US Netflix vs UK Netflix

For the past few years Netflix has become a fundamental part of watching TV and films without the use of a TV. Critics and analysts have fallen over themselves to proclaim how revolutionary streaming services are.

After a month of using Netflix I decided to download a proxy onto my browser to see what content other countries and was annoyed to discover that UK user have been somewhat backhanded by copyright.

This however is not the fault of Netflix. After the resurgence of its business many of Netflix’s rivals were quick to snap up the streaming right for programmes and films available on the US Netflix.

Netflix has tried to rectify this issue by offering more money than its rivals like Amazon Prime however some companies are holding back on jumping into bed with Netflix as it still has ongoing problems like the proxy example used above. Also Netflix users can share their accounts with friends and family meaning they miss out on capitalising on an unpaying audience. While this is good for many users who don’t want to pay for the service (like my older sister *ahem*), Netflix has encouraged users to share their accounts. From the perspective of the companies that Netflix is trying to court, this is a risky move as it means Netflix and said companies could lose out on substancial funds.

 

 

 

Spotify

 

Spotify is an app where people can keep up-to-date with the latest chart music, make their own playlists and discover new music with their ‘browser’ option. This allows them to view playlists and songs which are most suited for them. Spotify charges their subscribers £9.99 per month, this allows them to listen to their music with no advertisements and they will also be able to listen to their music offline.

Primarily, student access the free version off this app. However, they would not be able to skip songs and have to listen to the advertisements when listening to their music. There is controversy with artists that do not agree with Spotify’s regulations as they do not think that people should listen to their music for free. Such as Taylor Swift, who does not allow any of her music to be streamed on Spotify as she thinks her fans should pay it as she thinks it is unfair on the fans that have paid for her music.

Taylor Swift is not the only person Spotify have had issues with about streaming their music. There have been issues with other artists such as Prince and Jason Aldean. Since the launch of Spotify, they have had the reputation of being untrustworthy as they have broken infringement laws and have been severally fined for not paying artists their correct loyalties.

The interruption of  constant adverts is a good way to make people want to pay for Spotify. Buying the Spotify reduces the number of people committing copyright via YouTube converter and other media platforms.

 

WHY PAY FOR MUSIC AND MOVIES ANYMORE?

To be honest with you guys i dont see any point of all this licence on music and movies anymore seeing as there are so many other ways to listen and watch the latest stuff.
Apple music is a new app which was launched last year. it is another music streaming app that provides hand-pick songs, artists and albums based on what you listen to and like. although there are a variety of online music apps such as sound cloud, spotify, tubidy and Youtube, apply music provides you with the latest hit when exactly when they come out. the app gives you three months free trial before you subscribe to paying £9.99 a month.

Creative Commons licence allows the app to showcase new music in comparison to sound cloud and tubidy which does not have a CC licence which means that people can stream for free and even upload there music for others to share and list yen to it. to be honest from that its even arguable whether apple music is even necessary as in today’s youth generation, no body really buys albums or even videos for that matter, we all just wait for one of these music apps to upload it first.

I’m sure most of us have heard of putlocker, it is an online website that allows free movie streaming, it does not have a a creative commons licence as it provides illegal streaming of movies which we all love (lets not lie to ourselves). Nowadays noone want to pay for cinema tickets just but your popcorn and stay in the comfort of your own home.

 

 thanks for reading guys 🙂

YouTube and the CCL

YouTube is probably the most well known of sites which allows you to listen, watch and upload free content such as music and video. However just recently YouTube has introduced a copyright detecting mechanism called the Creative Commons License, too the annoyance of me and others who love free music.

Basically all music/videos that have not paid the fee set by YouTube or have infringed  copyright laws in some way were deleted from YouTube. So all the free music I was lapping up has gone.

To use materials you have to ask for authority or pay the fee, which is something like ten dollars a month. This was created to prevent people from making a profit of a piece of music or video which isn’t theirs, so this means that YouTube would gain a greater a profit and so would those who did the work. Online TV programmes YouTube doesn’t adhere to regulators like Ofcom or the Watershed adding more freedom to uploadable content – which is one of YouTubes greatest attractions and advantage over its competitors.

The obvious advantage of YouTube using the Creative Commons License is that money or recognition goes to the rightful owner or producer.

A big limitation for me is that I can’t listen to everything anymore, sad times.

Cover it yourself, copyright on covering music

As we change the way in which we interact with the world around us, may find it hard to get noticed within this new digital age. However thanks to the power of the internet and more importantly YouTube. People are able to become more noticeable. Take for instance Justin Bieber who shot to fame after uploading videos of him covering songs. But surprisingly what he did is actually illegal. Well it is but it depends on who you ask. Most blogs and news centres say it is illegal however there isn’t anything really written down about it.

But why is it consider illegal to cover a song. After all nearly all YouTubers do it to show their passion for their music as well as their love for the musician. However record companies don’t see it that way, they see it as a breach of copyright which could lead to a court order. So what can we do to prevent this from happening? Well it will only be possible when record companies acknowledge that the YouTubers are doing it to show off their skills and their love for their music. Not to be used for making money.

Despite all this it is very rare for someone to be penalised against a record company for covering a song. This is because of the amount of YouTubers and YouTube videos covering music. To attack one person isn’t fair unless you target all of them at the same time. If YouTube did do this and took down all the song covered videos they would loss so much of its audience which would result in the site closing down. So financially it wouldn’t be suitable for them to do that. So in all it will be hard for YouTube to copyright every single YouTubers who covered at least one song. If they did do it, in effect they would be shooting themselves in the foot. Instead of focusing on covering songs, they should focuses on people who are downloading music off YouTube instead of buying it. This should be the focus as you are effectively stealing.

Overall copyright with music in YouTube is such a hard area to cover since it has so many politics involved which would result in the downfall of YouTube.

Link:http://newmediarockstars.com/2013/08/worried-your-cover-song-on-youtube-is-illegal-heres-everything-you-need-to-know-about-it/

Just stream it.

Most of you would know Netflix as the movie-streaming website which has over 75 million subscribers as of January 2016. Did Netflix even exist before it started streaming in 2007 in the United States? the answer is yes, it did. Netflix started as an American DVD-by-mail service in 1998 – this means they used to send out films on DVD for their subscriber’s one DVD per time, if you posted the DVD back, you get the next one on your watch list. 

In August 2010, Netflix reached a five-year deal worth nearly $1 billion to stream films from Paramount Pictures, Lions Gate Entertainment and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. So the copyrights of the movies on Netflix is not even Netflix’s to control or change. The thing about Netflix is, we already share it with family and friends which is bad for the company but good for us. 

Truthfully, it’s not that hard for any of us to stream movies for free on other sites (which is illegal), however people still prefer to get a Netflix account and a subscription, moreover Netflix strives to produce original content whether it’s a series or a movie, and it’s usually labelled “A NETFLIX ORIGINAL. 

The advantages of Netflix ar that it’s easy to use, ton’s of movies and series to watch (original and un-original), not that expensive, multi user account. The limitations however; not ALL the movies and series are on there, not available in all countries (until recently), even “NETFLIX ORIGINALS” can be found and streamed online for free. 

So what do you think about Netflix, isn’t it technically sharing the copyrighted content (movies and series) of other companies such as Warner Bros and Lions Gate Films with the company’s consent ? and how do you think the future of streaming will be? will we still be subscribing to websites like Netflix? or will we all just stream movies for free and share them in 1080p HD like we share Facebook videos.

Itunes – Free Kesha?

Music amongst my peers has always been a hot topic, everyone does compile their own collection and build it over the years. However, a lot do it differently than others do. As for my part, I have always been an advocate for paying for my music. I believe – as a creative artist myself – that if you choose to create content in order to make a living, it should be protected and therefore be paid for if you choose to make this your full-time job.

My go-to platform to download my songs is iTunes, as it is easily accessible and has a huge, diverse portfolio. As purchases for physical copies declined, iTunes stepped in an transformed the market – also might have accelerated the decline of physical copies. However, it has done a good deal at protecting the copyright for artists and pay them their fair share.

If iTunes would significantly loosen the copyright licenses, it would probably initiate the decline of content being produced. In order to produce content and to afford even just the most simple needs, some sort of compensation is crucial. As sad as it is sometimes, no money, no motivation in proceeding to produce content. Despite these limitations, stripping the money factor away from the music industry could also have it’s advantages. We probably all have heard about Kesha’s lawsuit against Dr. Luke and Sony. A lot of money is involved and where money plays a major role, it’s best friend ‘greed’ is just around the corner. Under a Creative Commons licence the music industry would most likely be a friendlier place, giving artists more creative room to express their artistry. The amount of content would, as a result, decline as artist would make their creative job a hobby on the side.

What do you think would be the consequences?

 

Flickr: Creative Commons

Flickr is a well-known online picture sharing platform, and many of its users have chosen to share their work under a Creative Commons license, forgoing traditional copyright.

This allows for users to differentiate between the types of Attribution License, Attribution-NoDerivs License, Attribution-NonCommercial License, Attribution-ShareAlike License, and finally two forms of Public Domain for their work, leaving creatives in full charge of how they’d like their work to be hosted.

Given the free features of the site and the obvious benefit unknown artists reap from getting their work spread and altered by other users, leading to “getting their stuff out there”, I’m a bit skeptical.

Looser copyright regulations, especially when it comes to visual artwork, can often lead to someone using your personal pictures for questionable purposes – even identity theft, or finding ways to capitalise on your work or altered versions of it. It would suffice to be uninformed about the different forms of licenses for someone to allow a mishap like that themselves, and accidentally pick the wrong kind of license for their intentions, which is why being informed about internet laws is vital.

Nevertheless, Flickr emphasises that it is a community, and seeks to aid and cater to all sorts of people in the creative industries, a concept which has definitely been working. They “want to help people make their photos available to the people who matter to them”, ensuring that photographers get their work spread in an adequate manner.

YouTube CC Licence

YouTube is a well-known website for being able to access free content and is currently under a Creative Commons licence. The use of this licence stops people using music or footage that belongs to a certain company or co-operation. If they do use it they will have to either remove it or ask for authority. If you use someone else’s creations you have to ask permission; especially if you are making a profit from it.

If YouTube was put under a strict copyright control, there wouldn’t be as many videos on the website, a lot of the videos would be removed. The advantage of YouTube is that it allows a lot more freedom of using different peoples work, it’s not as strict as a TV programme.

The advantage of it being like this is that it keeps a fair share between the actual owner of the song or image and they receive praise as much as the video itself.

The limitations are that it stops people from being more expressive and creative with their work – a lack of freedom. For example, I have a YouTube channel and I edited a video and I needed good music to put on my video so I decided to use the music given when you are uploading the video onto your channel. There wasn’t much choice and none of the music were from well-known bands or artists.

 

 

Apple Music

As of this February, Apple Music had reached 11 million subscribers. Costing £9.99 per month, it is a music streaming service, which works very similarly to Spotify. You gain access to a massive record library, excellent quality tracks, and personal suggestions to discover new artists.

In this case, the creative commons license is very important. The credit and copyright must remain, and the monthly payment ensures fair distribution of the artists’ creative work.

What can be considered as a strength of the service, is that even though most of the content can be downloaded illegally from the internet, the quality of music that can be streamed is much better. This might actually make people reconsider that. The monthly payment is affordable, and the ease of access to the paid music library is seamless.

The variety of the music is vast as well, ensuring there is plenty of choice. Also, the service offers personal suggestions, in that way promoting new artists to a wider audience.

Without services like this, copyrights would be violated all the time: in the contemporary society, the music industry is changing very fast, and the public does not see the point in investing into physical copies of new releases anymore. Why would you? Everything is available online. However, illegally.

Therefore, services like Apple Music, Spotify, Pandora, or any other music streaming service, are very helpful for artists, as they help maintain the copyright and fair distribution of creative work.

Tidal: A quality music streaming service

Tidal is a music streaming service established in 2009. The company has 500,000 paying subscribers and was bought for 56 million by a company controlled by Jay-Z, by adding music videos the site increased its fee to £19.99 a month . Therefore if Tidal was under a creative commons licence, streaming sites like Spotify would lose a lot of subscribers, as Tidal is known for its quality streaming service.

The biggest names in music: Rihanna, Usher, Arcade Fire and Calvin Harris all appeared in the advert to help launch the campaign #TidalforAll. Tidal intend to make sure subscribers hear the latest songs before anyone else. The website was also introduced as being “pro music artist” and by not offering a free ad supporting tier for its music.

The copyright policy for Tidal is very strict in its approach. For example subscribers have no right to engage in the commercial use and making versions or copies of the content they stream. However while I think that this is fairly reasonable, surely sites like Tidal would appreciate any form of advertisement that will increase the number of people joining the site. It would be nice listen to songs without having to make some form of payment, surely artists like Beyoncé wouldn’t benefit from my 99p contribution.

 

The paywall of The Times

“On Friday 27 November I was lying in bed when Simon Hattenstone’s breathtakingly good feature on the death of Tory activist Elliott Johnson on the Guardian online popped up on my phone.

The following day in the newsagent, was I going to spend £2.70 on The Guardian, when I had already read the best thing in it, or £1.50 on The Times which was filled with lots of things I had not yet read?” stated Dominic Ponsford the last 16th of January on his article on pressgazette.co.uk.

The Times, in 2010, faced a pre-tax loss of £54m after its decision of making a paywall for the contents online. Last January, while The Guardian announced the 20% future cuts of its budget, The Times and The Sunday Times were in profit. It surely cannot be simplified just with the paywall.

But, what if?

Online accessibility balances on a fine line. Everything depends on how much the audience is willing to value a certain content. In a free-access internet reality, people are exigent. It  must be something which is worth to pay for, otherwise something similar can be found online.

The Times, in its consistency, remained of the idea that quality journalism has to be paid; and, maybe, that is the only choice which will permit good journalism to survive.

 

 

Once the King of rock’n’roll, always a King.

From the title, you might have figured out I’m gonna talk about a royalty, but as far as I know, everyone should be aware of who “the king of rock’n’roll” is.. It’s all about the great and loved Elvis Presley.

All the king’s albums and recordings are currently owned by Sony BMG. What not anyone might know, unless you are a huge fan of Elvis, is that some of his songs have served as storylines for musicals, in which he starred of course. However, there is one musical in particular that could have entered the public domain on January 1, 2014, and this is Jailhouse Rock.

 

On the one hand, according to the 1976 Copyright Act, the United States copyright law, the copyright term ends after 56 years. At first the content is being kept under copyright restrictions for 28 years which can then be renewed for another 28 years, and that means anything published in 1957 could have been free to use on January 1, 2014.

But on the other hand, in accordance with the new Copyright law of the United States, an author or an artist has the right to use their work in any way, but based on a time limit, which usually comes to an end after 70 years after the author’s death. This now means that anything published in 1957 will enter the public domain in 2053, including Elvis’ Jailhouse Rock.

The Creative Commons licence allows a piece of work to be distributed for free, so people can share it, use it and build upon it if and how they wish. So what would happen to the Jailhouse Rock musical if it was open to public use? Not much. My personal opinion is that not many will use it to make profit or change anything in it. So why not keep it copyrighted and this way we can respect and protect this valuable singer’s legacy.

So what do you think? Can anyone use Jailhouse Rock for making any type of profit? Is it still worth investing money in it if it enters the public domain? Should it remain copyrighted just to protect the king’s inheritance?  

Where’s my ancestry.com?

Last year, around Christmas I wanted to dig deeper into my family history. I wanted to go beyond the 32 grandchildren/cousins I already knew. So I did what any person would do in this situation. I signed up to ancestry.com.

I filled in the details I knew and then a pop up appeared across my screen: Please subscribe to find out more information and to find more people in your family for just blah blah blah pounds a month…. Oh joy.

Perhaps under the creative commons licence this information would be free and available on the grounds that you can prove your identity and a family member can confirm your heritage (This way, being free still keeps you safe from identity theft- in case anyone was wondering).

If it was put under strict copyright control, then absolutely nobody would know their past. This is assuming, only the government can see your records. This would mean you could not print or record or mention your own personal heritage despite it belonging to you. How awful?

It’s bad enough we can only access the third generation of our family trees for free before being told that’s all we get (unless you are willing to pay. I paid for a month and realised that in order to get the most out of the fee, you need hours and hours everyday to get something…and you have to search the details yourself.)

I believe I have mentioned enough limitations above and the only advantage I can really think of would be the protection of who you are and who is allowed to know what about yourself up to a certain extent.

I guess you could call this a rant instead of a post but hopefully you can see my point of view.

 

Original Netflix content.

Netflix is one of the most obvious examples of content that is copyrighted and only accessible for a monthly fee of £6.99. Some people might find it too much to pay as most of the films/tv shows that are available can be found for free, however they are online pirated/illegal versions in lower quality for example on Putlocker. Many Internet Service Providers have blocked users from accessing these websites as they go against copyright laws including the Creative Commons license. However, Netflix has created some original films and TV shows such as Orange is the New Black which I could not find on these illegal websites, probably because of Netflix’s strict copyright regulations which causes the content to be removed from any other sites other than Netflix. This is done so customers will still maintain their monthly subscription and the website will have some profits. Why would anyone want to pay if the content is available online right? This is why it’s very important that we have a Creative Commons license, which doesn’t only keep the company going, but also gives some credit to the original creator of the TV Show/Film and not misuse it by uploading them to illegal websites. However, I have come across different versions of Original Netflix shows such as ‘The Returned’ in foreign websites which the Internet Service Provider does not recognise, however the website requires you to watch adverts and click on links to access content for free, which cannot be trusted due to possible viruses, so I think it is worth to pay that small amount to enjoy content in a HD quality without worrying about copyright license breaking and viruses. If Netflix did not have these restrictions, people would take advantage of enjoying free stuff without anyone benefiting from it financially; therefore I think Netflix should stay under the Creative Commons license to maintain its content.

Keep Literrature Respectable

Sadly, I was struggling to think of a content in which we do not have a free access to today. The accessibility that is featuring our contemporary world is wide, convenient, and is changing the face of various industries, mainly the creative one. Although, I believe that in terms of copyrights and access- most fiction books are still rather protected.

 

Even with the shift of modern literature online, or alternatively, to Kindle- it is impossible to access the full content of fiction books without paying for it. E-books that are still under the copyrights law are being accessed through platforms such as Amazon, or Kindle- but you must pay for those.

 

Personally, I find the limitations positive. I believe that financing literature content is crucial to allow this industry to exist. Copyright law and creative commons concept tend to respect the producer, protect intellectual properties and to make culture valuable. If e-books were produced under creative commons concept, it could potentially broaden the audience. However, in the same time, it would make writer’s career impossible.

Amazon Prime and Copyright

Amazon created their own version of Netflix called Amazon Prime which costs you £40 every year. Amazon Prime display loads of content just like Netflix however Amazon Prime features recent feature films and independent films and does not tend to have older films available to stream unless you purchase the film or tv show. When you pay for Amazon Prime you can stream to any device Desktop, Laptop and your phone which is very helpful and Amazon Prime also allows you other benefits like next day delivery, although it does not apply to every item on Amazon.

If Amazon was to use the creative commons license then the only unique selling point of Amazon Prime is the next day delivery, but this will not happen unless it was a trail to make people think of buying a subscription to Amazon Prime. Amazon intend to make a profit so them allowing creative commons would be against what their aim is. If Amazon Prime did allow creative commons, which wont happen, then all the Amazon exclusives would be great to watch any time any place with it legal, which would be great but is unlikely to happen.

Nothing has to do with copyright or creative commons licenses

First of all, despite of all the advantages and limitations resulting from either strict or less restriction from copyright and creative commons license, I personally deeply appreciate the protection over intellectual property. Especially, considering whoever has seen this blog post is probably planning to work for creative industry in the future and the comparative neglect of copyright in my own country.

Back to the topic, the example that I want to give to demonstrate the comparison between copyright restriction and alternative option for creative producer is Google. The content output of Google including Google searched website, Google image and Youtube video all belong to creative commons. Apparently, this method used by Google to operate benefits all of its users and doubtlessly reinforces its dominance over today’s global digital environment.

Perhaps, most of us have used Google scholar to find the resources for the essay; in addition, it is undeniable that directly downloading picture from Google image has made the process of making the slide of the presentation way more convenient and efficient. Content produced under creative commons tends to be more generally wide-spread due to the universal access. However, users may unconsciously ignore the importance of the original intellectual property while they find it almost unrestrictedly to transfer any information from Google search engine.

As we are required to give the formal reference of any cited content, in my opinion, increasing public awareness is the most significant solution to prevent intellectual property from being disrupted. Indeed, strict copyright restriction would limit the transmission of the information on Google. Nevertheless, it could possibly raise the public verification of the basic right of creative producers.

Both copyright law and creative commons licenses are not entitled mainly for commercial purpose rather than aiming to effectively protect the intellectual property or maximizing the value of cultural heritage. So I would say, it is just crucial for users to give the respect.

The Sky’s the limit – copyright of BskyB and illegal streaming

BskyB, which is more commonly known as just Sky, is owned by its founder Rupert Murdock. The company has many different branches, such as Sky Movies, Sky TV and Sky Sports. I’m going to focus on the last one of these branches, Sky Sports.

In the UK, to get access to Sky, you need to sign up to a package deal that could end up costing over £50 a month on top of other bills. With these packages, the viewer gets access to Sky Go, which allows them to stream whatever channel they like online. For example, if a person was to sign up to the sports package, they could stream Sky Sports channels 1 to 5 through their laptop. Because Sky has broadcast rights to a number of events such as the Premier League, it has become hugely popular in the UK.

Therefore, the only way to legally watch most sport on TV is to be a Sky member. This is very costly, and not everyone can afford it, so many people turn to streaming sport online through illegal websites.

If Sky was to share their TV through a creative commons license, it would ensure everyone had access to watch what they want, when they want. Thus making illegal streaming completely useless, and reducing the number of people doing it.

Of course, this would never happen. As a business, Sky aims to turn a profit, so offering their services for free would completely ruin the company.

But it’s good to dream that maybe one day sport will be free, or cheaper to watch and stream.

You Tube’s Copyright Confusion

You Tube’s copyright policy is very complex, as authenticity, ownership and protection are questioned regularly. The site has both content that is under strict copyright (such as VEVO), under creative commons licence and is required to be paid for (You Tube Red). However I’m going to concentrate on content that is under the ‘Standard You Tube Licence’.

The majority of videos on You Tube are free and protected under the ‘Standard You Tube Licence’, which is meant to protect the upload, the creator and any owner of copyrighted content. However You Tube’s copyright and fair use system is heavily criticised for being incredibly easy to abuse. Some videos that explain this include- Matthias and GradeAUnderA.

Every video on You Tube has the option to run under the ‘Standard You Tube Licence’ or the ‘Creative Commons Licence’. Within the creative commons licence there are many attributes the creator can control (Which is explained well in this video). Most uploaders and viewers are unaware or misinformed of the CC licence, causing the core mass of videos to run under the standard licence. Yet if the majority of videos were under the CC licence I believe that there would be a slight reduction of copyright infringement as content providers would have allowed a certain degree of reproduction it to occur. However this would be extremely unfair for creators who DO NOT want people to just copy or re-upload their content, as other people who had no influence over the work can get money from monetising it. On the whole I believe that both laws will continue to become difficult to track due to the growing abundance of content on the site- yet if people were properly informed of the laws, infringement might decrease.

FreeMusicArchive.org

FreeMusicArchive.org is a website that hosts thousands and thousands of free songs for sharing and modification/use. The website is absolutely wonderful because it is all free music that can be used in other projects for class, presentations, own creative content, etc. I currently use this website for my digital media classes and for my podcast. It’s extremely helpful to have this resource for my own use because I am not talented enough to create my own music for my show, and because the website has such a diverse and wide selection, I can find any music for any mood.

You can download it, edit it, use the whole thing, whatever you want. You just need to acknowledge where the music came from and who produced it. I think this is a wonderful resource for those who don’t have the technology to create their own music for creative use, such as my podcast, or in my case, have the skill to do so.

If free music archive began to limit their resources and take away the availability of these songs, it would be a lot more difficult to create my own content. I could use copyrighted songs, but only so much that still qualifies as fair use. Even then I would have to argue that it is fair use, so I always stick with the easy options and use the free items.

However, if free music archive required users to purchase music, they would make SO much more money. In a business setting, that sounds like the better option, but from a creative perspective, it’s just annoying. It would become a lot more difficult to find songs that can be modified and used freely and limit the amount of creative capabilities we have. I personally would work to create my own music and musical interludes, but that would be incredibly difficult and time consuming. I don’t mean to make it seem like free music archive is the easy way out, but the amount of songs available to people like me is just incredible. It’s kind of like the Wikipedia of music.

Free music archive and creative commons are opening up so many doors to creative individuals. In the same sense as the advantages of the internet, these licenses help create and solidify new ideas. In the age of technology and creativity, what more could you need?

Copyright and how the Grinch stole Christmas

This week I have chosen to write about ‘How the Grinch stole Christmas’ by Dr. Seuss which was first published in 1957. It was first adapted into an animated television special in 1966 by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. Universal then bought the movie rights in 2000 as well as the domain name ‘grinched.com’. Even the word ‘Grinch’ is a registered trade-mark by the company Dr. Seuss Enterprises, who made $10 million just in 2005 alone. Universal had to pay the company 4% of the box-office gross as well as half the revenue from merchandise, and 70% of the income from book tie-ins! Lawyers from Dr. Seuss Enterprise even prevented a ‘How the Grinch stole Christmas’ themed party in Louisville in Kentucky in 2008.

In the United States, where this work originates from, the copyright law only permitted the work to be protected for 28 years and then to be renewed once for a further 28 years. That means ‘How the Grinch stole Christmas’ should have been allowed back into the public domain by the 1st January 2014 at the very latest. However at the last minute, Congress in the United States changed the terms of copyright and will keep this story (and other protected works) under copyright law for a further 40 years.

A creative commons license would ensure that the copyrighted material would be able to have free distribution. With this particular example, it is obvious that Dr. Seuss Enterprises would not allow this to happen due to how large the profits still are. I found percentages of revenue, as stated above, for the merchandise and movie, but could not find how much Universal had to pay to use Dr. Seuss’ ‘Grinch’ in their theme parks. The business needs the copyright to stay in tact since Dr. Seuss died in 1991 as to keep ensuring it is profitable (as to keep the company running).

As it is a classic for children, do you think it would be better if the work was put into the public domain? Or do you think it is better for the story to stay copyrighted, protecting his work despite his death?

Strict copyright vs Creative Commons Licenses

For this blog post, I thought it would be interesting to compare content which is restricted by strict copyright laws and that which is more freely available to share and edit through a creative commons license.

Music is under strict copyright laws.

Tidal is an American music subscription service on which the content is under strict copyright and cannot be accessed (i.e. streamed) without purchasing a subscription. On the service, artists upload content which is specifically for the service and therefore it is illegal to have access to the content without a subscription service. The purpose of this is to ensure that artists are paid fairly and fully for their intellectual property. This differs from a streaming service like Spotify, which allows audiences to stream content without a subscription (although they do have to listen to adverts between songs). Comparably, iTunes is a site where audiences must purchase music to listen to it. It is illegal, therefore, to download music which artists are selling if you have not paid for it, from example downloading illegally online. However, SoundCloud is a music service whereby audiences can upload content as well as download and share content legally. This has benefits for content creators who want to share their material and appeal to new audiences, as well as audiences who get to listen to music that they enjoy for free. If this were under the same copyright laws as the previous services, all users of the site would lose out.

Other content is available under Creative Commons Licenses.

Wikimedia Commons (the multimedia repository of Wikipedia) allows its users to upload and edit content on its pages. All content is available under a Creative Commons License meaning audiences can contribute to and develop ideas – the main advantage of the license. Compared to copyrighted books, audiences are unable to contribute to ideas in the same way (unless they properly reference) as this could be seen as plagiarism. Perhaps is copyright laws on books were less strict then academic research and theories could be better explored and advanced.

Do you agree with the use of copyright in these cases?

Copyright threat: ‘locking away’ millions of artistic and cultural treasures.

We transform the world with culture! We want to build on Europe’s rich heritage and make it easier for people to use, whether for work, for learning or just for fun.

This is the mission Europeana-host of  one of the world’s largest cultural heritage collections- has been dedicated to since its foundation. Working closely with the European Union, the site gives access to more than 50 million artworks, books, sounds, videos etc.

It operates under a Creative Commons license, which gives free access to all content. However, with increasing changes to the Terms and Policies, ‘giving credit where credit is due,’ both to the artist and the institution and arising complications regarding the modifications of content, concerns over the possibility of going under copyright restrictions seem more vivid than ever.

What is with the sudden shift? Why deny the public access to their cultural heritage? Admittedly, its online-based database needs to rely on some sort of protection, but is ‘locking away’ the answer?

The case of Europeana is an interesting one when it comes to licenses and copyright. Although the majority of the content is in the public domain, there are also orphan works, ‘out of copyright’ and ‘rights reserved’ ones.

Operating under a Creative Commons license has influentially positive outcomes: promoting cultural awareness, encouraging creativity through knowledge, increasing the interest in art by simplifying access to it, fulfilling educational and informational purposes.

Going under copyright restrictions might be justified by acknowledging the necessity for such works to be appropriately protected, but, without any doubt, would ruin the idea of the site: popularizing Europe’s rich cultural heritage through professional arrangement and free access.

Ultimately, such restrictions would not only destroy a safely stored database of artistic and cultural treasures, but would also limit knowledge.

Something, which should never be allowed.