Copyright

Recently there´s been much ado about copyright violations on Youtube as well as a new law that´s in the making in New Zealand. For informations on the latter, click http://creativefreedom.org.nz/

I find most of the stuff that is initiated by the big media- (mostly music-) companies quite excessive. I mean, I can understand that they don´t want to lose money to pirated songs/films etc., but how many of the copyright infringements do actually hurt them ?

On Youtube many songs are used as soundtracks to videos made by Youtubers. Does that mean there´s even one copy of the song less bought because of that? No way! In my opinion it´s rather a chance to bring one song to the attention of many people who may haven´t known it before. They get interested in the song or the band and may actually buy songs/CD´s they would not without watching the video. At least that´s the way it worked for me.

Then there are parts of TV-programs on YT you haven´t the chance of seeing ever again on TV or not in a long long time. Does that hurt anybody? No, because you can´t buy these anyway.

Of course there are also whole music clips on Youtube. You can save money if you watch them there instead of buying the song. But what person that likes a song, would want to listen to it only on the computer? If you like it, you buy it. No harm done. If you don´t have the money to buy it, there´s also no harm done, because you wouldn´t have bought it anyway.

So what is the result of the measures taken against copyright infringements? The media companies just antagonise their (potential) customers. Not a wise thing to do in my opinion. Their lobbying in the rewriting of copyright laws all around the world, of which the New Zealand case is just the most recent and most excessive attempt, should lead to public outrage and I´m curious how this will work out.

To make it clear: I´m all against professional pirates who want to make money out of the work of others. But when no money is involved, the existing principle of fair use should be extended to cover the examples given above.