Open source vs Copyright

The world of intellectual property rights is upside down on the internet as well as in the real world. Some people like law professor Lawrence Lessig have made it their mission to update the copyright laws. In an article where Lessig writes how he attempted to reverse the courts decision on the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act. This act gives the courts the right to extend and extend a copyright. The point to all of this is, should there even be copyrights or should we be able to share our intellectual property with no or limited restrictions.

After careful review of several of Lessig's articles, I find that my understanding of copyrights and open source has greatly changed. First of all open source is letting the public view, sample, copy, distribute, but not sell or make a profit of your creations. Creative Commons “is a nonprofit organization that offers flexible copyright licenses for creative works. Anything from art to poetry is shared there and viewed on sites such as, Creative Commons or H2O gives artists an arena. After all, creativity needs an audience.
The difference between the arenas mentioned above and most traditional web sites is that people there are willing to share. Creative licenses are given in certain degree of privilege, depending on how much freedom the creator wants to give. Copyright is limited to a period of 24 years at the most where the Copyright Term Extension Act has given extensions to copyrights up to 90 plus years.
The effect that law has on the future of the public being able to access and share great works such as Nathanial Hawthorne without buying the book or going to a public library and checking it out. A man named Eric Eldred created a free online library.
Anyone can view download or print these books. This man had the vision to share great works of literature with his daughters. This became a hobby and a passion. So much so, that he was willing to go to court to overturn the extension of the copyright of Robert Frost’s poetry collection New Hampshire. Eldred just wanted to give open access to the poems to the public. How long should a copyright extend? The constitutional creators surely did not want to prohibit us from indefinitely using intellectual knowledge. It is certainly prudent to stick with the current 50 to 75 year law. That gives the individual’s who created something rights to all earnings and to their offspring for a fair amount of time. However, that is good for older works but not in our modern world in the free information age. The technology is there to limit or prohibit copying of creations. It should be left up to the individual to set up either sampling license options, or use computer technologies such as Data Rights management or DRM, to secure their property.
Is the copyright law dead? Of course not, but it can be revised so that more people can have access and fair use of creations to inspire and promote more sharing of knowledge and creations.
By Violet Restall