Copyright law. The idea that has something good in it, and something bad in it. The bad side is that most media companies abuse it in order to gain profits. The good side is that it protects creators from copying their works. For example, if I took a photo of a valley, I have the rights to that photo. Nobody can copy it, and pass it as it’s own.
The idea of a copyright law saw the light of day in 1710. The Statute of Anne made it so that the author of the work has the copyright, and it’s now legally his work. But it applied only to published works, so unpublished works were public domain. 80 years later, The Statute of Anne was added to the federal law of the United States. However, until 1886, copyright law wasn’t yet coordinated at an international level. Berne Convention, that was signed in 1886 made it so that copyright law was recognized worldwide. It also extended the copyright to unpublished works.
Although the copyright’s purpose is to protect the author, it can be also broken. Piracy for example, is the one way to copy the work without asking the author. (Not to be confused with the piracy with ships, swords, and rum.) Piracy had been existing in the analog age, so it’s not so new invention. Many people at the time, had been recording songs that were playing on the radio, and shows and movies that had been on tv. Piracy had been existing also in the age of books, and even before the printing press was invented, some priests and monks copied books by hand. Many of you also know about the modern form of piracy, the digital piracy. Some of you might think that SWAT teams may raid your house if you go pirating, but cops don’t usually care. Just like in the times of prohibition in 1920s.
Piracy has also a good purpose at preserving the old movies and shows. You could watch some older films that aren’t available in any streaming service. Piracy can be also used for watching content that isn’t available in your country. It can be used to bypass region-locking. Piracy has also the risk of viruses, lawsuits and jail sentences, but the risk of getting caught is almost non-existent. Just get an antivirus software if you’re afraid of viruses, and go downloading on legit websites. Piracy is illegal, sure, but it’s not that bad crime like murder or bank robbery.
The whole purpose of the copyright is to protect the creator. But copyright law has been abused by large media corporations afraid of losing their cash. There had been some cases where fan works were destroyed by large media companies. Disney, Nintendo, and Moomin Characters ltd, are most infamous companies, liking to smash the creators of fan works. Nintendo had been taking down many fan games, and emulation sites. SEGA in the other hand, like fan games, and even called many creators of the fan games on making a new Sonic game. Emulation is a good thing, because it’s the only way of preserving old video games. The technology of the old video game consoles had been deteriorating gradually, and most of the new tvs don’t have old connector ports. Also the game cartridges and discs had also been deteriorating. Without emulation, how will you play old video games? Nintendo has it’s own emulation, but it’s services are crappy. They used to have virtual console, but it was removed later, and replaced by a subscription-model. The worst thing is, that N64 and Genesis emulators cost annually 50 dollars more! The emulator that Nintendo uses, is quite slow. Gabe Newell stated: ”The easiest way of stopping piracy is not putting antipiracy technology to work. It’s by giving those people a service that’s better than what they’re receiving from the pirates.” and ”Piracy is almost always a service problem.”. Those both statements are true. Let me explain.
Speaking of which, most people pirate because most legit services have bad services. The price for most streaming services had been rising drastically. Netflix used to cost 7 euros per month in Finland, and you could’ve shared your passwords. But now, password sharing is gone. If you want to get an account more people could use, it costs 16 euros per month. In the North America, the premium costs 20 dollars per month. The basic version only includes lower quality and resolution. This is one of the reasons why Netflix is falling. Of course, Netflix isn’t the only streaming service available, also other streaming services are making their services worse. More streaming services are putting ads in their services. Paying for watching ads is pretty stupid in my opinion. That’s why I don’t go to movie theaters.
Let’s move on to fan works and remixes. Probably most of you have heard about YTP and it’s Finnish counterpart STP. (YouTubePoop and SinäTuubaPaska) The videos are mostly edited parodies of some movies, tv shows or videos. Most of them are pretty hilarious. Most of the owners of their copyrights aren’t so fond of them, and usually take them down on Youtube. Especially video parodies of Moomins aren’t safe. Moomin Characters LTD went on a banning spree, and took some videos down. Luckily the situation had been calming down, and all of them are safe. A Moomin fan game about the Groke called Groke Game, was taken down. A new version of the game was released, but it had no Groke, and it’s lacks the atmosphere. The atmosphere made the game better.
Most of you may remember the Article 13 scandal. Internet memes and Youtube were on danger. EU was on a verge of banning memes, because they thought memes violated copyrights. People were so angry and scared, that the law never made it. Many Youtubers at the time were scared and angry, and made a lot of videos about it. Luckily it never passed, since memes are one things that make internet worth it. Memes are a crucial part of internet culture. I wanted to mention the whole scandal, because it was about copyrights.
A picture of Internet Archive servers.
Internet Archive is the largest digital archive, where there are whopping 800 billion web pages and over 45 Petabytes of data! Oh my. Internet Archive is the safehaven for many lost media that is recovered. A lot of books, movies, concerts, audio, tv shows, images, etc. It’s truly the greatest thing that people on the internet have made. There’s only a problem. Internet Archive is being sued by large American publishers for a possible copyright infringement. Internet Archive was lending multiple copies of the digital book at once from the National Emergency Library. There were 127 books in the collection, which were owned by the 4 publishers. The Internet Archive say the National Emergency Library is under fair use doctrine, while publishers said that the act was massive copyright infringement.
Digital libraries and libraries in general are very important, since they preserve a lot of data, and a lot of media. They need to be protected, in order to keep the old data and media secure. When Internet Archive turned 25 years old, they launched Wayforward Machine as a birthday gift. Wayforward Machine told a dark and dystopian future, where large media corporations rule the world, and the Internet is almost like what Orwell wrote in his well-known book. It would all start at repealing of Section 230, and it would all go downhill from there. The information is restricted and not trustworthy in that dystopian future. Section 230 is an act passed by the US congress, which says that internet platforms hosting third-party content are not liable for what those third parties post. The act has some exceptions, which you can read about more here: https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/LSB10306.pdf
In terms of music, people should have the right to use music more freely. In Finland, there is this law that taxi drivers can’t play music in taxis without a permit. This needs to be changed. In online videos, the creator of the video should be allowed to use music that’s under a copyright, but the creator must tell who made the song.
In conclusion, copyright system needs to be reformed to a more freer version. Authors must have more freedom to decide what people could do with their works, and not large corporations. The current copyright protection model of creator’s life and 70 years should be shortened to creator’s life and 10 years. Shorter copyright time encourages new ideas, and innovation. Many large film studios like monetizing nostalgia, and rarely create new ideas. Disney creates new movies sure, but the people don’t usually like the newer films. They are usually mediocre. Some other animation studios like Dreamworks create better animated movies. For example, Disney’s Strange World got 5.6 on IMDB, but Puss in Boots 2 got 7.9. Althrough Dreamworks used the same IP, but they put some more effort, ideas and good lore into that movie. Disney just copies the same thing over and over again.
Sources: https://www.iprightsoffice.org/copyright_history/ https://time.com/6266147/internet-archive-copyright-infringement-books-lawsuit/
From the eyes of Eltskale 
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