Obsolete Copyright Laws And The Need For New Regulations

Background of Patent and Copyright Laws

The patent and copyright laws were typically developed in the past to offer a wide variety of benefits to the community and thus entailed the provision of incentives to the inventors and authors. Such copyrights were introduced with the intent of providing an opportunity to various individuals such as the inventors and authors the gain personally from their creativity, thus the intellectual property protections were typically meant to establish an environment which would enable innovations and creativity to occur to enable a particular community to prosper as a whole (Joyce, Ochoa, Carroll, Leaffer and Jaszi, 2016 p.85). The laws on copyright need to be developed based on the developed digital system which is considered to be less expensive and quicker. The digital system has the ability to store a lot of data in less space as compared to the current analog system of the copyright laws.

In the recent past, there have been arguments on the implementation of piracy and copyrights. However, the issue on copyrights has been a declared as a battle between the peer to peer file sharers and the content creators. There are certain individuals who support the idea of copyrights and this is based on the argument that the copyright is an essential property right which is provided in the law (Means, 2017 p.50). The other individuals, on the other hand, have no stand since they only believe that copyright is of significance and thus they have to defend it. Further, certain individuals who have been referred to as the copyfighters have a belief that the copyright is imposition which they consider as an authoritarian and this has therefore led to the development of various harmful monopolies.

Menell (2015 p.441), argues that such monopolies have contributed to the existence of immoral and corrupt individuals and groups who typically support the capitalist plutocrats and therefore they interfere with the market structure which should actually be left free. There are a variety of reasons which explains why copyright is becoming obsolete in the new modern world. The laws of copyright were never developed for the digital age. The production of cultural material has been transformed in the past decades and this has been attributed to the advanced technology and internet. An individual with a particular idea can easily record the images and sounds and it is available to the whole world. That, therefore, explains why the copyrights have become obsolete. The other reason why the copyright has become obsolete is due to the creation of new business models by the digital technology and a key example of such models is the aggregation of news.

Arguments on Copyrights

According to Parr (2018 p.400), news, for example, can now be obtained from a range of sites which have brought together different links to a variety of articles. Such a process has been made easier because the different contents provided in the news outlets can be automized to enable different readers to access some of the contents. The copyrights have also become obsolete because some of the copyfighters have become corrupt in the sense that they mainly favor the customers who have paid for the contents they intend to use and leaving the rest of the consumers (Peng, Ahlstrom, Carraher and Shi, 2017 p.20). However, there is a strong protection which is provided by the law and this is under the doctrine of fair use and the other one is the free peer to peer file sharing. Such actions by the copyrighters have typically made the laws of copyright absolutely obsolete and hence there is the need for the development of new laws pertaining to the copyrights to allow for access of various contents without favoring any particular individual irrespective of whether that person has paid or not.

Also, the copyrights are virtually important for the growth of a particular economy. However, it has hindered innovation and creativity in most of the countries across the world and hence should the copyright law should keep up to date with the prevailing economic situation in diverse nations. The intangible copyrighted products, for example, are promoted in the market to different consumers via the digital distribution technologies and this may include, the streaming and download services (Paulin, 2016 p.335). The tangible products, on the other hand, are also marketed through the same technology of digital distribution. Most of these products have absolute benefits to the customers but because of the underpinning copyright laws, such creative works cannot be made available to the customers and this is through a clear definition.

There is the need to develop new laws of copyright to help save the newspapers and this is because it will offer protection to the journalistic content and newspaper by preventing rebroadcast of the particular newspaper content (Rohr, 2017 p.67). Additionally, there is an advancement in technology in every particular area and this has made the implementation of the traditional copyright which depends on the business models impossible. For example, the old school media organizations are faced with the challenge to know how they can transform their business models to be up to the game. The organizations have not been able to abandon the old model of copyright law and this is because there is lack of the ability to change the models without the replacement of workforces and brand trust (Story, 2017 p.30).

Reasons for Copyrights Becoming Obsolete

With the current innovations and changes in the technology, there is the need for a change in the laws of copyright so as to adapt to the new digital age. Such a move will typically allow the authors and other inventors to create cultural contents which will still be of benefit to the society (Frankel and Gervais, 2014 p.26). There is also an increase in the utilization of the social media which has led to the development of new solutions to the intellectual property protection.

The existing copyright laws do not have the capacity to protect the various works of different authors across the globe and this has therefore called for the development of new laws of copyright which would protect the different individuals work from the malicious acts of a variety of hackers (MacQueen, 2014 p.200). The increased expansion of the international intellectual property has led to complex situations which have made the existing copyright laws to become obsolete and hence most of the organizations must keep abreast of the different developments with the aim of ensuring that online content of a variety of companies is protected from malicious hackers.

According to Ku (2017 p.250), under the traditional copyright, the fundamental aim of the business models is to prevent copyright infringement which entails keeping a variety of individuals from producing certain copies which have already been made before. However the enforcement of the copyright has become absolute difficult since it only involves preventing various individuals from conducting certain activities such as possession of the copies and this has therefore made the existing copyright obsolete, thus the need to develop new laws for the copyright which would make it easy to prevent the production of many copies by different individuals in the society.

The existing copyright law has been considered as a propaganda with the aim of confusing the general public on the nature of such a copyright law. The term intellectual property typically suggests that there is a relationship between theft and copyright infringement but in the real sense such a correlation does not exist, it only exists in the mind (Dratler and McJohn, 2017 p.30). The intellectual property has therefore been considered as a government implemented monopoly of distributing copies with the aim of generating more profit for selfish gain. It can, therefore, be concluded, that the existing copyright law should be developed to eliminate the issue of monopoly by the government on claims of protecting the copyrights of the authors and they are using that to obtain profits for themselves.

Importance of Copyrights in the Growth of Economy

Another key reason why the copyright laws which are existing should be changed is based on the fact that they are less convenient especially for the consumers compared to the media which is driven by a lot of piracy and this is irrespective of the price and cost of use of the law (Drahos, 2016 p.100). Further, the technological measures which have been put in place in the copyright have become out of control since it can no longer be used to fight piracy and the network technologies are also enhancing at an accelerating speed which cannot be adapted by the existing copyrights. There is, therefore, the need to develop new copyright laws.

According to Aufderheide and Jaszi (2018 p.20), the execution of the existing copyright is very strict and many of the individuals and groups who have vested interest developed the means to fight back the inevitable technological advancement which has made the enforcement of the copyrights difficult. The most attacked issue in the copyright is that of the doctrine of fair use which has typically led to the growth of copyright law, propaganda campaigns and abuse of patent laws. Additionally, the different products which have been put under the protection by use of the existing copyright laws are not being purchased and end up being pirated by other individuals who do not own the particular contents. Such a strict enforcement has made the existing copyright laws to become obsolete and hence the need for the development of new laws which is flexible and would allow for changes to be made when necessary.

The existing copyright laws are also expected to become obsolete because of the improved technological intellectual property protection rights which will rely on the digital network environment (Beebe, 2017 p.350). There is an ongoing research to try to establish a variety of technological strategies aimed at providing protection to the intellectual products and this will be done in a digital format.

However, the copyright implementation has not yet become obsolete and this is because advanced technology has strengthened the ability of different individuals to produce more copies of the copyright content (Aistars, 2014 p.339). The current technology has only decreased the cost associated with copying various content leading to the generation of more profits by organizations.The content-based models of business will, therefore, be protected from cases of piracy by focui9sng on the generation of profits instead of considering them as an intellectual property.

Development of New Laws of Copyright

The existing public attitudes towards the copyright law has become one of the greatest obstacles for the implementation of the copyright laws. It is expected that with the introduction of the digital technology, the public attitude will typically change since there will be less harm associated with it thus makes the copyright holders great.

Conclusion

In summary, in the next few decades, there will be a lot of changes witnessed in the social and legal institutions and this will primarily revolve around the copyright works of different authors. Such changes will be necessary due to the fact that the existing copyright laws have become obsolete and hence cannot secure of the contents availed by a variety of authors and inventors. The changes in the copyright law will be facilitated by the new technological advancement which has brought about certain key additional complex issues in the intellectual property law. For example, with the advanced technologies, there has been an increase in the levels of piracy and this has, therefore, made the existing copyright laws absolutely irrelevant to the different business models across the globe. Also, the development of the new laws for the copyright will allow for the provision of a valuable public service with the aim of taking advantage of the opportunities which will be made available by the new technologies and thus bring benefit to different persons in the society such as the authors and inventors.

References

Aistars, S.M., 2014. The Next Great Copyright Act, or a New Great Copyright Agency. Colum. JL & Arts, 38, p.339.

Aufderheide, P. and Jaszi, P., 2018. Reclaiming fair use: How to put balance back in copyright. University of Chicago Press.

Beebe, B., 2017. ” bleistein”, the problem of aesthetic progress, and the making of american copyright law. Columbia Law Review, pp.319-397.

Drahos, P., 2016. A philosophy of intellectual property. Routledge.

Dratler Jr, J., and McJohn, S.M., 2017. Intellectual Property Law: Commercial, Creative and Industrial Property. Law Journal Press.

Frankel, S. and Gervais, D. eds., 2014. The Evolution and Equilibrium of Copyright in the Digital Age (Vol. 26). Cambridge University Press.

Joyce, C., Ochoa, T.T., Carroll, M.W., Leaffer, M.A. and Jaszi, P., 2016. Copyright law (p. 85). Carolina Academic Press.

Ku, R.S.R., 2017. The creative destruction of copyright: Napster and the new economics of digital technology. InCopyright Law (pp. 207-268). Routledge.

MacQueen, H., 2014. Copyright law reform: Some achievable goals?.

Means, G., 2017. The modern corporation and private property. Routledge.

Menell, P.S., 2015. Adapting copyright for the mashup generation. U. Pa. L. Rev., 164, p.441.

Parr, R.L., 2018. Intellectual property: valuation, exploitation, and infringement damages. John Wiley & Sons.

Paulin, A., 2016. Informating smart cities governance? Let us first understand the atoms!. Journal of the Knowledge Economy, 7(2), pp.329-343.

Peng, M.W., Ahlstrom, D., Carraher, S.M. and Shi, W.S., 2017. History and the debate over intellectual property.Management and Organization Review, 13(1), pp.15-38.

Rohr, J., 2017. Ethics for bureaucrats: An essay on law and values. Routledge.

Story, A., 2017. Burn Berne: 1 Why the Leading International Copyright Convention must be Repealed. In Copyright Law(pp. 3-41). Routledge.