Assignment #2: Copyright.

                How do I feel about copyrighting? Obviously everyone knows that it is wrong and illegal, but that doesn’t change the fact that people do it all the time. Actually most of the time people don’t even realize that they are doing it. Every time you quote music lyrics on an Instagram post, or making a picture and putting a funny quote on it to get 1,000 retweets. Seems harmless right?

                When you look at it though is that any different from when you’re trying to writing a five page paper and running short so you do the easy “copy and paste” of a paragraph or two. You turn it in and hope that your teacher doesn’t notice. That is stealing, stealing someone’s hard work and playing it off as your own. That is against the law, as it should be. Since the Copyright Act was put in place in 1976, which gives exclusive rights to the author for what the right or create until 70 years after their death.

                To some people this Copyright Act is thought to hinder creativity and slows advancement in society. The act may be a little old, but nonetheless it is still in place and needs to be followed. Any author has the right to their work and no one else should, the author should get the profits and compliments of their own work. The only time that others should be able to use work that is not their own is when the get permission from the actual author. This is where copyleft comes in, which is where someone gets permission to use a piece of work that is not their own and are legally bound to the author and cannot change the work without the permission of the author.

                When someone is creating a funny picture for twitter I do not think that they think they are doing any harm. I do not think it is necessary a bad thing that people do this, but it is wrong. I don’t think that things as simple as pictures should cause problems, and I don’t think that people will stop making things like these. It is just a part of culture and society now.

                There is an extent of copyright that should never be acceptable. When you are ripping someone’s work off, there should be actions taken to make sure that copyrighting to big extents no longer happens. But I do not think that little things like pictures should cause a big ruckus if they are not used to extent and to promote another individual. Copyright laws are in place to help authors, whether people like it or not they are essential to society.