Freedom of speech and copyright protection contradict each other?
Posted on December 18th, 2009 by admin
Why should a copyright holder have such power over when his or her words are used by another?
What is the big deal over copyright?
Is it really fair in light of our Freedom of Speech?
freedom of speech was intended to be on the personal front. the idea was that a person could not be put in jail for merely expressing an opinion. it was also ment so that ideas could be freeflowing. when you are talking about copyrighted material you still have the right in most cases to use it yourself, just not profit from it. copyright laws protect ideas, or a product. when you write a book copyright laws protect you from having someone grabbing a copy, taking it to the publisher and producing it and selling it as his own.
it is amazing that the whole freedom of speech idea is so hard for people to get. freedom of speech does not mean you can say whatever you want, whenever you want, to anyone you want. everything has practical limitations. try telling the president of the united states that you are going to kill him, you’re just using your freedom of speech right? wrong, you are threatening, which you can’t do. try lieing in a court of law under oath, freedom of speech? no, you do not have that freedom . try talking out of order in a court of law, you’ll be in jail before long. the thing is, this is not restricting your right to voice an opinion, this is maintaining order, it is taking threats seriously, it is protecting people from having their ideas stolen. slander, libel, purgury, terrorist threats, these are all limits on freedom of speech.
December 18th, 2009 at 8:07 pm
Freedom of speech protects the variety of the marketplace of ideas. It is designed to assure that original content, be it for or against the government, can be stated, printed or otherwise dissimentated, without fear of reprisal. However non-original content does not add anything "new" to the marketplace of ideas and, therefore, it is deserving of less protection.
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December 18th, 2009 at 8:53 pm
I wouldn’t want somebody using my ideas as their own. If took the time to do the research, or to write a book, I don’t want someone else taking my ideas. Just a thought. Just as long as I would be cited, I don’t see anything wrong with someone using my work as a reference, just for an example.
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December 18th, 2009 at 9:35 pm
It is obvious that you do not work hours to write a song and try to make a living doing it, and then have someone using it for free.
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December 18th, 2009 at 10:23 pm
Absolutely, the government has a compelling interest in protecting copyrights. The person who spends the time and money coming up with the idea deserves to benefit from it at least for the life of the copyright, which doesn’t last forever. A large part of the US economy is based upon patents and copyrights, since we are manufacturing less and less.
Also freedom of speech is mainly to protect the free communication of individual ideas, not just so we can all open our mouths and say something we didn’t think of ourselves. And freedom of speech is not absolute.
If people’s original ideas were not protected by copyrights and patents, no one would invent or take the time to write anything. Sometimes it takes years and millions of dollars to come up with an idea, and if the person was not entitled to profit from all that work and investment, it would be grossly unfair and unjust.
When balancing the minimum freedom that would protected to repeat non-original ideas, against the value of protecting the original ideas of others to our economy, to science, to literature, to education, etc. Its obviously fair.
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December 18th, 2009 at 10:41 pm
Freedom of speech is intended to protect citizens against government control, its intent was to prevent the government from persercuting anyone who disagrees with government policy like goverments of the time did regularely (they still do look at china for example)
Copyright protection and patents is to promote creativity, A scientist probably wouldn’t work so hard to cure cancer if when he comes up with the cure all of the other scientists just copy it and market it leaving him with little if any reward for his work.
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December 18th, 2009 at 11:09 pm
freedom of speech was intended to be on the personal front. the idea was that a person could not be put in jail for merely expressing an opinion. it was also ment so that ideas could be freeflowing. when you are talking about copyrighted material you still have the right in most cases to use it yourself, just not profit from it. copyright laws protect ideas, or a product. when you write a book copyright laws protect you from having someone grabbing a copy, taking it to the publisher and producing it and selling it as his own.
it is amazing that the whole freedom of speech idea is so hard for people to get. freedom of speech does not mean you can say whatever you want, whenever you want, to anyone you want. everything has practical limitations. try telling the president of the united states that you are going to kill him, you’re just using your freedom of speech right? wrong, you are threatening, which you can’t do. try lieing in a court of law under oath, freedom of speech? no, you do not have that freedom . try talking out of order in a court of law, you’ll be in jail before long. the thing is, this is not restricting your right to voice an opinion, this is maintaining order, it is taking threats seriously, it is protecting people from having their ideas stolen. slander, libel, purgury, terrorist threats, these are all limits on freedom of speech.
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December 18th, 2009 at 11:35 pm
Freedom of speech was never intended to authorize theft.
And using someone else’s copyrighted words without permission or compensation is a form of theft.
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