Take the following question honestly before you continue read my blog posting of this week. How many of you still buying original CDs instead of downloading songs or movies for free from internet? Are you the one that against piracy and support genuine?
For this week topic, we touched upon the topic of intellectual property. So what is intellectual property and how further do you understand about it? Intellectual property is referring to creativity of brainpower by creative words, signs, names, images, and designs used in commerce. For instance, when people told you a company which is using the logo of a “tick” what will come into your mind immediately? It must be Nike Company. Even five years old children know “M” represents McDonald.
Image URL:
http://justcreative.com/2008/05/22/why-logo-design-does-not-cost-5-dollars/
In this advance digital world, we can easily access and get music, software, e-books and movies without waste more time and money on it. In fact, we can get them for free on internet. Based on the reading of Snapper (1999), copyright and plagiarism is totally different term. What does plagiarism mean? It means by you take someone ideas and claim it as your own idea without using proper referencing. As a student, I guess every one of us very familiar with this. When we do assignment, we need to do proper referencing just to avoid being caught by lecturer of plagiarism. In order to avoid of plagiarism, whenever we used other people ideas we must make sure we quote or cited them properly.
Image URL:
http://www.pyrczak.com/antiplagiarism/cartoons.htm
According to Totcharove & Glele (2010), copyright is an act which provide safeguard to those creative creators, designer, writers, musicians and artists towards their own mechanism. Patents, trademarks and integrated circuits are under copyright in part of intellectual property. With copyright, creators will have ownership and for those who use their works unlawful will be considered break the rule of copyright. I agree with what stated by Snapper (1999) in his article. He mentioned that “copyright is necessary because it protects the owner of the product by granting control over the information or ideas”. Take this example for instance you are a writer in a magazine company, someone use your words without giving you proper credit or simply just copy and paste your words, how do you feel it?
After you watched the two video, how do you feel if you are PSY and found someone just copy your idea or music that created by you and claim it as their idea? All your hard work will just pop off in a blink of eyes. Copyright is like insurance for creators to protect their own property. Creators have the right to sue you if they found out that you use their music without getting permission from them.
As conclusion, copyright shelter prevents others and rewards creators. Imagine what will happen if there are other companies using the same “tick” logo as Nike Company. I am pretty sure that consumers will make mistake based on the similarity design of company logo. With the presence of law, everything is still under control and people will appreciate the hard work of creators.
Image URL:
http://jeffery-cmk.blogspot.com/2009_04_01_archive.html
References:
JinnyboyTV 2012, KL STYLE, accessed 12/9/2012,
Officialpsy 2012, PSY- GANGNAM STYLE, accessed 12/9/2012,
Snapper, J 1999, On the Web, plagiarism matters more than copyright piracy, accessed 12/9/2012,
http://www.springerlink.com/content/l215064qj8kk1331/
Totcharove, P & Glele, E 2010, The ABC of Copyright, UNESCO, Paris, accessed 12/9/2012,
http://www.unesco.org/fileadmin/MULTIMEDIA/HQ/CLT/diversity/pdf/WAPO/ABC_Copyright_en.pdf
I agree, it is unfair to steal ideas from others. Copyright would not only help to maintain originality in society, but also cultivate more innovation and creativity in minds so people will constantly be improving, due to the need to come up with different ideas in order to be known. However, sometimes ideas sprout out of other ideas, like the PSY video you posted and ‘KL Style’. It is idea theft, though it is more applicable for us Malaysian audiences as we understand the slangs, hence it also appears funnier to us. So yes, it stole the basic concept from ‘Gangnam Style’ but they made it their own with the comedy inserted into the lyrics and video, which is why all I can say is that copyrigh is a very controversial and subjective issue.
I agree, stealing or taking ideas from others is wrong. Copyrights are here to help maintain originality in society, and to encourage innovation and creativity in people. However, sometimes original ideas or the creation of original ideas are hard to come by. Nowadays idea theft, is more and more applicable for audiences across the world. When the basic concept from ‘Gangnam Style’ was stolen, they tried to make their own with version, while incorporating some of the original ‘Gangnam Style’ video into it. So one can say that copyrigh is a very controversial and subjective issue. – Comment by Ram Peow Loong Naidu
It is true that what you mentioned in your blog that copyright is necessary because it protects the owner of the product by granting control over the information or ideas. Nowadays, we can search for free things on the web everyday such as free songs, free movies, and so on. That is why copying a work without obtaining permission is an easy and convenient work for everyone, but it is very unfair to the creator that put a lot of efforts and times on the work. So copyright law is important to provide safeguard to those creative creators, designer, writers, musicians and artists towards their own mechanism.
Seeing the video clip Gangnam Style in the beginning was unique and amusing to me. But even there is the Copyright Law people are still copying the concept and making their own video. There is the KL style, Ellui style, Digi style and others. And all this copying has made us bored from listening to the song. Even though the Copyright Law can give the author the ownership and control over their content but with the internet I don’t think most information can we sustain for long. Should Copyright Law look into the in-depth of the internet? And a total agree to the last image of the world. “If you don’t own me, don’t use me.” As it applies to human being, it also applies to information.
I got to say that I don’t really agree with stealing the original idea is wrong. In my opinion, I believe as is nothing wrong with that unless we made some modification in it. Original ideas can be our inspiration or a starting point of something. For an example the first invented phone. If the first invented phone doesn’t allow people to steal the idea of it we wouldn’t have so much different models and all sorts of functional smartphones for us to choose. I mean good things we don’t mind sharing it to people and we hope for the best to gets better right? After all we live in a competitive world, if we don’t keep up, we will left behind.
Copyright is what makes a company or a product different from other competitors. If every company and product has the same logo or tagline, like you mentioned, it would be misleading and consumer would be mistaken based on the similarity. Perhaps if the company that wish to copy a particular company logo should be creative in designing the logo. That way it would avoid copyright issues. You also mentioned that, creators have the right to sue if their music is use without permission. You are right; creators not only can sue but also have the right to claim royalties from people that uses their music. .
Somehow I believe stealing original ideas from people is wrong. But then again, there are so many people in this world and we can expect everyone to think differently. There will definitely be some of us who has cross ideas. In my opinion, people who steals ideas from other people, for instance like the Gangnam Style, is because they want to have the momentary fame when there is still hype for that particular video or song. In additional, here are a few more listed things that cannot be copyrighted titles and names, works by the US Federal Government, works without authorship and fashion.(http://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2010/01/08/5-things-that-cant-be-copyrighted/).
The video of the Gangnam style is very interesting, as we know Gangnam style video original from Korea production, but it is too funny to make others country to make their own version, such as Malaysia KL style, Australia style and so on. In my own opinion make the new version of the video is not harm to the original one, because it show how famous and strong influence of the video. Well if everything have to mentioned copy right we will not see lot more creative idea and video from others. The last point that I want to mention is there is always good and bad ways, why not we see on the good way? And don’t always show the copy right to restrict the people who want to create new idea and video to audience, and bring audience happy and have a fresh sight of the video other than the original one.