Good Copy Bad Copy

One of the big topics when watching Good Copy, Bad Copy is of course, copyright law. This video shows the pros and cons of all of this. The problems that we face with copyright law, especially now as a new technology age is advancing, is how far is too far. When artists recreate music using other artist's original music, is this testing the limits of copyright? There is an ongoing debate of what's right and what's wrong.

The first time I watched this film was for my Writing, Editing, and Print Online class. We watched and discussed the issues that it faces. A common person through the film is called Girl Talk. Girl Talk is known for remixing other artist's music and making it his own. Although Girl Talk creates a completely new song out of "used" music, do they still own the rights to the song? That is the question in play throughout the film. At 0:25, Girl Talk says that any music made into art is legit and deserves to be heard.

At around 6:45 it states that the law isn't concerned with insignificant offenses. So does that mean remixing can be categorized under a "insignificant offense." This is troubling because it seems that whatever determines to be an insignificant offense is up to the judge. The film then goes on to say if you sample, you must license. But this also contradicts with the original thought of insignificant offenses.

At around 23 minutes, Lawrence Lessig says that people should be able to reuse creative property. He says that people reuse hi books all the time, and that he doesn't see a problem with the reuse of property, as long as you are not blatantly copying someone's original work. I agree with this because I think remixing can be considered changing someone's original work. For the most part, the new artist adds a new beat and different sound effects to give it a new effect.

These few moments throughout the film have helped shaped my idea of copyright law. I believe both sides of the argument were presented well, but overall I think the ideas were great. I agree with the ideas of original work and recreating things to make them your own. This has helped me in my discoveries of textuality by understanding both sides.

-- Haley Bryant --