How do you get your music?
Well, here it is, the last blog of the semester. Coming up with blog ideas has been a challenge within itself. Sometimes articles jumped out at me and sometimes I had to search long and hard to come up with something I wanted to blog about. I have enjoyed reading all of my classmates’ blogs over the past 16 weeks. Being able to share ideas and ‘discuss’ them with classmates/colleagues as been a valuable, albeit time consuming part of this class. I have gained an understanding of the many ways blogs can be utilized in and out of the classroom. Hopefully when I return to the classroom I will be able to incorporate some of these ideas.
Now, without any further adieu, here is my last blog.
In one of my other graduate courses, I read a research paper about copyright issues. Being a music teacher, I quite often find myself at a crossroads of infringing on copyright laws in one way or another. In this paper, a music teacher found it quite disturbing how little students knew about copyright laws or what little respect people had for them. The students actually thought that copyright meant that they had a right to copy music. Students think that just because they have a cd burner, they have the right to copy music and do what they want with it. This line of thinking is what got a student from Boston University in deep doo doo.
Have you ever downloaded a song off the internet from Kazaa, Limewire, or Napster or any other music sharing site? Did you think twice about the legality of doing so? The premise of these sites was that you would just share the music you legally obtained (bought) with millions of other people via the internet. It soon became a process of other people just ‘ripping’ tracks any time from anyone. This is where the music industry has the problem. This is what got Joel Tenenbaum from Providence, Rhode Island in such hot water. In fact, according to this article he has been ordered to pay four recording labels a total of $675,000 in damages, To me, that is just a ludicrous amount for the ‘crime’ he committed. He is expected to pay $22,500 for each song he illegally obtained. That is crazy. How did this student get singled out and prosecuted. I would imagine every student in my school could potentially face the same charges as this guy did. I see the kids walking around with their I-pods loaded with thousands of songs. I don’t suppose they paid for each and every one of them. According to the law, that is not legal. But, how does that differ from the days of yore, where you let somebody borrow your records, cassettes, 8-tracks or CD’s. (Some of you probably don’t even know what records, cassettes or 8-tracks are. I once had a student ask me if records are those ‘really big CDs). Anyway, the threat of getting into random trouble like Mr. Tenenbaum has is enough to keep me from ‘ripping’ any music from any site. I definitely subscribe to i-tunes now and pay the low fee for any songs I want.
I have even worried about my parental responsibilities for the music my kids download. I make sure to get subscriptions to avoid copyright infringement but as you said a lot of kids don't understand the law. At school I have the kids do an electronic safety poster. The issue of pictures and copyright is another instance where the students are uninformed. they are surprised when I tell them they need to cite the source of the images they download.
ReplyDeleteI think in this day and age, artists are trying to recoup money from lost CD sales and ticket revenue as the digital age is upon us. No one can stop us from downloading music or even ripping a CD from a friend. It all comes down to our own ethics and morals (and an understanding of the law). Legally, these companies have every right to go after people illegally accumulating their music. I think the bigger issue in this is that the people they are targeting are downloading hundreds, maybe even thousands of songs sometimes and usually settle out of court. The days of free Limewire, Napster, and so on are over. These artists do rely on CD sales and other revenue, as well as the companies who own their music. If someone was stealing your ideas hundreds of times a day without paying a dime would you be a little worried yourself? Now in the academic world, I believe copyrights should be foregone as long as the music is not used for personal gain or profit.
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