I think we can all agree with John Tehranian when he says in his essay, Infringement Nation: Copyright Reform And The Law/Norm Gap, that “three key trends bear close observation. First, copyright law is increasingly relevant to the daily life of the average American. Second, this growing pertinence has precipitated a heightened public consciousness over copyright issues. Finally, these two facts have magnified the vast disparity between copyright law and copyright norms and, as a result, have highlighted the need for reform.”
Well, we Americans aren’t alone. In an article “Copyright laws confusing majority of Brits” (also posted on Delicious), Dave Parrack tells us that “Copyright laws need amending in a big way to take into consideration the Internet and digital technologies.” No kidding. What’s different here, however, is that he tells us that the laws are “created at a certain time with no foresight as to what is going to happen in the future” (which I suppose can be said for us as well, given all of the extensions that have been given to copyright ownership), which is a problem because, as Jessica Litman stated in The Exclusive Right to Read, “Technology, heedless of law, has developed modes that insert multiple acts of reproduction and transmission—potentially actionable events under the copyright statute—into daily transactions.”
However, the technological issues that those in the UK are dealing with are slightly different than ours. For them, it is still illegal to copy a legitimately purchased CD for any reason, even to their computers, and to put that music on an mp3 player. This was surprising to me, because I’m pretty sure this really hasn’t been an issue here, and that our issues involving copyrights and music arose with Napster and peer-2-peer file sharing.
Parrack is absolutely correct in saying that his “guess would be that the U.K. isn’t the only country to have failed in its mission to keep on top of new media and update its laws accordingly,” because we may have updated our laws enough times, but accordingly? Eh. I can’t say I think we have or we haven’t—everything just still seems to be so circumstantial and has to be taken case-by-case. Perhaps the Brits will comes to realize this as well when they begin to have more issues with files sharing, like we do… especially if merely copying a CD to their computers is illegal now!
My question after reading this, however, is whether or not I, in the US, can copy a CD by an artist from the UK to my computer or iPod. Under the question posed in US Copyright law FAQ: Copyright in General, “Is my copyright good in other countries,” the answer is, “The United States has copyright relations with most countries throughout the world, and as a result of these agreements, we honor each other’s citizens’ copyrights. However, the United States does not have such copyright relationships with every country,” which leads me to believe that we really aren’t supposed to, which I never considered until now. I’m learning about more laws that I’m breaking every day!
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I think its a big problem that technology poses. Our laws always lag behind the constant demand for new technologies with the ability to transform things in new mediums. But I think a lot can also be said about the cultural implications of certain copyright laws and the general reflection in the way a society perceives someone who is accused of an infringement. If enough people get behind someone who may be doing something legally wrong, but culturally and with new technologies, the law seems outdated, society can pressure the laws to change.