Jason Hardin Lecture

I learned SO much about copyright during the lecture Jason Hardin gave. Before he came and spoke to us, I was not even aware that from the moment an original creation is put in tangible form, it is protected by copyright. That’s so cool! That’s definitely one particular governmental protection that I do think is worthwhile and beneficial to society. I also thought some of the websites he told us about were pretty interesting. I had never heard of creative commons but it seems like a really neat way that anyone can help support copyright laws AND societal creative growth at the same time. He also went over the factors involved in the Fair Use (Title 17) issue. It was really good to hear because even though I had heard of Fair Use, I was really unsure about what actually constitutes an educational “fair use” defense against copyright infringement.
One thing the lecture got me thinking about was downloading music for free using limewire or a similar website. It’s an issue that has a lot of gray area, especially among college-age students. However, I’m kind of starting to see the reasons behind the laws against that free downloading. After all, the reason for copyright in the first place is partly to inspire creators and artists to work hard to make the industry better in order to make money. I feel like just because it’s really easy to get free music doesn’t really mean that the use of music should be any different than the laws that apply to all other forms of art or intellectual property.