Blog 4: Digital Copies

                Back in the day copying photos, documents, or anything in analog would reduce the quality with each quality. Now we are in the digital age so making digital copies is much easier and will not reduce the quality. In fact, with the technology we have today we can make perfect copies. This brings up the idea that in the digital age there is no original copy. If there is no original than who truly owns the media? Intellectual property is very important if you don’t want people to steal media. This is critical for people who deal with the arts. You would not want others to take and benefit from the hard work you did. There are laws to protect people’s intellectual property but it is somewhat difficult to protect something that lives in the digital world and does not exist in the physical world. One popular form of creating music is to take samples from other songs and arrange the sounds to form your own tune. This is where Intellectual property gets somewhat hazy. If you are publishing and obtaining profit from someone else’s work, you are breaking the law. If I just take a small snip of your song does that mean I am breaking the law? It depends on a few things. It depends on how similar your new song sounds from that sample you are using. There is something called ‘fair use’ which looks at the purpose and character of use of the media you are using. If you use someone else’s work, fair use looks at the amount and sustainability and effect upon original work’s value. Therefore, before you want to copy or use someone else’s work make sure you are abiding by the law.