Response to Chanda's The Hot Spot Blog
Chanda Robinson Wrote:
According to the copyright videos, copyright only means having legal
rights to what you create. It was amazing to find out that if I have a
play that I created, if it is not in video or script form, I cannot
copyright it. Be aware that if you create something, it must be script
or video to have ownership. I also learned that copyright is not about
usage but it is about permission to use it. For example, if an artist
want to use part of another artist song, beat or lyrics, they should ask
permission and pay the artist for their work. Some copyright materials
are free for usage so no law will be broken if you use it, but credit
should be given to the owner. It was also amazing to me to see the
video Good Copy Bad Copy. I was astonished to see that music can be a
copyright issue by just taking one beat from a song and changing its
tempo and tone to meet your song is a copyright issue. Most artist are
not creating their own beats or if so they are extremely similar to
other artist. When an artist use any portion of another artist beat
they need to get permission from its originator.
Copyrighting seems like it is a big deal but it is not only if
you ask permission from the owner of the work. In so many words,
copyright is similar to plagiarism. When writing and using text from
someone else written piece, you have to cite your work which means give
ownership to the original author. That is what copyrighting does for
all works, materials or creations by people.
My Response: Chanda,
I enjoyed reading your straight forward explanation of
copyright. I agree it is very common for artists to use and reuse beats.
The issue becomes complex. I was most surprised that there is no really
good way of knowing how copyright issues will be decided in the courts.
Organizations creating best practices are trying to create norms and
set a standard but it still remains somewhat mysterious as to how any
particular case will be decided in the end. I guess the best practice is
to use as little of other peoples work as we possibly can and hope we
are covered by Fair Use for anything we cannot avoid using.
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