This segment on the Colbert Report really got me thinking about copyright openness and how I feel about the restrictions music artists place on their work.
I subsequently went to Lessig's website (http://www.lessig.org/blog/) and downloaded his books as pdfs (for free). I have not read through them yet - I have skimmed them quickly though - but I have come to agree with him: our current copyright system is too restrictive. Now I'm not sure what the best solution is (though I am confident there is a problem). Creative Commons licensing seems to be heading in the right direction (http://creativecommons.org/), and many well known artists (in many different fields; music, photography, journalism, writing) are endorsing this direction by licensing their art with CC.
Now what reminded me about Lessig's segment on the Report was this page:
http://thru-you.com/#/videos/1/
The above link displays one man's amazing artistic combination of many Youtube videos all chopped up and sequenced together to make an entirely new product. Under traditional copyright, this type of thing would be walking a fine line between copyright infringement lawsuits and fair use.
In a digital age where people access the collective knowledge of the whole human population on their cell phones, a more uninhibited flow of information should be encouraged. Now, as a musician myself I understand the desire to protect copyright, and I also understand that music as a profession inherently requires the exchange of money. How should we progress in order that information can flow, creativity is encouraged - not stifled, and people can enjoy the creativity of others without worrying about being sued by the very people they admire?
I really don't know. But I know there needs to be changes made.
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