Blockade of Progression part 1

this is the first of a two part blog post about the copyright law.

'Happy Birthday to you
happy birthday to you
Happy birthday dear readers
happy birthday to you'

You would be shocked if I told you that if I were to sing this song in a public space I would owe Warner Music Group $700 dollars of royalties. The song which was adapted from the original "good Morning to all" which was composed by Patty and Mildred hill in 1893 was used to greet kindergarten students in the morning. The song whilst composed in the 1900's is still considered under copy right due to the fickle nature of the copy right industry.

The music industry, the legal iron giant fights against one thing. Pirates. Pirates who think paying $20 per album of 12 songs is ridiculous, choose to share and download the copied material for free. As a majority of these anti-piracy laws come from America and are only applicable to United States land. A majority of internet pirating websites are set up in countries such as Sweden where their practices are not infringing upon the law. Pirate Bay are the most notable of the Pirating Websites, and by there name, they do not dispute this at all. You can read all the legal emails and their responses on their website http://thepiratebay.se/legal/

The music industry is too bloated to keep functioning as it does. With the introduction of social media and the MP3, buying a physical copy of a CD has become redundant, but we are still expected to pay irrational prices for Media. Luckily there have been some pioneers in a the music industry to move it forward. Spotify which is a free (with optional premium service) which allows you to listen to a huge range of music for free.

Reference:

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080506/1310251047.shtml Masnick, M.2008, Tech dirt

"We paid $700 to say happy birthday. You got to pay for the song." during an episode of her show, "Transcript of 5 Feb 2010 episode of 'The Wendy Williams Show. 5 Feb 2010. Retrieved 1 May 2011.