Copyright.

This is Cory Doctorow, after reading his article "Why I Copyfight'" I will assess his argument by giving reasons for why I think it doesn't work.

In Cory Doctorow's article he suggests that “Internet transactions are more apt to commit a copyright offense” (Cory Doctorow, 2008) I would have to agree with this statement because there will always be more sites being created for example the site “Napster” was shut down due to Metallica filed a lawsuit because they discovered that “Napster” had spread over their network a new demo of Metallica's that hadn't even been released yet. This is problematic because even though “Napster” was shut down there will always be P2P sites such as “Beemp3.com” that will replace them and do exactly the same as Napster has done.

 An issue with using sites such as “Napster” are not only breaking copyright legislations but also when people are caught they can argue that it wasn't them as there could have been more than one person using the computer and therefore they have the same IP address. People are then able to challenge the law when and if they get caught.

One reason why Cory Doctorow's argument doesn't work is because people infringe copyright but don't necessarily admit to it, where as other people aren't even aware that they're doing it. For example copying a picture from “Flickr” and using on as a desktop picture would be an infringment of copyright rules, but the person doing this may not be aware that this is breaking them. Another example of copyright infringement on “Flickr” is when people try to pass off photos if other peoples as their own, for example there was a case where someone reblogged a photo from flickr and saying it was their own. Copyright infringement doesn't just happen online however, it can also happen with people copying dvds with certain software that allows them to over-right copyright restrictions.

Another reason why Cory Doctorow's argument doesn't work is that technology has ways of getting round copyright laws for example encrypting things that we download. This could be seen as an example of what Doctorow meant by "Para-copyright". My interpretation of this is groups of people online are creating rules about copying things in which they think are either right or wrong. However "online culture" wouldn't exist if these copyright rules did work and sites like youtube and google would not exist and be shut down. In my opinion there does need to be some restrictions when it comes to copyright for example when remixing media but people do it and are unaware that they are infringing these copyright rules. For example it can be argued that videos by “Dangermouse” (2004) are original or not.

Should tracks like this that have been made by mixing pre existing media be classed as original?

What affect will this have on the artist that has produced the original track?

By infringing copyright rules it can be argued that the media industry is being destroyed.