Restrictive and overbearing
copyright laws and restrictions have deeply affected the capacity and
accessibility to create, re-create, design and share media on the Internet for
both producers and consumers. ‘Cultural commons’ is a concept regarding the resources
to which anyone within the relevant community has a right to access without
obtaining permission from anyone else. Common examples of material objects that
service as ‘cultural commons’ in potential communities include parks, roads and
any kind of public domain (Lessig, 2001). This concept of an equally accessible
‘common’ area to the community is directly applicable to the Internet and new
media with the emergence of such new media and technologies. The rise of
digital media, and subsequent copyright laws and restrictions, has caused
tension as legislative questions concerning production, distribution and
possession of such works have become more important than social questions of
place, value and relative “worth” of cultural works (Jenkins, 2004). The
cultural commons found through the Internet are deeply affected by the
restrictive nature of existing copyright laws. Such copyright laws call to
question how online communities of “producer-consumers” can literate in new media
toward building a robust and freely accessible cultural commons. Most
importantly, it is crucial that online-users are reminded and encouraged to be
producers as well as consumers of new media. If users are not producing new
cultural content, and organizations and corporations are producing elements
that are pertinent to cultural content and placing restrictive copyright laws
on them, users lose the opportunity to freely access and modify such content.
As Ferguson illustrates in his videos, rather than trying to create a
profitable economic market in regards to copyright, extensive copyright laws serve
to hinder long-term economic growth by limiting access to creative works of
individuals and suppressing potential infinite cultural endeavours of those who
desire to contribute to the cultural commons. Despite the positive benefits
that ensue from new media, people often fail to recognize the labour and
economic development issues that are also associated with new media (Miller,
2004). However, the fact that users want to re-imagine, re-make and
re-distribute source material from already existing cultural products demonstrates
the need to ease up on copyright restrictions and laws as it displays the
democratized and productive impulse of users, and should be recognized,
encouraged and celebrated (Manovich, 2008). If users are more heavily
influenced and encouraged to be producers instead of consumers, perhaps there
would be more of a push for organizations and corporations to ease up on
restricting copyright laws that infringe on users’ creativity and accessibility
to cultural commons and content.
References
Jenkins,
H. (2004) The
Cultural Logic of Media Convergence International Journal of Cultural Studies
March 2004 7: 33-43
Manovich,
L. (2008). The practice of everyday (media) life: From mass consumption to mass
cultural production?. Critical Inquiry, 35(2), 319-331.
I agree that restrictive copyright laws hinder the creative process that users need in order to create cultural commons. The process of creating, and re-creating requires recycling media that copyright laws hinder from use so that affects those wanting to produce new content. However I doubt that professional producers will stop exercising copyright laws because it will affect long term economic growth. If they can go around the fact that sharing media and encouragement of users willingness to re-create using media converged by them then it will produce new content which will inevitably boost growth of content and culture commons.
ReplyDeleteCopyright laws are too restrictive, many companies and corporations are more concerned with the monetary value of the content rather than the cultural value. If online producers can find a way to demonstrate the cultural value of their creativity then they might be able to get more freedom. If corporations only see online users as consumers then there likely isn't going to be any major changes to the current copyright laws and restrictions. I still think that there should be copyright laws, to recognize where an idea came from. but if nothing is truly original, if everything is a remix, then maybe it is time to ease up on the restrictions.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that copyright laws should be altered in order for producer-consumers to be able to produce and distribute content. I think that copyright laws need to change because the internet is a public domain and people should not have to follow a rule book to access cultural commons. I think that corporations are too concerned with gaining profit that they are not thinking about the long term effects of this. I very strongly believe that credit should always be paid to the original source. If people are respectful and mindful of cultural contents origins then I think producer-consumers should be free to do as they wish.
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