Zach's CS1300: Copyright Laws

I, like really anyone our age, knew about copyright laws generally. I knew that pirating music and what not was illegal. It’s called pirating after all. I did not know all the specifics of the law that we learned though. I found it particularly interesting that the Disney Corporation had such sway with the system. As the law used to stand copyright extended for the authors life plus fifty years. When fifty years after Walt Disney’s death was nearing the corporation lobbied successfully to extend copyright to author’s life plus 70 years. I find it unsettling that such a thing can happen. Copyright ought to expire at some point so that things move into the public domain. Of course the author and his or her immediate decedents deserve the rights and profits of the work but for 70 years? And how long will Disney extend this?

Also as a college age person I find that the issue of illegal downloading affects me greatly. Of course we all know of such things happening but rarely do we consider the consequences of these actions. There are of course the possible legal repercussions of being taken to court by a record label or something which cannot be ignored but are these actions justifiable? I personally believe the answer is a very qualified yes. These record labels certainly have the rights to the music and they certainly should. They provide the capital to produce and market their product thus they deserve profits from it but suing a college age student for hundreds of thousands of dollars for a dozen songs is beyond extortion. A couple times the value of the album plus some sort of reasonable damages such as a processing fee for the trouble of filing the claim or something I think would be reasonable. Threatening to take such a small time offense to court is not only ridiculous but also inefficient. These companies have to pay the legal fees for this process thus making it more expensive for the defendant. Of course if someone has thousands of dollars worth of illegal downloads and is selling them to make personal profit the record labels should go after them with all they’ve got. That’s a legitimate challenge to they’re due profits but a college kid with a couple dozen songs? Give them a slap on the wrist and tell them next time they will come after them for real.