Lessig Introduction – Hope Mitchell

I would change our current copyright laws because, as was mentioned in the Lessig “Introduction” reading, it seems like current copyright stifles creativity and  exhausts resources. Prior to this reading, I thought that copyright laws were helpful, especially in that they can protect others from stealing a person’s work. However, while this can be true to an extent, I think that copyright laws can be harmful if taken too far. Copyright laws seem to prevent or at least hinder some people from using (adapting, sampling, or remixing) other people’s work and sharing it with others (potentially in a profitable way). Yet, I think that using and learning from other people’s work is a way to grow in our individual creativity and observe the changes in our culture. I also think that innocently using other people’s work and sharing it on a platform like YouTube (like Stephanie Lenz did in Lessig’s reading) is a way for the user to enjoy the original work themselves and make it unique to themselves. Not only does copyright restrict this, but it also is time-consuming for the user and the original creator; going through the process of taking down innocent videos (again like Stephanie Lenz’s) or deciding whether to call something copyright infringement wastes time and money for everyone involved, resources that could be instead used for harmful breaches of copyright. Therefore, in that respect, I think that the copyright laws do need to be changed because, while I do think it is important to protect creators and original content, they currently focus overly on harmless users/content and stifle the creativity/enjoyment/voices of their audiences.