WK1 Reading: Copyright Issues

As a musician, I have always heard about copyright laws. As a chorus teacher, I have always had to be careful about copying music for my chorus. I have many composer friends who stress how important it is for their livelihood that their music is not copied and distributed illegally. If you had asked me last week what I think about copyright laws, I would have simply said that they are important to protect the rights of the creator. Today, copyright is to me is large and involves so many issues that it should not be seen as black or white, right or wrong, there are many gray areas.

Each side of the copyright issue has valid points. We also have to consider other cultures and what copyright means to them. This was said best by Dr. Lawrence Ferrara director of music at NYU in the video “Good Copy / Bad Copy” when he said: “Creativity itself is here on the line, and striking a balance between protecting the rights of those who own intellectual property with the right and the rights of generations of future young and old people to create, is on the line.”

Fair use as it relates to copyright is very interesting. The video with all the Disney clips shows how complicated the issue really is. At first I felt that it was wrong to use those clips to present a different message than what it was intended for, but I also wanted to applaud the genius and creativity behind creating a video in this way to teach a lesson on copyright.

Going forward, I don’t believe the current copyright laws will be able to stand unless they are revamped. This subject is too big to fit in the box that copyright legislators are trying to squeeze it into.