Debate

Copy Right

First of all, What is Copy Right?

Copy Right protects ideas and concepts made by an indervidual. When a song, film or any sort of median is made it instantly has Copyright protection over the material. This keeps it protected from other people from using it for there own advantage or claiming it as theres. Copy Right is generally owned by the creator and if anyone wanted to use there material, they would need to notify them and request that if they can use it in a certain manner. If the composer agrees to it, then by all means he or she is able to use it. Using it without the permission of the artist may result into a really heavy fine for the person that has used it and is considered to be an act of crime.

For our debate we were split into teams that were for and against the copy right law and file sharing. We were split into fair teams and had to research good and valid arguments, in this way were had the opportunity to counter react towards our opposing team. We found that we were strongly against the Copyright Law and that file sharing should happen.

One of our main arguments towards why we should file share is that sharing a file towards another person should not be classed as not being something against copy right. The main reason for this is for example, if my neighbour had a brand new car that i wanted so badly, if i touched it, magically it would appear onto my drive. it is different from stealing as my neighbours car is also on his drive. This is the same principle for file sharing. It does not affect the artist or who ever owns it because in a way it helps spread the artists work. A good example that we used within the debate is how artists are able to upload files onto Sound cloud. This helps the audience try out the new and different music without them paying for it. If he or she likes the song or album they then have the opportunity to download the song or album for free. This is a clever idea as it helps share the artists work around making them recognised by others.

Once the artist has established himself he can then start charging for his music. On the other hand the profit that artists receive is not always from selling his or hers album. A good example that my friend George gave was that, Beyonce had such an amazing live concert that she made over $1.5 USD just from making a three song set from her live tour. This shows that profit can come from tours as well as merchandise.

Our opposing team argued that there should be a Copyright Law as it affects the artist. An example towards what they gave is if i made a story that was personal to myself and someone came along and copied word from word making it their own. How would we feel? In the same sense towards how the artist feels.

Our counter argument against this was not everyone can copy and make it there own. Our reason for this is that there are such things as remixing. This is where an indervidual has an artists song and adds more beats or changes the way it sounds, this then makes it there own as they have made it to how they wanted it. Sometimes it may not sound as good making the original sound better, this is a good advantage for the artist because the artists them selves is more unique and has there own set of skills.