Copyright laws were first introduced by Queen Anne in 1710 . It basically guaranteed an author or composer rights to their creation for a minimum of 28 years. A great deal has changed since then. Although it still follows the template of the original legislation, it has morphed into a whole new game plan aided by legal scholars acting on behalf of corporations and the like. It behoves me to wonder why ” The copyright act ” of 1710 was not copyrighted ? When George Lucas, Miss Rowling and other creative minds allow their work to be pimped by corporations for their life times and posthumously indefinitely, we wonder does that not stifle creativity? There is so much young talent out there who inspired by their genius could layer on so much new stories to keep generations of readers and movie goers captive for generations to come. Is this fair to their fans whose loyalties have made them into billionaires? As well as the spin off franchises from merchandise. Altogether driving profits for fat Kat corporations like Disney and Fox.
Although the legislation has been successful in protecting creativity , did we really need it to become so extreme? Why does profit always have the controlling say? Our talents can live on in works of literature ,movies and recordings . Transferring on to different media as it is updated trough invention. Those who create are not so fortunate however . That is to say unless they have the foresight and wish to cheat death like Mr Walt Disney . Preserving themselves in a cryogenic state only to be re animated at a later date when technology makes this possible. May I be so outward to say who would copyright that? Is this why the amount of years hold has changed since 1710 from 28 years to indefinite. Re animate Mr Disney ,let us hope the laws will be in your favor then….
I think Queen Anne only had good intentions when she introduced the concept of copyright. The idea behind it was and still is a good intention: to protect the works of the original creators. But people have quickly learned over the years that if people can’t pay for the original work, they’ll settle for imitations and that’s a huge gold mine for people willing to violate copyright laws for money.
A good example would be imitation designer bags sold in Chinatown: as far as I know, ever since Bloomberg cracked down on stalls that sold imitation versions of Louis Vuitton, Coach, and Chanel products to name a few, very few stores have taken the risk of continuing to sell products like those. Occasionally, I see a few of them whenever I pass through Chinatown but they’re hidden within the store. In this case, it was easy to track down those who violated copyright laws. But what about the Internet, where there is a much wider audience and it’s hard to track down everyone who violates copyright laws?