Mcleod

In the very beginning of the reading, the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998 was mentioned. This act extended copyright terms by twenty more years. This got me thinking about all of the old pieces of work that can not be touched because of the insanely long copyright terms. Mcleod mentions movies that are sitting in storage that are dying due to the shelf of the film coming to an end, and thanks to the extensive copyright lengths. To better my understanding of copyright laws, I attempted to read up on them at www.copyright.gov and it was too difficult. The laws themselves are so extravagant and have many different variations and most pieces of work could be classified under numerous sections and if someone dies then this happens or if it is sold then this other thing happens. An example that came to mind was Tupac. Even though Tupac has been long gone for quite a while now, his estate still owns the copyright to all of his work, and then he magically releases new songs and lyrics, but yet still owns the rights to them. How do you own something when you are no longer living?

Later on in the reading, music sampling and DJs were mentioned. When I got to this section, I thought of a former classmate of mine who is now a professional DJ. I got a hold of him and asked if he has had any legal issues, he preceded to direct me to a website where he sells his remixes. One of the sites that he sent me to was www.crack4djs.net on the homepage you have to agree to a legal disclaimer that passes all of the legal issues on to the end user, and you will only use the remixes for performances and not monetary gain. It also states that you agree that you have already purchased the original works contained within each individual re mix from their original creators. With a re mix, I feel like copyright laws go too far, for the most part each re mix is over 50% original, with the sound bytes in use being re sampled and moved around distorting the original song. I agree with Mcleod in that copyright laws protect original work too much and their creators are only interested in getting a monetary compensation when someone wants to use their work.