Blake's+Page+Fall+2016

Blake Staley's page Fall 2016

__**Week 1 Homework**__

Modern copyright culture often borders on absurd due to the nature of copyright claims and bullying creators in new media. However, if this system were properly used by entities with copyrighted material, they would have legitimate claims that they are protecting creators of the present and future. The comic details the struggle between fair use and legitimate copyright claims, but it presents this as if the two sides are on a level playing field, even though I would argue they are not. The ludicrous standards that some companies have about the use of their material in art hurt their argument that they are trying to help creators. This is because smaller creators do not have the resources to fight these absurd copyright claims.

One of the main concerns of the pro-fair use and accidental use crowd is that a piece of work could be taken down due to a song being in it. This is where I think the other side loses a lot of ground in the debate. If it’s clear that someone only uploads a video of your song with the intent to distribute it and make money, then claiming the work is fair. However, if a creator intends to show something on the street and there happens to be music, it’s ridiculous to say it infringes copyright (just as it was discussed in the comic). Again, the abuse by large corporations trying to claim this material hurts the argument that they’re helping the smaller creators. Some websites like Youtube have fairly progressive rules; such as if your video has 15 seconds or more of a copyrighted song, but before that it’s considered fair use or accidental use.

In terms of video content, the rise of the Internet in the past decade has shown that anyone can become an artist at the click of a button, which has opened the floodgates of copyrighted material appearing on the Internet. As I stated earlier, it is legitimate to take down a video or podcast if it reuploads the artist’s work without criticism or different context in which it appears. On the other hand, the anecdote about the Simpsons from the comic strip certainly does not fall into this context. In a timelier example, many creators on Youtube got their videos taken down if they had an image of the Olympic Rings in their video, much less actual video of an event. Why is even showing the symbol or a quick clip can get content off a site? This clearly is not protecting the rights of smaller creators as with the Simpsons example. It’s actually hurting any type of creativity that could stem from a criticism or parody from the event. Even if you concede that this protects the content of NBC, there’s no way to argue that it’s protecting smaller creators. These large corporations threatening to sue smaller creators often isn’t even worth the little guy’s time or money because the corporation could crush them. This type of bullying harms creativity and is bad for artists.

__**Week 2 Homework**__

__**Surrealism Project**__


 * Progress**




 * Final**