Is It Our Right to Copy?
Before starting up my reviewing blog Life Of Live I had not considered copyright as an issue I would have to deal with. I thought that as I would be uploading the photographs I had taken myself, copyright would not cross my path; however it already has in two different ways.
Cory Doctorow said in his article ‘Why I Copyfight?’: “On the Internet, copying is automatic, massive, instantaneous, free, and constant.” (Doctorow, 2008). This statement is extremely valid with the new media which is being introduced into the digital world every day. Before the internet excelled Copyright was almost an unknown concept amongst most people. Now with Google images, Yahoo images and other image search engines allow all users of the internet to type in even the most vague search words and be presented with millions of images ready to ‘steal’, as the law would claim. This is just one example of possible copyright infringement the internet makes so easy.
To accompany my reviews I take photos of the events I attend, this was a way of preventing me having to ask permission to use images. My blog is accessible through Google, which means that people from all around the world can access it. What I was not aware of was that the images are then automatically put onto the Google images database. For example; someone in the United States could search ‘My Chemical Romance’, or ‘Gerard Way’ and an image from my blog comes up as part of the listings. It is then easy for them to right-click and save, without me even knowing. This is the first example of Copyright that I have witnessed. I discovered that people were accessing my images through search engines by looking at my Blogger’s stats, which provide the administrator of the blog the statistics of where their audience is based, and through which sites their blog is being accessed. Recently I have not uploaded any more reviews but was still getting views, out of confusion I checked the referral sites; most were Yahoo images or Google images, which meant my photographs, were ‘free-for-all’. Although I was unaware people were taking my photos, the views for my ‘My Chemical Romance’ review are going up, meaning some of the people viewing the pictures were also reading my review, which in turn is beneficial for me.
I agree with what Doctorow said in his article: “Culture's old. It's older than copyright.” Culture needs to be shared in order for personality to prevail; otherwise the world would be monotonous. With photographs of a celebrity I have, in my opinion, no right to complain when people take my images for their personal use. I do not own the celebrity, therefore what right do I have to complain about other people ‘stealing’ the image, when I have in fact not asked permission to ‘steal’ the image of the person in the first place.
The second instance of Copyright I have faced in recent months was when I had to ask permission to use the photographs of others. I was not aware for one event that we were able to take photos, therefore I had nothing to accompany my review: however one of my friends on Facebook, who also attended the event, took some photos. I simply sent her a message over Facebook asking her if I could use two of her images for my blog, she replied with yes. To show respect and appreciation I accredited her name at the bottom of the review. As she was a friend I did not come across any issues. For a bigger live event I had to contact a professional photographer, he replied by asking for an exchange. If he was able to use my review to accompany his photographs I could uses his photographs to go with my review. Unfortunately he was too late in replying so I ‘stole’ some photographs from the NIA Facebook page, but accredited their Facebook and official site at the bottom of the review in order to ‘cover my own back’. Nothing has come back about me using these images.
Being a lover of music I believe, in some cases, Music Copyright laws should be more lenient than they are, there is the opportunity for the music industry to gain masses of money through over-priced merchandise and concert tickets, not to mention CDs and legal downloads. People may steal a few tracks, but from this they may go on to buy gig tickets, and at that gig they may buy a t-shirt. Without that initial illegal act the music industry would not have profited half as much. I myself have spent excessively over £700 in a year on gig tickets and merchandise. Some of these bands I would not have listened to if it was not for the illegal downloads. I am not defending those who do this an unreasonable amount, such as those who never buy a CD in their lifetime, but for those who download a few tracks the penalty should not be as extreme.
YouTube is a website that enables people to create custom videos, cultural gems ready for the world to view. These have also been hit by the Copyright ‘police’. People who use an artists’ music to complement their video without the permission of the record company have had their videos taken down and in accordance to the YouTube 3 strike rule, 3 strikes and you are off the site. To me this is ridiculous the people who upload videos are not gaining money from what they produce but simply contributing to the culture that is YouTube. Paul Sawers in his article ‘The YouTube debate: why copyright shouldn’t kill the video star’ makes the point that that record company only bother with the most popular of videos, which just translates to petty jealousy that more people are viewing the viral sensation rather than the actual artist.
“Whether or not anyone’s actually bothered enough about your paltry 25 views to file a complaint is another matter altogether. But if you unintentionally create a monster YouTube hit that draws in the world’s curious eyes and ears, then you may be asked to remove the video.” (Sawers, 2010)
Before starting up my reviewing blog Life Of Live I had not considered copyright as an issue I would have to deal with. I thought that as I would be uploading the photographs I had taken myself, copyright would not cross my path; however it already has in two different ways.
Cory Doctorow said in his article ‘Why I Copyfight?’: “On the Internet, copying is automatic, massive, instantaneous, free, and constant.” (Doctorow, 2008). This statement is extremely valid with the new media which is being introduced into the digital world every day. Before the internet excelled Copyright was almost an unknown concept amongst most people. Now with Google images, Yahoo images and other image search engines allow all users of the internet to type in even the most vague search words and be presented with millions of images ready to ‘steal’, as the law would claim. This is just one example of possible copyright infringement the internet makes so easy.
To accompany my reviews I take photos of the events I attend, this was a way of preventing me having to ask permission to use images. My blog is accessible through Google, which means that people from all around the world can access it. What I was not aware of was that the images are then automatically put onto the Google images database. For example; someone in the United States could search ‘My Chemical Romance’, or ‘Gerard Way’ and an image from my blog comes up as part of the listings. It is then easy for them to right-click and save, without me even knowing. This is the first example of Copyright that I have witnessed. I discovered that people were accessing my images through search engines by looking at my Blogger’s stats, which provide the administrator of the blog the statistics of where their audience is based, and through which sites their blog is being accessed. Recently I have not uploaded any more reviews but was still getting views, out of confusion I checked the referral sites; most were Yahoo images or Google images, which meant my photographs, were ‘free-for-all’. Although I was unaware people were taking my photos, the views for my ‘My Chemical Romance’ review are going up, meaning some of the people viewing the pictures were also reading my review, which in turn is beneficial for me.
I agree with what Doctorow said in his article: “Culture's old. It's older than copyright.” Culture needs to be shared in order for personality to prevail; otherwise the world would be monotonous. With photographs of a celebrity I have, in my opinion, no right to complain when people take my images for their personal use. I do not own the celebrity, therefore what right do I have to complain about other people ‘stealing’ the image, when I have in fact not asked permission to ‘steal’ the image of the person in the first place.
The second instance of Copyright I have faced in recent months was when I had to ask permission to use the photographs of others. I was not aware for one event that we were able to take photos, therefore I had nothing to accompany my review: however one of my friends on Facebook, who also attended the event, took some photos. I simply sent her a message over Facebook asking her if I could use two of her images for my blog, she replied with yes. To show respect and appreciation I accredited her name at the bottom of the review. As she was a friend I did not come across any issues. For a bigger live event I had to contact a professional photographer, he replied by asking for an exchange. If he was able to use my review to accompany his photographs I could uses his photographs to go with my review. Unfortunately he was too late in replying so I ‘stole’ some photographs from the NIA Facebook page, but accredited their Facebook and official site at the bottom of the review in order to ‘cover my own back’. Nothing has come back about me using these images.
Being a lover of music I believe, in some cases, Music Copyright laws should be more lenient than they are, there is the opportunity for the music industry to gain masses of money through over-priced merchandise and concert tickets, not to mention CDs and legal downloads. People may steal a few tracks, but from this they may go on to buy gig tickets, and at that gig they may buy a t-shirt. Without that initial illegal act the music industry would not have profited half as much. I myself have spent excessively over £700 in a year on gig tickets and merchandise. Some of these bands I would not have listened to if it was not for the illegal downloads. I am not defending those who do this an unreasonable amount, such as those who never buy a CD in their lifetime, but for those who download a few tracks the penalty should not be as extreme.
YouTube is a website that enables people to create custom videos, cultural gems ready for the world to view. These have also been hit by the Copyright ‘police’. People who use an artists’ music to complement their video without the permission of the record company have had their videos taken down and in accordance to the YouTube 3 strike rule, 3 strikes and you are off the site. To me this is ridiculous the people who upload videos are not gaining money from what they produce but simply contributing to the culture that is YouTube. Paul Sawers in his article ‘The YouTube debate: why copyright shouldn’t kill the video star’ makes the point that that record company only bother with the most popular of videos, which just translates to petty jealousy that more people are viewing the viral sensation rather than the actual artist.
“Whether or not anyone’s actually bothered enough about your paltry 25 views to file a complaint is another matter altogether. But if you unintentionally create a monster YouTube hit that draws in the world’s curious eyes and ears, then you may be asked to remove the video.” (Sawers, 2010)
In the eyes of the Copyright ‘police’ I am not a law abiding citizen, but who is? It creates a significant amount of stress for something that causes very little harm in the grand scheme of things. Everyone has copied an image from Google images once in their life; meaning in these circumstances Copyright cannot be stopped and for something as little as an image from Google, who cares?
Doctorow, C (2008) Why I Copyfight? [WWW] Available from: http://www.locusmag.com/Features/2008/11/cory-doctorow-why-i-copyfight.html (Accessed 29/12/2010)
Sawers, P (2010) The YouTube debate: why copyright shouldn’t kill the video star [WWW] Available from: http://thenextweb.com/socialmedia/2010/12/24/the-youtube-debate-why-copyright-shouldn%E2%80%99t-kill-the-video-star/ (Accessed 29/12/2010)
Sawers, P (2010) The YouTube debate: why copyright shouldn’t kill the video star [WWW] Available from: http://thenextweb.com/socialmedia/2010/12/24/the-youtube-debate-why-copyright-shouldn%E2%80%99t-kill-the-video-star/ (Accessed 29/12/2010)
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