their personal information would

In the article “Internet Piracy Harms Artists”, Phil Gardson explains how internet piracy such as online music sharing and other forms of copyrighting music hurts hardworking singers and songwriters. He also asserts that it is imperative that Congress should in act a law against these types of crimes to help protect artists.

Before college, when I heard about lawyers I only ever thought of one thing, the bar exam, and how awful it must be to prepare and take such a test. Now, moving steadily through the senior year of my undergraduate degree, my aspirations are quite different than what they were before college. With my changing goals, being a lawyer is now a profession that I wish to be a part of in the not too distant future. Specifically, I am aspiring to work in Intellectual Property Law. This form of law deals with protecting tangible and intangible creations of clients. These tangible and intangible creations range from inventions to symbols and often require being an expert in specific fields, such as industries, the arts, or science (Wilson, 2016).

The Fair Use Act is when a teacher or student is allowed to take something off the internet for educational purposes.

Copyright involves the exclusive legal right to reproduce, publish, sell, or distribute the matter and form of something (as a literary, musical, or artistic work). This enables the creator of such item to have insurance that no one else can steal or replicate their idea. Copyright has seen some of the largest court cases of all time where companies have sued millions due to breaches of copyright.

As of the early twenty-first century, capitalism has been the dominant economic system in most parts of the world and has had a huge influence on the production of popular culture. Geared towards the generation of profit, a capitalistic economy ensures that individuals and corporations possess the power of creating and distributing wealth, as opposed to the public or the state. In order to maximize profit, as is the main goal for individuals in capitalism, copyright appears to have become one of many tools used by corporations most directly involved in the culture industry.

Under the current copyright laws in the United States, original creative works are automatically afforded copyright protection — there is no need to register or document anything. Through the years, copyright holders have always wanted more legal protection, while copyright users requested more lenient use (Frankel, 2010). However tightened and increased copyright protections, such as those found in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), have always been framed as an easy and ethical way to increase the revenue for copyright holders by insuring that they are properly compensated for all use. So as the years have progressed, the U.S. copyright laws have gotten progressively more complicated and harder for the average person to understand.

The term ‘fair use’ is defined by Hudson as the use of copyright material without permission from the owner for purposes that are deemed fair. In the digital economy however, new challengers arise with ‘fair use’. These challenges are due to the complex and changing nature of the digital environment, and the need for the law to remain relevant, and be clear and broadly understood in the community. Secondly, the purpose of copyright law is to stimulate creation and learning by providing incentives to create and distribute. Therefore, it is important that reforms do not change the fundamental objectives of the copyright law. The ALRC has made recommendations outlining implementation of ‘fair use’ legislation in Australia, which is intended to outline the purpose and character of copyright material that may be used without permission from the owner. The purpose of the ALRC report is build a fair and reasonable legal guidelines where copyright material can be used fairly for purposes that may not infringe copyright.

 The theory is that 2 people can create exact or similar works without copying

The Internet has undoubtedly become defined by its ability to facilitate intellectual property violations. Thus, countries such as the United States amended punishments for Copyright infringers. Prior to the Internet, punishments for copyright violations were monetary damages, statutory damages, attorney fees, and preliminary injunctions. However because of the excessive amount of copyright infringements, the US Congress passed the No Electronic Theft Act, which amended Section 506 of title 17, of the United States Code, enforcing criminal liability to anyone who ìinfringes a copyright willfully and for purposes of

The United Sates and other nations especially from Europe over the past few years have been waging battle over how copyrighted work should be protected. Primarily, copyright duration has been one of the most important points in the extensive negotiation between nations such as United Sates and the European countries (Cox 2017). The current Copyright Act signed by President Clinton referred to as the Sony Bono Copyright Term Extension Act extend the copyrights of protected documents and works by writers. The issue on whether the copyrights extension should take place has been a contagious problem in the United States attracting criticism from both sides the opponents and proponents. Personally, I believe that the copyrights are too long and they should be shortened. Copyrights last too long and mostly it is a scheme by organization to make money as little or no revenue passes to the creator of the content.

Bainbridge (2006), Gerdsen (2003), and Dinwoodie & Cornish (2008) all support the notion that intellectual property is complex and vast through the combination of many rights. Intellectual property describes how a creative person’s creative work is protected. It allows the creator to control the use, and management of their creative product once it is within the market (Gerdsen, 2003). Touse (2006) acknowledges that copyright “gives the right to authors … to exclude others from copying their work without permission, thus creating the intellectual property rights for literacy and artistic works” (p. 8-9).