Lessig Introduction – Faith Mitchell

I think Lawrence Lessig’s “Introduction” is really interesting and insightful, and Lessig makes some great points about copyright through telling the stories of artists and ordinary people who have gotten caught in the crosshairs of its war. Personally, I think that copyright laws are important, helpful, and necessary in terms of protecting one’s work and ideas, but it has its downfalls and flaws. I, myself, have had a love-hate relationship with copyright laws for as long as I can remember; run-ins with them pop up everywhere, especially when I am working on schoolwork. (Please excuse my mini tangent.) For instance, I was in a fiction writing class a few semesters ago, and for it, I had to write a short story. I really wanted to use song lyrics in my story because I felt like they allowed my story to have a greater impact on the reader. However, I was not sure if it would be considered copyright infringement (even if I named the song title and the author in my story and included a full citation), nor was I sure if it would be within Fair Use rules (since the song was from the 1930s). I decided that I would rather be safe than sorry and deleted the lyrics before submitting the story. But I was pretty bummed about it and felt like my story suffered from the tangled web of confusing, overbearing, slightly ridiculous copyright laws. I was not claiming the lyrics as my own and would have given credit where it was due; if anything, the song could have gained listeners who might have never heard the song before until reading my story. Similarly, in the first story Lessig highlighted, Stephanie Lenz painted the Prince song in a good light (as even her eighteen-month-old liked it and wanted to dance to it) and could have helped the song gain popularity, not hurt it. The same could be true for Candice Breitz’s use of John Lennon’s music, Gregg Gillis’ use of song samples, and those who remix SilviaO’s songs. So, to get to the point, I would change our current copyright laws because, as they are now, I think they are a bit much and too strict. They need to continue to exist but be changed because they limit creativity and overlook the benefits of more freedom when it comes to being able to share one’s work with others and bring more popularity to the original work or idea.