Copyright

Copyright is used on thousands of products. Copyright is given to the original creator of a product so that they make all the decision on how the product is used and they then can make any profit from it if it is used. It protects the product in a way as it shows who is the soul owner of the product.

Anything from music to films to plays can have copyright on it. I helps stop people taking ideas and using them as their own and making money from it and also gives someone ownership of something they have created.

Every day people create something that is then given copyright but also every day people breach copyright.

Piracy has become one of the main problems with copyright. People nowadays are not listening to the rules of breaching copyright and are illegally downloading products and sharing them through downloading websites and file sharing.

Even Cory Doctorow talks in his piece about how much people rely on media now and says, “Why does all this copyright reform stuff matter, anyway? What's at stake?” and his answer to that is – Everything.

In a workshop we split into two groups and had one group who were for copyright and one group who were against copyright. We then prepared for a debate that we were going to have in class. We researched all the information we could about copyright to make sure that we had good information to share in the debate and also use examples of things that have been copyrighted in the past.

Through preparing and having this debate it helped widen my knowledge of the way that copyright works and the difficulties it brings with piracy and the amount of people who illegally download these days. There have even been file sharing websites that have been made in different countries were it is not illegal to download different things so the owner cannot do anything about it.

If I am completely honest I am one to have downloaded music though downloading websites such as LimeWire and YouTube converters. I also know a lot of other people who use these sites and many other different ones.

Through doing this research we were also able to find out how long copyright on a product lasts for a the fines and things that people may have to pay for breaching copyright or having illegally downloaded things on their computers.

When organizing our debate (my group were for copyright) we looked into things such as piracy but also how copyright is meant to protect an artist or creators work.

When debating, a lot of good points were raised from both sides about being for copyright and against it. I don’t think there was one person in the room who hadn’t copyrighted in their life or who didn’t know someone who did it.

Through learning about copyright and the debate and doing all the research I have learnt a lot about the effects that breaching copyright can have and I have also learnt a lot about piracy which all in all has enabled me to learn a lot.

Why does all this copyright reform stuff matter, anyway? What's at stake?