Copyright Laws
Copyright law is very important in our world. It prevents people from stealing things that we don’t want them to have.
What is copyright? Copyright law means that something someone has made or produced (music, buildings, plans, etc.) belongs to them. If you want to use it in a movie, commercial, TV show, etc…you have to get permission from the owner to use it. If you claim something to be yours but it isn’t, the owner could sue you. There is also a large fine for downloading music or videos off of the internet.
Why do we have a copyright law? If there was no such thing as copyright law in a country, industries such as record labels and software companies that produce intellectual property would probably go out of business. If there was no copyright and no way of protecting their productions, everyone would steal it and the company wouldn’t make any money. Without money the company would shut down.
Some advantages/disadvantages of copyright law: Some advantages of copyright law for the creators would be they would make more money and they don’t have to worry about people taking their productions. Some disadvantages for the creators would be everything has to be licensed even if they don’t want it to be. Some advantages of copyright law for the users would be it would encourage more people to get into the music business. Some disadvantages for the users are they can’t take things without permission, and they could get sued.
“Creative Commons”: The Creative Commons enables copyright holders to grant some of their rights to the public while retaining others through a variety of licensing and contract schemes including dedication to the public domain or open content licensing terms. The intention is to avoid the problems current copyright laws create for the sharing of information.
