In response to the Glitch Art and Copyright Videos
I was drawn towards the section on the issue of the copyright that Nick faced. He used what should be viewed as a public domain video source, for an educational video and gave credit to where the video came from and how it was published. A third party company then claimed copyright infringement on the video, since they had purchased the rights from another company or the original media producer, and forced youtube to put advertisements on Nick's video. Thus taking any revenue Nick had hoped to receive for his educational video and collecting for themselves. He then goes on to discuss how the original intent behind the copyright laws was to create a safe haven for new producers/writers in America, to publish work and other's culture to start the American Public Domain. This gave them 14 years before the work was put into the public domain for anyone to use. This has been reworked now to benefit corporations and other businesses, instead of the producers and public. This new reworking should be reversed. The public domain of America is now decreasing in size, with copyrights being held for many years after the artist passes away. I believe this issue needs to be brought to the main stage more often and changed to better benefit the American people.
It's true that copyright law in America is a mess of misunderstandings and over-simplifications, generally designed to benefit a for-profit corporate model. I agree that, as our culture becomes more and more literate of digital communication and the Information Age (still so young!) we will see more sensible regulation on private companies and their ability to benefit from their user's content. It's so important that producers and designers push back on private interests and engage actively in critique of these systems. Art is a dialogue, and copyright fears should not stop our conversations!
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