Copyrights?

I recently watched part 1 (on accident) and part 4 of Everything is a Remix. I plan to watch part 2 and 3 when I get some more free time:) The theme of the video series is about copyright, patents, and "intellectual property."

"Originally these Acts were made to to give incentive to creativity and and create a rich public domain for ideas to flourish and work towards "the common good." The original copyright act is titled "an act for the encouragement of learning" and the Patent act, "to promote the progress of useful arts."(Everything is a Remix part 4) An example given in the movie is: a guy invents a light bulb. Because he was the first to invent this he incurs inventing costs, the next guy who copies him but makes a better light bulb doesn't have to cover inventing costs. That was the reason for making a patent. To allow a time for creators to cover their original costs. After this allotted time it was allowed to the public to build on it. If the idea is not allowed to the public and the public has less incentive to invent then how can the next guy make a better light bulb?

In the end the movie questions, "How are we to progress as a society with the laws of today hindering the process of intellectual and social evolution?" (evolution=copy, transform, and combine to make the ultimate survivor) The video refers to memes-ideas, behaviors, skills and the evolutionary process to create social evolution. How we create is we have new ideas which evolve from the old ones.

The problem is people are more worried about getting rich, or even worse, the rich are worried about getting even richer that intellectual and social progress is being hindered. Whether it is in the arts industry, "where patent trolls have made the sample heavy collages of hip-hops golden age, now impossibly expensive to create." (Everything is a Remix part 4) or the technology industry, where programs meant to improve our life are not being created because a facet of that program or the original "caveman program" is owned by some other company. The problem I see with copyright and where it's gone is the hindrance it could have on people inventing or making improvements on inventions which will stop world hunger or medical inventions.


In the end, I think all copyrights are stupid. People just want to invent that one good thing or write that one song and get rich from it the rest of their lives. Who cares if someone copies you and you "lose" some profit? Just invent something else and make money with that. Or copy that person back and make an improvement on the improvement they made and your back to making that money you were so worried about.