Art is the first thing that came to mind when reading about copyright
law in Chapter 13 of the book Freedom of
Speech in the United States. According to Tedford and Herbeck, “Copyright
provides protection for the arrangement of words, musical notation, artistic
compositions, and the like that are produced in such forms as books, musical
compositions, paintings, and computer programs” (362). From this I gather that
the general idea of copyright law is to protect the work of those who created something first. Artistry is a
creative skill that someone displays in their work and the type of creativity
it takes to make art is not found in every person. I have noticed many times in
the music industry that people try to copy others who have a creative skill in
order to further their own careers. If we did not have copyright law, I believe
many artists today would be overshadowed, or frankly, ripped off because of the
name or image of another person to succeed over the original creator of the
work.
Take the music industry as an example. There are many
singers who try to make it in Hollywood and become a star, but oftentimes fail because
of the talent of those around them. We all know the stereotype of artists
working as servers to pay the bills until their ‘big break.’ The music industry,
like much of Hollywood, has become more about image and fame than actual
talent. Specifically, let’s look at Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams. They
were sued for copyright infringement when they released the smash hit “Blurred
Lines.” The singers/songwriters were accused of using part of Marvin Gaye’s
1977 hit “Got to Give it Up,” and the Los Angeles jury decided the two had to
pay Gaye’s family $7.3 million (Grow). After listening to both songs, there is noticeable
similarities between the two and the ruling seemed justified. On the other
hand, I believe that there is difficulty when creating new music because there
is already so much out there and people often create from what they know and
have experienced in life. It is not always recognizable that we are copying
someone else’s work because of the abundance of art out there, but the
copyright law is there to protect people’s work in cases like this and I think
the jury made the right decision.
Sources
Grow, Kory. “Robin Thicke and
Pharrell Lose 'Blurred Lines' Lawsuit.” Rolling
Stone, Rolling Stone, 10 Mar. 2015.
Tedford, Thomas L., and Dale A. Herbeck. Freedom of Speech in the United States.
8th ed. N.p.: STRATA, 2017. Print.
I agree with you that copyright laws are extremely important in maintaining the integrity of art. With so much art out there, it is hard to see the distinction between replication or inspiration. In cases like the one you mentioned, I think the parallelism is from the stealing of ideas more so than drawing inspiration from them. It is highly unlikely for 2 songs to sound that similar without one replicating the other. Popular artists have a huge pressure on them to produce quality content and I think that inhibits them from taking risks or doing something too far outside of the norm; drawing on already accepted ideas is a safer route for them. I think copyright laws and punishments for breaking them enhance the quality and uniqueness of art and are necessary for protecting an artist's work. I agree with you, the jury made the right decision in that case.
ReplyDeleteWhenever I come across two songs from completely different artists with similar "arrangement of words, musical notation, artistic compositions," I have to wonder whether the older song influenced the new one. You bring up an interesting point in the difficulty of being creative with how much content is already out there. Whether it's someone making art for a living or just as a hobby, sometimes our art just ends up being super identical to previous works. It isn't totally clear to me where we draw the line for copyright violation. I touched on this in my own blog post this week about how ridiculous YouTube's fair use policies can be sometimes. I believe we should continue to maintain some breathing room for artists to make content without worrying about being hit harshly or unfairly.
ReplyDeleteOne interesting example of giving artists breathing room is allowing artists to "sample" other works, provided that they don't profit off it and/or seek permission from the copyright owner. i.e. In his song, "Dear Hip Hop," rapper Hendersin immediately inserts Bane's famous quote, and then uses lines from Linkin Park's famous "Leave Out All the Rest" several times throughout half the song. In this case, is Linkin Park "overshadowed, or frankly, ripped off" by Hendersin sampling their song so aggregiously?
Dear Hip Hop: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUmRimrB1rA
I believe that it is sometimes hard to find a balance between creating an environment that protects artists enough to allow an economic incentive for creativity and allowing artists to be inspired by other artists. Although I do not think it is fair to piggy back off of the work of other people - sometimes the best ideas come because people improved the work of others. this controversy reminds me of the song "Pressure" and "Ice Ice Baby". I believe that as technology progresses we will see more of a problem with this because it will be easier for artists to use certain portions of songs or the beat of a song for their own. I agree with you that sometimes it is hard to distinguish when we are copying somebody else's work because we may subliminally do it because of our prior experience with the content.
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