Other issues

Other issue's concerning Copyright is the music industry; such as the Universal Music Group (UMG). An interesting story written and published on The Jefferson Coulter Blog: Copyright Law and Policy, February 6^th 2009 on the music industry concerning a YouTube video. The story as follows:

“Holden Lenz had just learned to walk when—on Feb. 7, 2007—he stepped into the front lines of the copyright wars. Thirteen-month-old Holden was tottering around his family’s home in rural Penn­sylvania, clutching his walker and looking cute. The toddler heard the Prince song Let’s Go Crazy coming from a CD player in the kit­chen, so he stopped walking and began bouncing up and down to the music. Then he made a face and resumed pushing his walker across the kitchen floor.

His mother, Stephanie Lenz, recorded these events in a 30-second home movie, which she posted on You­Tube the following day under the title Let’s Go Crazy #1. She had put similar clips online before so faraway family and friends could see her kids.

This clip, however, drew the ire of the world’s largest music company—Universal Music Group—whose international operations garnered more than $6.9 billion in 2007. On June 4, 2007, Universal sent YouTube a takedown notice pursuant to the Digital Millennium Copy­right Act, asserting that the home movie of Holden infringed the multinational’s copyrights in Prince’s song. YouTube removed the video from its website.

When Lenz learned what had happened, she did something unusual. Unlike the vast majority of people whose postings are the subject of DMCA takedown notices, Lenz consulted an attorney. She then sent a counternotice, asserting that her video, which contained only 20 seconds of a dimly audible song, was a protected fair use of Let’s Go Crazy and did not infringe Universal’s copyrights.

To watch this video on YouTube; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1KfJHFWlhQ

Overview of points covered

So far the main points covered is, the main issue of Copyright, what it's doing to society, what consequences are taking place for infringement of Copyright, and other issue's that concern Copyright such as Plagiarism.
Just to overview what Copyright is doing to society; Students in schools, pressured to do well and more then likely going to resort to plagiarising someone else's work and make it their own.

Copyright and Plagiarism

What is being done to prevent people breaching this law? On the spot fines for infringement of this law can be up to $1320.00 for the people involved.

Now to the concern of Plagiarism, the biggest issue within this is in schools. Plagiarism includes a wide range of issues, from copying a person’s work entirely or stealing their ideas; and whether it is on purpose or accidental. There are many reasons as to why students plagiarise, from lack of research skills to careless note-taking. The University of Alberta have identified that students assume that plagiarism only involves written text, what ideas are copyrighted and what are facts, or what is considered common knowledge.

In the modern world, mostly the only thing that matters to a student is their grades. Family members or personal expectations may pressure a student to maintain a certain average whether or not they have learned anything.
Time management skills and organisational skills can also pressure a student and make them feel overwhelmed at their task which leads them to plagiarise. The University came up with a solution to ask students to hand up and outline (or draft) before their work it due.

Copyright and Plagiarism

Interesting Changes to Copyright laws are that copying CD’s are limited and are only allowed for private and domestic use.

This means that people cannot burn copies of CD’s to give to their friends, the only time you can copy a CD is if it is for personal use and on a CD player that you own. People cannot share their music online, uploading or giving out music over the internet without authorization of the copyright owner is classed as an offence. Copying other people’s CD’s is not allowed either.
If a person were to make a copy of music for private use, it is not allowed to be played publicly or lent to friends. But the law states that you are allowed to ‘lend’ copies to members of your family or household.
This can possibly be confusing; as the Copyright law changed its law so that you cannot make copies of CD’s or lend music unless it is to family.