Copyright and Creative Commons

Copyright is a permanently fixed original work in a “tangible” form.  This means that the “owner” of the work is solely authorized to their intellectual property and is completely responsible for the distribution and use of that property.  Copyright, included in the original draft of the US Constitution in 1790, was considered a very important issue to the founding fathers.  The fathers understood that when artists, scientists, creators and thinkers are assured that they will benefit from the fruit of their labor then the society will much more rapidly benefit from new ideas.  Currently, much debate has risen in the music industry in regards to sales versus illegal downloading.  Legally, artists are protected under copyright laws that give them complete access of their music distribution and sales.  Illegally, the seemingly infinite bounds of the internet allow users to access, download, and utilize this “intellectual property” with neither permission nor compensation to the artist.  Ethically, it is clear that illegally downloading music is an infringement of copyright law; likewise theoretically, when artists do not believe that they are to be compensated for their efforts, it discourages the production of new, original work.  Upon considering the concept on the whole, users understand the importance of abiding by such laws; however, rarely do people believe that their single music “share” will stunt the intellectual progress of the music industry.  Consider this:  A single new Beyonce hit costs $1.29 on iTunes—a purchase that is considered legal and ethical.  A college student consciously buys “generic” toilet paper in attempt to save $1.29;  likewise, in knowing that Beyonce averages about $87 million/year (meaning that that single song purchase amounts to a whopping .00000000015% of her annual income) if he is able to access music for free then there is little incentive to buy it.  Therefore, illegally downloading music may be both illegal and unethical, but it is easy for individuals to justify doing so without seeing immediate consequences. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJn_jC4FNDo

<a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/3.0/"><img alt="Creative Commons License" style="border-width:0" src="http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nd/3.0/88x31.png" /></a><br /><span xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" href="http://purl.org/dc/dcmitype/Text" property="dc:title" rel="dc:type">Copyright and Creative Commons</span> by <a xmlns:cc="http://creativecommons.org/ns#" href="http://katherinegarrett.blogspot.com/2010/09/copyright-and-creative-commons.html" property="cc:attributionName" rel="cc:attributionURL">Katie Garrett</a> is licensed under a <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/3.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License</a>.