Introduction
The primary objective of a copyright law is to protect the ideas, time and imaginations of the producer of a particular work including the effort contributed towards the individual work. The owner of the concrete work is assured of individual rights such as:
Produce other works established on the original work
Duplicate or imitate his or her work
Circulate original copies and any other copies through sale or charter
Live performances of the work in public
Public exhibition of the work
The owner of the work can assign individuals to accomplish any of the rights provided by the law. If the copyright owner decides to transfer the exclusive rights, he is free to do so as well. Since the transfer forms are not available in the copyright office, contracts have been considered as a kind of copyright transfer. However, one must have a legal transaction record even though there are no legal requirements to file with the Copyright Office. In some cases, a writer, performer, or an artist may be an employee of an organization where he or she may create a work for the company. In such a situation, the person behind the idea who, in this case, is the employee would not be the copyright owner. The copyright would be given to the employer or the individual who assigned the work since it would be "work made for hire". Such when an independent contractor is called upon to create a particular work and the same can apply to an employee. For example, employees that write articles for a daily paper company, the creator would not be given ownership of the copyright but the company.
There have been allegations that copyright ends creativity. However, this is not true, and a better environment for creativity is the one, which all individuals involved, are compensated. Perhaps this is the reason why there has been the most creative music in the entire music history especially after defining statuses of clearance samples during the early nineties. In fact, it is believed that the creativity in music has been achieved through the legal creation of a policy that is fair and balanced. Over the years, a system used to grant radio stations and photographs copyrights has evolved to acknowledge that individual artists need to be compensated as their right, and in the long term has brought enormous benefits to the stakeholders too. Producers and general artists have the right to identify the way in which their original work will be used and distributed to the public. This would bring new creativity and open ways to new opportunities and ideas. Most of the times and in many cases the major film and movie producers have used a song from a well-known artist in their work. The songs in most cases are iconic songs that are still valued by the public or a current hit song. In both cases, the production company as the best and obvious choice for the motion picture cannot solely use the songs. The producers of the film must first consult the song makers, the writers, and the recording performers so that the song can be approved for use. Upon approval for the use, the owners of the song including their representatives if present would develop the terms and conditions in which the song shall be utilized. The fee for the use of the song may be negotiated if applicable.
Original expressions that are presented in a tangible form are protected by copyright. These include broadcasts of events of sports, video games, and sound recordings books among others. This means that the authors and creators of these works are given the exclusive right to authorize the uses of their original productions including the ability to generate new works from the original. The protection lasting for the owner's entire lifetime and additional years even gives the owner more authority in his her work. The science of reasoning behind this statement is direct. Copyright grants creators with restricted rights in their works. These rights create a market for bestselling, and successful creators of function without the authors seeking support from either the government or private sector and in turn provide them with financial rewards. As the protection becomes greater, the compensation also increases. Greater rewards propel an individual to develop new ideas, create new works, and eventually produce more numbers of works. Financial gains for authors increase their interests of creating new works of writing hence promoting creativity.
Some laws may expand protection of copyright to new productions and publications together with giving authors new rights. New penalties may also be considered against those who may violate the works of the artists. Creators are more likely to be influenced by these laws. These laws increase markets and opportunities that copyright owners may exploit during the lifetime of the work. This means that when the length of copyright is increased, the author may benefit for a longer period from the revenue earned from the work sold. This would encourage the author to produce some revenue streams to benefit more from the existing market. Similarly, changes that may be made to the current policy concerning violation of an individual's work, for example, increasing the jail time for criminal violation relieve the authors of doubt that their income is guaranteed. This would encourage authors to write more articles. The desire to sell more and to a wider market would force them to be more creative in their ideas, methods of writing and distribution to reach a more people and obtain more financial rewards.
As much as copyright may contribute to creativity and development, it does not enhance culture in any way. Individuals may decide to protect their cultural content through copyright that may limit their use. An attempt by Canada to protect its cultural content over the years is a good example in this case. The country had decided to protect anything that would have contributed to its cultural diversity such as books, television, music and motion pictures from being ruled by creations from a larger nation like the U.S. In fact, it went further to request that the playlists of Canadian radio stations should have thirty-five percent of songs created by the artist from Canada alone. In addition, CTV and Global, which are among the private television broadcasters, were to spend a third of their total income on Canadian programming as a requirement from the state. Such demands do not promote culture in any way. The truth is that a Canadian citizen at such time will be limited to diverse music, art, and programs from the culture of other states. The copyright would only be promoting one culture in a given environment.
The Internet, on the other hand, has changed the general look, reach, and distribution of culture. Social web platforms such as Facebook and YouTube has aided in such transformations. Using the same country, Canada as an example, Justin Bieber, who is a Canadian artist, has had a global population of more than 55 million watching his songs on YouTube. As a successful artist, many companies would like to use his songs to promote their products but due to copyright issues, they may not be approved of using it. Organizations and enterprises have figured out ways of promoting their products against copyright laws with YouTube sites making money by running ads in the video and providing links that direct viewers to other products to buy the particular commodity. This erodes culture since the artist’s song may be used to direct viewers to sites that do not promote the culture that the artist would want to be portrayed in his songs. This means that if the law that protects the way in which consumers utilize Canadian cultural industries does not come up with the right balance, the country may jeopardize their culture.
In addition, copyright does not enhance culture in some ways. New articles that are available for sale are no longer being published, and they are unavailable in stock. New books from the Amazon Warehouse shown by decade explain this statement in a better perspective. Many works went missing between the period 1940 and 1970 with many works that were no longer available to purchase in that major gap. The same happened to Europe too. In the late year 2014, a member of the European Parliament from the Pirate Party gave talked about the state that the copyright law had presented by then that included the same analysis concerning available books in Europe. In general, it appeared that during the middle 20th Century, books available for sale were way below the average level. The major issue is that the policy makers do not see the bigger number of missing works as a significant problem that requires attention. The lost works is a significant loss to the society and the public but can be avoided by making a few changes to the law. This means that the societies in the future will not be able to read works that are depicted in the centuries and understand the culture of the past. Some of the changes that can help avoid this loss may require the copyright holder to re-register his or her work with time.
People can say that the copyright law exists in theory, which means that an artist's work can enter the public domain. Some situations, no productions may be entering the public sphere, which makes the imaginative argument for copyright to disappear. Big corporations owning content have many copyrights that they may decline to give licenses to artists that may want to be independent or charge higher rates for so. This results in a society that is controlled by few corporate businesses that are remixing and reusing the culture of the past and discouraging the culture of the present. In the long-term, the future will have limited recourses and works based on the present culture thus not promoting culture.
Conclusion
References
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