Good copy bad copy (insert punny subtitle here)

#1

(Good Copy Bad Copy, 7:28) “If you sample. You license. Period.” The movement of sampling in 90s hip hop brought up the idea of intellectual property ownership in music because it was the inception of taking music that had already been created, and originally developing something with previous tracks overlaid. There was originality, but within a broader context of music that was

This seems to eliminate the consideration for the degree to which music bears similarity. A point was made by Girl Talk about the fact that people can take the same chord progression and bear the same amount of similarity as a remix but don’t have to worry about legal issues, often because the music was not directly ripped from a recording and was played originally form another instrument by another person and recorded. This does draw some complications in itself, because there have been lawsuits filed for a song having a likeness to the degree that it constitutes “copying”. Most recently, Marvin Gaye’s children recently won a suit against Robin Thicke for copying “Got to Give it Up” on “Blurred Lines”. Some would say that the closeness would constitute sampling. Because of this, copyright law is not necessarily biased towards mixing, but because mixing directly rips form the recording, the entire nature o a remix is predicated upon the likeness of sound from an original track.

(Good Copy Bad Copy, 35:00) If the record companies try to continue in the same business model, it will only slow the development. No matter where a peer-to-peer service is shut down, it will open somewhere else. The people have a problem with paying corporations and won’t hesitate to share files over the internet.

The matter at hand is whether intellectual property is legitimate, and if so, that it follows specific guidelines, whether those are guidelines based on precedent such as material property law, or otherwise, based on conclusions made with consideration to differences in circumstance such as the digital medium. Advocates of strict copyright law concede to the fact that the internet makes it impossible at this point to practically cover all activity, not only because of the sheer volume, but the fact that the activity crosses different countries with different copyright laws.

(Good Copy Bad Copy, 14:00) We recognize we can’t ever stop piracy, and so the accepted solution is to get people in trouble in a sort of scare tactic to minimize file sharing. Producers estimate about $6 bln lost each year because of peer-to-peer file sharing.

Advocates are focused on the proliferation of the creativity associated with mixing music while those against the unlicensed mixing cite not only the precedence of copyright’s limitations in the context of owning what an individual created. Even so, people are both for the proliferation of creativity while also advocating limitation in order to allow that mixing of music, but in a minimal way. 

#2

By having a commons culture, as proposed by Ridolfo and Rife, the commons culture would primarily serve to help the people who have creative work that is either already made and can then be distributed legally for entertainment, a well as opening the cannel for those who would otherwise be inhibited to produce because of copyright law. There are several principles that Ridolfo and Rife cite in opposition to this creative common culture. The “appropriation of images and bodies” (Ridolfo&Rife, 230) is important to identify according to Rife and Ridolfo because it’s so difficult to define the ownership aspect. Legally speaking, the image and likeness of somebody would be considered the property, therefore Maggie would have had to approve the use of an image depicting her, especially or the purposes of promoting something. This would be of primary concern because it most directly involves an individual and negative implications that can sprout form unconsented use of their image and likeness. Additionally, free speech and right to privacy directly concern the individual in concern of defense. The reasonable expectation of privacy is the general rule of thumb here, being that if the person has a reasonable expectation that where they are should be considered private, they cannot be filmed, photographed, etc. Overall, the primary concern is one of maximizing the proliferation of creativity, while minimizing intrusion that would inhibit that creativity.

Citations

1.     Ridolfo, Jim, and Martine Courant Rife. “Rhetorical Velocity and Copyright: A Case Study on Strategies of Rhetorical Delivery.” Copy(write): Intellectual Property in the Writing Classroom. Ed. Martine Courant Rife, Shaun Slattery, and Danielle Nicole De Voss. Fort Collins, CO: WAC Clearinghouse and Parlor, P, 2011. Web. http://wac.colostate.edu/books/copywrite/.

2.      Good Copy Bad Copy: A Documentary about the Curent State of Copyright and Culture. Dir. Andreas Johnsen, Ralk Christensen, and Henrik Moltke. 2007. Web. http://wwwgoocopybadcopy.net/.