Copywrite laws

This weeks lecture was on Copy write laws. It covered many of the basics of copy write law to do with software and multimedia. Copy write effects all of the music you listen to or buy, and most of the programs you will own or “aquire” ;).for example if you pay for a CD album, you are only allowed to listen to that CD privately. Although you have paid for the CD you are not allowed to make a back up of the music, copy it to your computer or even convert it to mp3 to use on your mp3 player. Also you are not allowed to lend the CD to a friend or even relative as this is technically a breach of copy write. Software is also covered by a version of copy write law. However these laws are a little more reasonable as you are allowed to make a back up of the software as long as you keep it to yourself and don’t give it to others. Some software gives you an opportunity to “try before you buy”. This is called Shareware. These programs give you limited features, a certain amount of time to try them or often reminders to purchase the product. If you choose to buy you are given a serial number which can be used to activate the full product. This gives people the chance to see if the program is for them before forking out large amounts of money for software. However these sharewares can be “cracked” to allow the user to use the full product for free. This is done by modifying some of the files or obtaining a serial number from a third party, this is of course a breach of copy write and illegal. There is also open source software which is free from the off. You can also modify this software to make it work how you want it to. I think this will be the future of software as the gap between open source and company made software is closing.

We also were shown the music video for Nizlopi’s shit song “the jcb song”. The video was made in flash and was quite impressive. Its just a shame it was for one of the worst written, most commercially driven song I have ever heard. But personal opinions aside, the video was a work of art.