P#2 "Copyright Celebration!"

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EVOLVING COPYRIGHT LAWS

	According to the Berne copyright convention that was approved by almost
every country in the world, every created work becomes copyrighted the
moment it is in tangible form.    The ruling decided that facts and
ideas could not be copyrighted but instead copyrights would be reserved
for creative efforts.  In the United States the laws allows for a $2500
fine for copyright infringement as well as any damages.  Also, these
cases are tried in a civil court so the defendant is not ‹innocent until
proven guilty.ž
	All of this information above provided from the site
http://www.clari.net/brad/copyright.html 
appears to cover the basics of
copyrighting and what it does and does not protect.  So what is the
problem?  As we read in the ‹The Economy of Ideasž the problem is
two-fold.  First we must define what should and should not be
copyrighted and we must also decided how and to what degree we should
enforce copyright laws.  The interesting thing about copyrighting in my
opinion is how it has evolved.  I do not believe copyrighting material
has gotten harder as time has passed, for surely what could be harder
than putting your life in the line defending what you believe to be
yours, but has become more complicated.  When books were scarce
distribution of writings was easy to control.   Even later when books
were more common it was fairly easy to make sure that the owner of the
book, be it the author or a publishing house, controlled the vast
majority of  that books publishing‰s.  But as technology has progressed
control over copyrighted material had lessened and lessened.
	With more tangible things, such as cars, more traditional copyright
laws are still being used effectively.  While certainly new concepts and
novalizations have been illegally ‹sharedž between companies on many
instances, the basic idea of protecting the rights of the creators is
still pretty firm.  But as we learned in ‹The Economy of Ideasž,  this
does not hold as true with the less tangible world of the computer. 
Here it is not only harder to define what should or should not be
copyrighted, but also to protect that material once it is.  The first
paragraph maintains that ideas can not be copyrighted and that
copyrights only exist once something is in a tangible form.  Well, how
tangible is a web site or a computer disk or even just the information
brought up on a computer screen?  The article at the beginning talks
about a common problem on the internet is that most people believe that
almost all of the material they download is not protected and it is
theirs to do with as they will even though they could be violating the
creator‰s rights without even knowing it.
	The main issue in ‹The economy of ideaž is that while having all of
this information at our finger tips is great, we have to understand that
there must be compensation for the creator of that materials work. 
Perhaps in a perfect society a person would create simply to enrich the
world.  However, in our world creation is motivated by the understanding
that a reward will follow.  Without that motivation the creation process
ceases to work in most cases.  In our world today this is a very real
concern.  One of the first things I saw when I came to Tech was that
many of the people in my hall were playing a game that they had
downloaded onto their computers that had yet to even reach the stores! 
They of course did not pay for this game and I am certain that they have
no interest in buying the game once it comes out.  So what motivation do
the creators of the game have for creating a newer version of the game? 
Certainly less than if everyone who had the game on their computer paid
the creator for it.  
	The author of the article I found on the internet suggests that some
information has to be protected, while some information should be made
available to the public.  For instance, a movie should make available
clips for critics to use on their shows to comment on their opinion of
the movie even if the critic has a negative opinion.  Some things should
be the right of the people to see and learn about.   I  believe that the
only rules for people who have created material of their own is to do
with it as they please.  It is the government‰s job to protect that
right.  I found one source on copyrighting
(ftp://ftp.aimnet.com/pub/us
ers/carroll/law/copyright/faq/part1) on the
web that ironically had a copyright at the beginning.  However, this
copyright was an easy one to follow.  It only asked that the copyright
be included in any copies that were made of the writing.  This type of
copyright is not what is creating the problem.  Instead the problem lies
in the material that is being distributed either for a profit or at a
loss of profit for the creator.  Both are equally bad.
	So what about solutions?  The only reason copyrights are in existence
in most cases is so that the creator of a piece of work gets
compensated.  As long as we find a way to compensate these people there
will be no problem.  Perhaps it will become the governments job to
compensate these people rather than the consumer.  Treat these creators
as government employees that are doing a job for the gov‰t to better the
country.  Whatever.   The only other solution I can think of is to
either increase the prosecution of people who break the copyright laws
using the latest technology against them or increase the penalty of
copyrighting for those few people who are being caught.  Make the risk,
however small, not worth it.

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