I believe US copyright law (other countries too), is too restrictive and strict. Copyright laws were created for a good purpose-but like many other laws, as stated in other threads, they have unintended consequences. Without copyright laws, we would probably have 20 bands called Led Zeppelin (insert other artist or band), and people would plagiarize and make money off of each others ideas and laws wouldnt prevent that. Obviously copyright laws in and of themselves arent a bad idea-if some new author called his book Harry Potter and published his works, it wouldnt be right for him to borrow the idea of another person without their permission. Copyright laws make file sharing of music and copyrighted movies a crime-in order to protect the sales of the artist. But because of the wording of the laws (copyright laws say you need permission or a licence to distribute and show the works of others), things as innocuous as publishing a wedding video with some background music (even if it isnt the focus of the video and probably didnt cause the artist to lose sales at all) without a liscence have gotten people sued. I've heard stories on the news about it. Certain things dont have any real harmful effect on the copyright owner (like background music in a video of a party or wedding) but because of the laws intense focus on licensing rights with regards to copyright-they have lead to people being sued or having Youtube videos taken down over things that wouldnt affect the copyright owner negatively and thus in my opinion shouldnt be illegal. Im sure there are other examples of the strictness of copyright laws, but I just gave one I could think of. Just use common sense. Why should a person be guilty for a crime just because they dont have a licence to show some music thats in the background and isnt even the focus of the video? The artists isnt even losing sales from something like that-it should just fall under fair use. The fact that liscences are needed to make copyrighted background music in a video legal doesnt seem neccesry either-since those liscences dont give the artists money for it. I could understand why copyright laws make it illegal to upload a song from a popular arist on youtube without a liscence or giving music to the artists (which is why Youtube removes songs often and singers have rights with VEVO)-but something as non commercial and harmless as background music has been made a crime under current copyright laws. Which is why I think copyright laws are too restrictive and should be more lenient in certain situations. There is compelling interest for much of what copyright law makes illegal-but not all of it. A person shouldnt need permission to do something as harmless as putting wedding photos on facebook for their friends and family to see. That is probably almost never enforced and probably very few people who break that copyright law get in legal trouble, but the fact that its illegal doesnt make a whole lot of sense. Copyright owners have probably sued in situations like photography rights, but thats only because theyre taking advantage of a law that exists and allows them to make money off of copyright violations-without those laws, I highly doubt a photographer would be annoyed at people showing their works without a liscence (but I understand why its illegal to make copies in that situation under copyright laws-it would cause the photographer to lose money.)
Laws can have unintended consequences, or can be applied in abusive or inappropriate ways, especially when the law uses vague language that could be openly interpreted. In fact, there are so many laws now, a huge number of ordinary people, really anyone, could be construed to have violated some law unknowingly. What is especially disturbing is that now, in many cases, you do not even have to buy or sell something to have broken one of these laws. The system is making a mockery out of the rule of law concept.
Do you think the copyright legal situations I mentioned (like making it a crime to show the "heart" of a song in the background of a video without a licence) are the result of vague language that could be openly interpreted? It's hard to say if lawmakers intentionally wanted to make those situations illegal, or if it was the result of one law leading to another.
Politicians do not think very hard before they pass new laws. The devil is in the details, or rather how words could be construed (or also how delegated discretionary power could potentially be used, but that's another topic). Sometimes the committee drafting the law intentionally tries to make the words as open-ended as possible to prevent violators from finding any legal loop-holes. It gives the government more power, because the wording is so ambiguous, the prosecutor has a huge amount of discretion. Sometimes this is done on purpose. Politicians often do not think about how the laws they are passing could be used. I would even say that drafting committees and lobbyists sometimes try to trick politicians into passing laws that will do something the politicians did not intend to do. There are several examples where this has actually happened (but again, that's a different topic). Many laws are so lengthy, and have so much fine print, that it is nearly impossible for the politicians themselves to fully understand what they are even voting for. Very often a law will use confusing language, and make cross references to multiple other laws, so what the law actually says is entirely dependent on what multiple other laws say.
I'm not convinced there is a general problem with the law itself. There are fair use exceptions after all but the difficulty is working out where to draw the line. You're talking about moving that line but there'd still be a massive grey area which lots of nominally innocent people would fall in to. I question how many cases have been brought against normal people distributing material among friends. It when material is published to a wider audience that it attracts attention. I also question how many of those cases are/can be actually won by the copyright holders. I'd suggest the bigger issue here is the cost and complexity of the civil court proceedings. If an individual could feel confident of defending a spurious case brought by a large corporation without excessive cost or effort, fewer such cases would be threatened.
I agree with you, at least partly. How the law is administered is at least as important as what the law actually states. You can have the best of laws, but will still result in injustice if the court system is bad (if judges are negligent or prosecutors are unethical or vindictive). However, the law is written is also important, it's really not just one or the other. Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. You give too much discretionary power to a government official, without adequate checks and balances, and there will be occasions where it is abused. There is a strong incentive for police investigators to want to find something, and for prosecutors to win cases. Doesn't matter. People can spend 11 months in jail before their trial ever even starts. Many defendants are just intimidated into entering into a plea agreement, if the potential sentence is very high. If they did, in fact, do something that may have technically been against the law, all the more reason to feel pressured into it. You are making the assumption that the court system dispenses justice and uses common sense. That is not always the case, unfortunately.
My only problem with copyright laws is the extreme length of time it can be awarded. It should be life of the artist + 20 years. That gives the artist and his family time to benefit. Currently, everything written/produced since about 1923 (unless not renewed by copyright owners) is still under copyright.
One trick unscrupulous prosecutors have used to get an indictment is to leave out the inconvenient little fair use exception, which might not even be listed in the same section of the law. No one on the grand jury is going to bother looking up what the actual law means, as fully expressed in multiple different places. And the prosecutor can claim plausible deniability later if any problems arise later. But they probably won't, because the entire grand jury proceedings are conducted in secret, the defendant is not allowed to be there.
True. We've not established that there is anything wrong with the law(s) as written yet. I've not given them any power yet. I'm still trying to establish whether there is a real problem here. Again a general legal system issue. Has this ever happened to a small-scale copyright defendant though?
I think they are too long in some case, 40 years is plenty for any copyright or patent - - - Updated - - - I would even go for that, but what to we do when a corp owns it, use the average life expectancy of a human?
