The Main Objective Of The Copyright Law - Essay Example

? One of the primary aims of copyright is to ensure society is rich with creative works. Without copyright creators would not create new works. Discuss. The Main Objective Of The Copyright Law is to Make Sure That Society is Affluent With Creative Works Intellectual property is a legal term which connotes to some varieties of ideas, information and other intangibles and to their tangible guises (expressed) symbolizing a legal principle which expresses that creative inventions of the mind are as authorised to have legal safeguard as like any other form of properties .Thus , intellectual property will in general parlance include copyrights , trademarks , patents ,plans ,logos, trade secrets ,ideas and other guises of artistic or creative expression despite the particular laws administering each such form may be distinct and separate. All intellectual property laws have the common goal of extending and controlling exclusive privileges over the products of creative work or intellectual works , offering the creator or the owner of those exclusive privileges with a limited monopoly as regards to that property , normally for some phase of time.(Nathan & Morgan 2008 :20). Copyright safeguards “original works created by the authors” that are permanent in nature and available in a corporeal guise of expression. The permanence need not be frankly discernible, as long as it may be expressed with the help of a devise or a machine. The following works are acceptable for registration with the copyright office provided they are original and creative in nature. Literary works “Lyrics and musical works” Play or drama with or without music Choreographic or Pantomimes “Sculptural , graphic and pictographic works” Audiovisuals and motion graphics Architectural works “Sound tracks or recordings” “Creative works are safeguarded by the Copyright Act”. Creative works may be in any of the following form viz. movies, video games ,poetry , CD-ROMs, plays ,videos , sheet music ,paintings , novels , recorded music performances , sculptures ,software codes, choreography , photographs and architectural designs. There should be some creative initiatives on the side of an author so as to receive a protection under Copyright Act. The Act does not quantify how much creativity should be there. For instance, a work should be more creative than that of a telephone directory where alphabetical records of telephone numbers exist instead of a creative selection of listings. It should be noted that an author’s creative ideas are not safeguarded by the Copyright Act. Thus, copyright protection is available only for an original, fixed, and creative expression and no protection is available for just facts or ideas on which the expression is footed. For instance, there may be protection availed for a specific novel, computer game or song about a marriage in space under copyright act but no protection is available to the underlying conception of a marriage in a star. Thus, permitting the creators to monopolize their conception or ideas would frustrate the underlying objective of copyright law, which is mainly aimed to encourage the authors or creators to invent or create a new work. Likewise, no protection is available under copyright law for the facts which may be either historical, scientific, news of the day or biographical info. For any discovery by an author which is available in the public domain, no protection under copyright law is available. For instance, anyone is at his liberty to employ the information which is contained in a book about how human heart functions, a TV documentary of the babyhood of erstwhile President George W Bush or a journal article on the lifestyle and natural beauties of the Andaman Islands – so long as they describe the information in their own style and words. It is to be observed that real facts are not safeguarded under the copyright law even if the author splurges a lot of effort and time in divulging things that are not known early. For instance, if an author of a book on Andaman Islands takes more than 15 years to write that book by spending resources to visit the islands and gathered information for his work. However, once the book is published and is available in the public domain, anyone who reads that book is at liberty to use the hard work put by the author for the last 15 years without paying even a single dollar to the real author. (Irving 2008:145). “The US Supreme Court, in Feist Publ’ns Inc. V Rural Serv Co1” , held that copyrighted works should have at least a minimal magnitude of creativity. (Ku, Sun & Fan 2009:1671). “Under 17 U.S.C § 106”, the authors or creators are provided with the exclusive rights for their works under copyright law. Thus, with the help of the exclusive rights obtained under the copyright law, the successful authors will be able to obtain the financial reward for the creativity or works by establishing a market for them instead of relying on government or private support or patronage. The author will be able to reap a greater reward, if they have greater safeguard or protection. The authors will be motivated to create more new works if they enjoy greater rewards. According to Thomas Babington Macaulay, who made a vociferous speech in the UK Parliament as early in 1841, reiterated that by enhancing the financial reward to creative authors , there can be a steep increase in the public’s bounty of creative new works of authorships.(Ku, Sun & Fan 2009 :1671). Copyright law guarantees some minimum protection to the privileges of authors or creators over their creation, thereby safeguarding and rewarding creativity. Being the founding stone of progress, no civilized society can afford to neglect the fundamental need of encouraging the creativity. Social and economic development of a society is footed upon the creativity. Thus, the creators or authors enjoy a protection under copyright law for their initiatives and efforts, which establishes a scenario favorable to creativity, which encourages them to invent or create more and stimulate others to create. The progress of the society can be hampered if the copyright laws are implemented vigorously and strictly. Nonetheless, the copyright laws are introduced with requisite limitations and exceptions to make sure that a striking balance is achieved between the community and the interest of the creators. However, many varieties of exploitation of work , which are for social objectives like research ,education , review , criticism , reporting ,commenting and so on are excepted from the purview of copyrights extended in the copyright act. (Singh 2004:201). Originally, copyright was intended to prohibit publishers from wielding too many commands over information. However, today, as per Lawrence Lessig, the Stanford Law School professor, it restricts the individuals from authoring new works. This is mainly due to USA laws, which has extended the life term of the copyright material to 95 years as of now from 28 years in the nineteenth century, and their extent is also expanded to include all works and not restricted to that of minority that is used to be registered. In USA , the copyright law is extended to almost all works and not just restricted to printed matter and is now applicable to the derivative works also. Lessig critics that such wide application was neither existed nor intended in USA in the near past. (“The Economist 2004”). No New Works would be Created with out Copyright Protection The copyright law is footed upon a notion: enhance copyright protection and one can see the increase in the quantum of creative works available to the community. The above fundamental theory has been really a driving force for the economic enrichment that has been enlarged, well beyond all appreciation, the Original Law established by the Statute of Anne in the USA. There is a general question, whether the increasing the copyright protection will automatically enhance the quantum of new creative works. Ku et al research study employed statistical analysis to verify the above findings and the Ku et al research study relied on the registrations of copyrights in US between the period 1870 and 2000 as a stand-in for the quantum of new works created, the Ku et al took into account how 4 variables namely the economy, the population, technology and legal transformations have influenced copyright registrations subsequently. Ku et al research finally concluded that while individual legal transformations may be linked with transformations in latter copyright registrations , the general association between new registrations and the changes in the copyright law is either reliable or totally predictable.(Acton 2011:116). Economists and Law Professors are evincing a great significance in empirical investigations of copyright sector and the effect of copyright law on markets and cultures. Various empirical studies have given a great significance to the effect of copyright on creative products, association between creativity and copyright law and association between creativity and other factors. The fiery effect of the internet and the computer technologies upon the ecosystem of copyright has ever progressively stimulated many empirical researches in the specific contentious provinces like the impact on the recording industry due to peer-to-peer file sharing facilities widely available. Strumpf and Oberholzer –Gee study found that there was no impact at all as regards to files sharing with that of CD sales as there was a decline of just 20% in CD sales due to file sharing. (“Gee & Strumpf 2010”).The study carried over by Leibowitz found that there were no impacts on such a file sharing with that of CD sales.(CESifo Econ.Stud 2005:439). Strumpf and Oberholzer –Gee findings almost were corresponding to the findings by Orlowski findings in UK in 2007. (Orlowski 2007). Landes and Posner study carried over in 2003 revealed that though there was no poignant significant association statistically between the number of new works produced and the extensions in copyright duration, though they prolonged to argue, footing upon the standard linear logic of copyright’s history that enhanced protection would result in more new works. (“Landes & Posner 2003”). However , a more comprehensive and recent study carried over by Ku et al confronts the link between the increase in copyrighted works and expanded copyright protections. Nonetheless, Gee & Strumpf are of the view that in spite of file sharing and other guises of musical piracy, copyrighted works production does not hinder in recent years. (Tussey 2012: 67). The famous economist like Michele Boldrin and David K. Levine who had collected anecdotal data on different copyright industries to corroborate that many such industries progressed without the help of copyright safeguard or ,in fact, in rebelliousness of it. (Boldrin & Levine 2008:15-39). For instance, the recording industries, the movie and the software industries have surfaced and flourished even without copyright safeguard, which is, nevertheless, bestowed on them even after they attained poignant political and economic strength. The above findings imply that copyright law habitually responds to the growth of markets, particularly in expressive works instead stimulating the production of such works. (Boldrin & Levine 2008:15-39). Boldrin & Levine were also gathered data that throw general disbelief on the efficiency of intellectual monopoly regulations like copyright to encourage creation and in reality, which imply that such regulations may inhibit rather than incentivize innovation. (Boldrin & Levine 2008:208). Eckhard Hoffner in his recent book contrasted the industrialization in German and England. He courageously emphasized that German’s sweep industrial development in the 1800s was really ascribable to the non-existence of copyright law which rather facilitated broad, inexpensive dissemination of the recent works of scientific inventions. Hoffner relied on the number of publications both in Britain and in Germany and emphasized that strong copyright protection in UK rather greatly slacked the spread of such new inventions and Britain had actually failed to reap the initial benefits in industrialization as what Germany achieved in this sector. (Thadeusz 2010). To sum up, creative works are protected by the Copyright Act. Thus, copyright protection is available only for an original, fixed, and creative expression and no protection is available for just facts or ideas on which the expression is footed. “The US Supreme Court, in Feist Publ’ns Inc. V Rural Serv Co2 “, held that copyrighted works should have at least a minimal magnitude of creativity .The authors will be motivated to create more new works if they enjoy greater rewards. Being the founding stone of progress, no civilized society can afford to neglect the fundamental need of encouraging the creativity. Social and economic development of a society is footed upon the creativity. Thus, it can be corroborated that one of the primary aims of copyright is to ensure society is rich with creative works. As regards to the argument that without copyright, creators would not create new works, there are mixed responses to this concept. Ku et al research study found that the general association between new registrations and the changes in the copyright law is either reliable or totally predictable. Strumpf and Oberholzer –Gee study found that there was no impact at all as regards to files sharing with that of CD sales and thus has demonstrated that there is no link between copyright protection and creation of new works. Leibowitz also found that there were no impacts on such file sharing with that of CD sales. However, Landes and Posner found that enhanced protection would result in more new works. “Michele Boldrin and David K. Levine “ found that many music and literary works progressed without the help of copyright safeguard. Boldrin & Levine found that copyright regulations may inhibit rather than incentivize innovation or creativity. Eckhard Hoffner is of the view that German attained fast industrialization as compared to UK as it had no copyright protection, which helped the dissemination of creativity. However, I wish to take a side with the findings of Landes and Posner and Eckhard Hoffner, who found that enhanced protection would result in more new works. Thus, society would definitely benefit if there is copyright production available to authors, which motivate them to create more new works. List of References Acton, QA. (2011). Issues in Law Research: 2011 Edition. New York: Scholarly Editions. Boldrin, M & Levine, DK. (2008). Against Intellectual Monopoly. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. CESifo Econ.Stud. (2005). Compare Stan J.Liebowitz, Pitfalls in Measuring the Impact of File-Sharing on the Sound Recording Market. CESifo Econ.Stud, 51,439. Irving, s. (2008). Nolo’s Encyclopaedia of Everyday Law: Answers to Your Most Frequently Asked Questions. New York: Nolo Ku RSR, Sun, J & Fan, Y. (2009). Does Copyright Law Promote Creativity? Vanderbilt Law Review, 62, (6)1669 Landes, WM & Posner, RA. (2003). The Economic Structure of Intellectual Property Law. Harvard: Harvard University Press. Nathan, RJ & Morgan, B. (2008). But Where Do I Sign? Volume 1- the Essentials: Understanding. London: Music Law Press LLC. Oberholzer –Gee, F & Strumpf, K. (2010). File-Sharing and Copyright. [online] available from [accessed 15 May 2012] Orlowski, A. (2007). Apple, Tesco “Most to Blame “for Music Biz Crisis, The Register [online] available from < http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/10/19/vrs_value_gap_report/ Singh, SS. (2004). The Law of Intellectual Property Rights. New York: Deep & Deep Publications. Thadeusz, F. (2010). No Copyright Law: the Real Reason for Germany Industrial Expansion [online] available from Read More