Am I ashamed to say that I had to do extensive research on copyright before confidently making this post? Absolutely not.

Research had to be conducted because where I’m from, Guyana, copyright laws do not exist.

Yes, you read that right! But, while doing research, my country was not listed as one of the countries where copyright laws do not exist. So, this is either a case of the rest of the world is not keeping up to date with small, unpopular countries, which is normal, OR Guyana has copyright laws that no one is aware of.

So, to answer the question, copyright is an exclusive right that is given to the originator of any published work. For others to use this work, permission must be given by the originator of said work. If for some wild reason, you decide to use an original piece of work without permission, the consequences that may follow this are very dreadful.

Yup! And this is all due to copyright laws. The copyright laws of the USA states that we are prohibited from fully copying works but we are allowed to use ideas from a work. One of the examples that come to mind when thinking of this law is Ariana Grande’s music video for “Thank u, Next.”

(I’ll insert the video for those of you that may not have seen it.) If you have seen the video before, you would have seen that she used many elements from popular movies as scenes for her video. Is this okay? Did she have to request permission from the writers and producers of these movies or because she was making the scenes her own, it was fine?

Another popular example in music was a recent incident whereby DJ Luke Nasty sampled the melody line (I believe) from Kirk Franklin’s “Melodies From Heaven.” Now, quite frankly, it took me a long while to hear similarities in the songs, and when I finally heard what everyone else was hearing, I did not think the songs sound a while. Luckily for DJ Luke Nasty, he did not face major consequences, but because of the ‘copyright infringement’ certain music streaming platforms, like Soundcloud, were not permitting him to upload the song.

You guys can judge the situation for yourself. Do you think the songs sound similar?

When watching “Laws that choke creativity,” the most compelling thing said by Larry Lessig was his explanation of using the content of others. Some of the things he said were, “It’s how they understand access to this culture.” and, “It is a literacy for this generation. This is how our kids speak.” And with these statements, I could not agree more.

Now, he was in no way justifying using someone’s work and portraying it as your own, but rather,  he was explaining that using someone’s work as a learning method is a way that increases our understanding of digital technologies and builds relationships with ourselves.

I believe we like to make copies of things we see and like- just look at how many remakes of tik tok videos are posted after one goes viral. We like to put our own spin on things. So I agree with Mr. Lessig. We definitely should not copy anyone’s original work wholesale but there is absolutely no issue with being inspired by an original piece and trying to make it your own.

I also took a look at an article written by Andy Baio. (If you haven’t read it, give it a read!) The article talks about how he was sued for the artwork he did by an American photographer, Jay Maisel. Reading the article drove me to anger as I don’t believe Baio should’ve been sued.

I’m asking for you guys to use your judgment here again and tell me if you think Baio should have been sued. There is no doubt that the images are similar- after all, Baio was intentionally recreating Maisel’s work.

One of the factors that come into play when ‘fair use’ is being considered is whether the material was transformed into something new or copied verbatim. I don’t know if I have somehow created a bias toward Baio while reading his writing but I don’t think this is a verbatim copy- especially since the images are expressed in two different art forms. I feel like I would’ve understood the decision to sue Baio a bit better if he took Maisel’s image and claimed it as his own and used the image for financial gain.

In actuality, the recreated image was being used as a tribute to Miles Davis’ “Kind of Blue,” and profits that would have been earned from his fundraiser would have been given to musicians. All of his intentions were pure but yet, he ended up with a fat lawsuit.

Maybe small blame can be placed on Baio for this. Maybe he should have double-checked that he had gotten licensing for everything he wanted to recreate, but I still dislike the fact that he was sued for something that was recreated. (Please let me know if you guys think differently.)

Baio also didn’t believe he should be sued but he went through with the payment anyway- only because it was the cheapest way out of the situation.

All in all, I believe we just need to be very careful that we are not breaking any copyright laws. In Baio’s article, he said that even judges and attorneys had a difficult time defining ‘fair use’ of an original work. So, if you’re going to use someone else’s work, get the necessary licenses and permits before you end up having to pay a fat check. (Unless you have Jeff Bezos money and a lawsuit wouldn’t bother you.)