I Advocate For The Alteration Of Copyright Law

I understand and agree with your post. Taking away the protection offered by the Copyrights Act will increase the financial insecurity for the new artist and lower the creation of new material. This is the reason I also completely agree with the court case ruling in against LimeWire

Sampling nowadays is so common and some artists have taken it to a level that it is an art to use samples. If used correctly. My paper will focus on how sampling became a new way to create songs. And expose how big the sampling industry is. Web pages like Beatport sell samples and stems. So Dj’s can download them and mix them live. If a piece of music is distorted, might that be transformative and even be fair use? Using various resources and examples I will discuss whether should or shouldn’t there be a compulsory license for sampling.

The Supreme Court has tried to explain that the Copyright Clause of the Constitution was intended to establish independent, entrepreneurial, self-sustaining authorship and publishing as the means of serving the public interest in securing the production of valuable literary and scientific works. To that one must ask what are the consequences of remix? When I think about it remixing has left a positive and inferior aspect of life for many people. When people are able to steal or copy the work of an individual without any consequence they are sending a clear message saying that they are free of the law. Therefore, I propose that the copyright office of the state of Washington should change the copyright policy of remixing so that it may benefit more people than just the original artist.

Copyright laws must be flexible in addressing and supplementing the needs of Australia’s modern society. However, the failure of the existing, and outdated Copyright Act 1968 (Cwth) in fulfilling the needs of the Australian public has triggered the need for copyright reform. Copyright reform aims to reconsider the relationship between copyright, innovation, technology, research, and economic growth, where it would provide flexible laws fundamental to the broad dissemination of knowledge. Copyright laws should strike a balance between the interests of the creator and the Australian public in terms of access to knowledge, culture and education. Copyright reform aims to

For many years illegal file sharing and music swapping has been going on. Two very popular cases are the MGM Studios, Inc. v. Grokster case and the A&M Records, Inc. v. Napster case. Both cases differ in many ways however they also have similarities. A lot of music and other sorts of entertainment are being distributed for free all over the internet. What some people do not think of are the consequences that will be faced if they get caught. Not only is the distributor at risk for getting caught but those of us that download the software illegally can be charged.

The purpose of the copyright system has always been to promote creativity in society and protect the creators’ interests. In applying copyright laws to any creation, three basic guidelines apply. First is the fair return for a creators labor, second is “Fair Use” of the creators’ labor and finally the Progress of Science and useful Arts to further the public good. The application of these three guidelines in litigation for A&M Records, Inc. v. Napster, found that the rights of reproduction, and distribution had been violated, in effect upholding the copyrights of nineteen different music companies represented under A&M Records name, this ruling had protected the music industries interests. However it would seem that the publishing industry would not be so lucky, litigation in Authors’ Guild vs. Google ruled that Google’s actions constituted fair use. Under these two scenarios’ the copyright laws’ have, effectively, protected the rights of music artists’, protected the public’s right to “fair use” and sparked new opportunities for creative growth. However, lawmakers continue to struggle to define copyright boundaries between the public’s right of use and the creators right to profit from their efforts.

It wasn’t until the landmark 1991 Biz Markie copyright infringement case over his use of a Gilbert O’Sullivan sample on I Need a Haircut that the courts determined sampling constituted willful infringement. Record companies, realizing the cost of an infringement case, pushed artists to declare the use of samples in their works. However, with fear of incurring additional costs, companies and artists also embraced the possibility of being sampled as they often earned royalties for their contributions. Some publishing companies, namely Bridgeport Music, Inc. and TufAmerica Inc., took the profitability of copyright ownership even

Most artist acknowledge that they sampled the work of another and there is a fee that the must pay to use it. As long as those two things are done then an artist shouldn’t be able to keep them from using it. That is the argument of artist like J. Cole and Kanye West.

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.

Digital piracy on music has been a majorly disputed affair for the last eighteen years, about whether or not it favors the musical artists or affects them in a negative fashion. One of the many sides of the Digital piracy controversy expounds that it benefits the artist(s) by giving them a great deal of exposure that they may not have received had they not downloaded it for free, which in turn makes for a very significant acquisition in terms of sales on their part.

Other musicians merely sample parts of a song, using that sample to create their own work. Recently, rap musicians have even begun producing many remixes that continue to raise ethical questions. The practice of covering is essential to today’s music despite the moral and legal issues it creates. Today’s version of covering is

The question then became “Just because we can get the music we want without paying for it, should we?” (Tyson, 2000, p.1). This issue of illegal downloads, which is also referred to as piracy, has been a hot topic ever since the introduction of Napster. According to Recording Industry Association of America “In the decade since peer-to-peer (p2p) file-sharing site Napster emerged in 1999, music sales in the U.S. have dropped 47 percent, from $14.6 billion to $7.7 billion” (RIAA, 2014).

Producers of musical content cannot undo the adverse effects that piracy has had on the industry. Because of the internet and the way individuals have manipulated it to obtain music, many people are unwilling to change their habits. Here lies the issue between the producer and the consumer. Acts like the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and PROTECT Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) work against the incentive of many consumers by telling them that they cannot do what maximizes their utility. Producers are thus working against the likings of the consumer. This is wrong.

Based on research I have undertaken from articles and my own opinions I intend to look into the ethics of sample based music and music plagiarism in the use of making music today and looking to see if musical quality has suffered. Some may argue that the quality of the music has suffered, this maybe true but is it only a problem that lies within sample-based music? I will look to put forward my argument and ideas as to why I think music on the whole may have suffered and it is not just down to sample based music. “Musical borrowing is a pervasive aspect of musical creation in all Genres and all periods.(From J.C. Bach to Hip Hop:Musical Borrowing,Copyright and Cultural Context Olufunmilayo B. Arewa”

Companies like Apple, have decided that it is best to get in with the downloading business. However, an end to the illegal downloading conflict remains to be realized. The RIAA and associated artists continue to wage war against illegal downloaders while computer savvy audiences persist in sharing music files online every day. While it is undoubtedly true that downloading music is a crime, it remains to be proven that it is wrong. Without establishing this principle, most downloader's are likely to continue the activity. Even with new, inexpensive and available means of downloading files, they can still be shared for free online. The rift must be repaired between music lovers who feel that they have been taken advantage of in the past and recording companies and artists who worry about their future livelihood.