Good Copy Bad Copy

This documentary was incredibly interesting as it not only focused on the legal issues that have cropped up in America, but how Copyright has been interpreted around the world. At first I was finding it difficult to remain neutral (remember that I have to be unbiased to create my Theory) and not immediately take the sides of the pirates, but the documentary itself did a good job of not taking sides - the fascinating thing was that I found myself starting to see what the "corporations" were saying. I still don't completely agree but some of the points they were articulating made sense.

One distinction the documentary made was the difference between sampling (taking bits of music and using those bits in other songs) and piracy (file-sharing). There is no arguing against it, piracy is illegal. In regards to the Grey Tuesday event that was organized in support of the Grey Album, Jonathan Zittrain, professor of Internet law at Harvard Law School, comments that, "As a matter of pure legal doctrine, the Grey Tuesday protest is breaking the law, end of story. But copyright law was written with a particular form of industry in mind. The flourishing of information technology gives amateurs and homerecording artists powerful tools to build and share interesting, transformative, and socially valuable art drawn from pieces of popular cultures. There's no place to plug such an important cultural sea change into the current legal regime." (Rimmer, Matthew, "Digital Copyright and the Consumer Revolution")

I found myself thinking, "Yes, piracy, on a legal level, is wrong - but in my opinion, sampling is all good." Those who sample have come under the criticism that the method is uncreative. I feel this is wrong, but then again, I have to remain neutral.

The primary question those being interviewed were asking was how should businesses approach the copyright (protection) and distribution (exposure) of intellectual property? The old model of doing so does not work due to the growth of the internet as a powerful force for the spread of information. The filmmakers don't really provide answers to this question, but I suppose that wasn't really the point of the film. In any case, it was fun to watch and very informative of the issue.