CopyRIGHT or WRONG?

We have all heard of copyright since the beginning of time, or at least since the time in elementary school. It goes back further than my elementary years. In fact, it goes back to the Constitution in 1790. The importance of copyright was recognized even before the Bill of Rights drafted. I never realized the significance of copyright or its uses. One of the main reasons for copyright is not just to make protect one’s work, but to inspire the nation to be creative and original. Think about how easy it is to write down the answers for a test on your hand. If you did this every test you would never learn anything or have any desire to. Why learn when you can excel without trying, right? Well, copyright prevents this case of laziness. Once you create your own work of art and set it in a fixed medium, it is by law protected by copyright immediately. It is protected, even without registration, for your lifetime plus 70 years. This protection did not always last 70 years after your death. The Disney Company changed it from 50 years after death to 70 years after. However, their reasoning for the copyright extension seems questionable to me. Once the 50 year anniversary of Walt Disney’s death came up, Disney realized that they would lose all profits of his personal creations. In order to prevent the loss of about a billion dollars, the protection was increased. On one hand they are protecting the use or misuse of Walt Disney’s original work, but on the other hand they could be worried about the loss of money for the company. I personally hope that it is more so to protect the legacy of his work rather than to reap the rewards of his creativity. The use of copyright should not be manipulated solely to continue the profit of one’s business. Copyright or wrong? I guess we’ll find out when Walt Disney’s 70^th anniversary rolls around.

CopyRIGHT or WRONG? by Lucy Cevallos is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.