Who Controls The Media: Copyright Law

Who controls and moniters the media? In my opinion, the media is primarily controlled and monitored by the public. However, a key amount of power comes from the ability for a normal person comes from the ability to utilize government protections like copyright and patents. In class, I presented about the differences between these as well as the different ways these can be abused. One of the questions I posed during class was "How long do you think a copyrighted piece should be able to stay copyrighted?" I believe that in the current world of copyright, the protections are less for the artist and the work and is instead for the market prospect of the work. While this is not necessarily a negative thing, it does change how we think about copyright. If we look at a copyright from an economic perspective, we see that a copyrighted material can keep making the creator money for as long as it is relevant. Therefore, if we look at it economically, a copyright should remain in effect for as long as the piece of media is relevant. However, in the case of pieces like Mickey Mouse, its relevancy has no end in sight. Therefore, I feel that the copyright should remain until the creator dies, and the piece no longer economically benefits them. This would be a change from the current copyright law of "Life plus 70" which I feel is vastly overblown.
 Another point that I brought up in my presentation that I would like to expand on was "Fair Use" on Youtube. Here is youtube's position on fair use on their website. It stresses the need for a work to be "Transformative" which can be a confusing term. In order for a video to become "Fair Use" it needs to embody something different than the original creation. This is why shows like Family Guy are able to get away with putting legally copyrighted characters into their shows - through satire.
All in all, the point I would like you to take away from this blog post is that the copyright laws in this country as of right now are not working. They are confusing and can sometimes infringe on people's basic human rights. They need to be changed to better suit both the people, and the creators.









Sources:

BALGANESH, S. (2018). COPYRIGHT AS MARKET PROSPECT. University Of Pennsylvania Law Review, 166(2).

Picozzi, B. (n.d.). What's Wrong with Intentionalism? Transformative Use, Copyright Law, and Authorship. Retrieved from                   https://www.yalelawjournal.org/note/whats-wrong-with-intentionalism-transformative-use-copyright-law-and-                         authorship

Ota, A. K. (1998, August 10). The Mouse That Roars. Retrieved from https://edition.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1998/08/10/cq/disney.html

Buccafusco, C. J., & Heald, P. J. (2012). Do Bad Things Happen When Works Enter the Public Domain?: Empirical Tests of Copyright Term Extension. SSRN Electronic Journal. doi:10.2139/ssrn.2130008

Seltzer, W. (2010, March 30). Free Speech Unmoored in Copyright's Safe Harbor: Chilling Effects of the DMCA on the First Amendment. Retrieved from https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1577785

Samuelson, P. (2015). Software patents are falling down. Communications of the ACM, 58(11). doi:10.1145/2822511