Copyright

The arguments over copyright infringement and protecting the rights of authors vs. public domain has been a long standing debate that is still making headlines today. The most recent mass media frenzy that made headlines for months was of course Napster and their run in with Metallica. As the Internet emerged as an source of downloading music, it cough the attention of the music industry and the big names that rely on the record sales to promote their business. Makes sense, but record sales in retrospect really weren't effected. In a study to compare the effect of record sales and music downloads it was found that "We match 0.01% of the world’s downloads to U.S. sales data for a large number of albums. To establish causality, we instrument for downloads using data on international school holidays and technical features related to file sharing. Downloads have an effect on sales which is statistically indistinguishable from zero."(Oberholzer-Gee, Strumpf, 1); the distribution of the music may have actually have been viewed as a promotional tool. What this topic boils down to... who decides what they can or can't do with something you have created?

This is the debate around copyright. Granted if you have a brilliant idea and someone takes that idea and capitalizes on it, wouldn't you feel robbed? What if you wanted to keep it a secret, even if it served the greater good of the public, and someone took your idea and benefited the world? Is stealing it right then?

According to the law it is, to an extent. Works that are not protected under the copyright law include "works in which the copyright has expired, some government created works, things expressly put in the public domain, and may include any "idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work" ((17 USC § 102b) Ovalle, 3).

Other works that do not fall in this category are protected depending on when it was created, available for renewal, etc.

I think that the fine line between what is public and what is private actually boils down to the creators intent and what they have in mind to do with whatever it is that they create. The only exemptions would apply to the government and medical/scientific fields that would aid in the advancement or survival of the overall human race. That is just my opinion. If you create it-it's yours and I think there should only be a few exemptions. "Fair use is codified in Title 17 Chapter 1 § 107.Fair use is an important exemption to a copyright holder's rights. Any use for "purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research is not an infringement of copyright"(Ovalle, 6).

Now believe me, I like a free download just like the next guy and believe that the Utopian society would be a shared economy (really though- it can't work, people will only take advantage and capitalize on each other); you have to draw the line somewhere.

Ways to enforce and protect copyright infringement on the Internet are in place, but constantly face problems due to the various ways to create intellectual property that is really easy. Also there are limitless ways to download use, alter and change that property. It is difficult to regulate with all of these variables, but the rules still apply and it is still illegal to download or use copyrighted and protected material.