Problem and Solution for the Infringement of Copyright
One design company from Seattle named Modern Dog alleged that an illustration printed in the Disney designed T-shirt was first created and published online by their company. This firm finally filed a lawsuit in 2011 and their hasn’t been any result for this case until now. In order to get support form the publicity and gather the funds for lawsuit, this company have drawn a heated discussion on internet. This essay will discuss the impact of infringement of copyright due to multiple social media in the US and UK, evaluate the existing solution and propose the improved one to resolve the current problems.
Any original works are protected by the copyright law and their creators deserve the corresponding rights and interests. As the definition given by the eHow, ‘when an unauthorized person reproduces, performs, or otherwise uses a copyrighted material without permission, it is considered a copyright violation’, which reflects on normal lives can be shown by downloading and sharing music and movie files without permission of the copyright owners or using certain contents or photographs published in other peoples blogs or articles without authors’ authorization.
As the infringement statistics given by the Communications regulator Ofcom on their forth wave of its consumer-tracking study report, about 17% of British internet users aged 12+ consumed at least one piece of online content illegally between March and May on 2013, around 7.4 million people, and only 4% of internet users exclusively consumed illegal content.
Apparently, as the development of internet, especially various kinds of social media applications, online infringement of copyright has become a rigorous problem which affects not only the original creators but also a country’s creative environment and social economy. Not every infringement cases involve financial issues and are associated with some big companies, but it actually happens in people’s daily lives.
A extensive infringement will discourage the creators and diminish their enthusiasm of creativity . In some degree it will affect the sealing market and cut the earning of these authors. However, the impact of infringement will not be solely personal. A widespread violation will also deteriorate a society’s create environment and less and less original works will reach the public market in the future. Moreover, copyright infringement also has a significant impact on world economy. As the data given by the internet, losses due to piracy have exceeded over $51 billion in the past few years. If piracy rates could be reduced by ten percent for the next four years, 500,000 jobs would be created plus $140 billion would be added into the economy.
One of the existing solutions is to promote people getting familiar with the copyright law, which is governed by the federal Copyright Act of 1976 in the US and Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988 in the UK. These laws establish legal consequences of violation in infringement in copyright. This solution encourages the public to understand what is protected by the copyright law, meanwhile, to use the deterrent of law to reduce the chances of infringement. However, only people with proper education will have lower chance breaking the law and comply with their legal responsibilities. This brings the shortcoming that some of the citizens who live in the rural areas may not even hear of the copyright law. Moreover, this solution focuses on the corrective action that citizens are liable for any criminal offense they committed due to the copyright issue, rather than try to eliminate the crime by enhancing the creativity of the citizens.
The proposed solution, Creativity Enhancement Program(CEP), aims to promote the public’s creativity, especially the teenagers and consequently eliminate their intention of piracy. The program consists of two aspects, one is from school and other is from students’ families. Local schools can conduct a series of culture activities such as original singing or design competitions at regular intervals. Winners are awarded with bonus such as bursaries or provided with chances to further their talent through advanced professional courses from the famous school. Since the contests are fairly held and opportunities are equally presented so that all the students can attend the competitions. The rich prize will motivate the students and inspire their enthusiasm for creativity. The encouragement from students families will also play an important role throughout the grown-up process of children. Parents can use several ways to train their children’s creativity such as spending time to brainstorm or inspiring their thought through asking questions. The thinking habit cultivated by the family environment will deeply root into children’s minds and benefit their whole lives. Funds of the establishment of CEP can be obtained from relevant educational departments or school administration. The subsequent cultural activities can be advertised in social media such as Facebook, twitter, school noticeboard,etc.
In conclusion, infringement of copyright is indulged by the development of social media. The government should raise the awareness of the copyright issue through different aspects such as policy, programme and education. The Creativity Enhancement Programme is believed to promote the awareness of infringement of copyright and increase the creativity of them.
References:
1. Wikipedia, Copyright law of the United States
Retrieved from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_the_United_States
2. WikiHow, How to avoid the copyright infringement.
Retrieved from: http://www.wikihow.com/Avoid-Copyright-Infringement
3. Ellison K. (2015). 5 famous copyright infringement cases (and what you can learn).99 designs. Retrieved from
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4. Impact of copyright infringement.
Retrieved from: http://faculty.ist.psu.edu/bagby/432Spring12/T15/impact.html
5.Stuart Dredge.(2013) Ofcome releases latest copyright infringement study in the UK
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