Free cultures are cultures that leave a great deal open for others to build upon; unfree, or permission, cultures leave much less. Ours was a free culture. It is becoming much less so.Is it right to copy? Why?
Is it bad to set rules so that people can't copy? Why?
Imagine when your precious work that you've done earlier got copied by the others, how would you feel? If you answer nothing, that's plain lie! A total lie.
Honestly won't you mind people copying your work?
Example:
Naruto, one of the most famous manga in Japan.
And this is the doujinshi
How would the person who created this feel after they saw this? They go through sleepless night just to come out with the concept, the characteristic, the storyline and the others just copy without crediting them? It's even worse if the doujinshi got almost the same viewing rates as the original one. Where their hard work gone?
Not only comics but also,
Last Friends (Japanese Drama)
(Taiwan Drama)
Just so you know, these two drama, have two different story line. They just copy the concept of the poster.
Copyright is to protect the original works. Look, what if this world has no copyright?
No one will ever want to come out with new creations anymore! But one thing is that lecturers will be very happy as they got their job easier. Why? Imagine, when there is no copyright, the word "plagiarism" gone as well. Which means, students can copy whatever things they want to and ended up having the same content!
Hence, in the original creator's mind, copyright is to protect them. Just like protecting people from stealing something from their brain.
But on the other hand, it also restrict us in some way. For example, a song writer, even though they've heard over 100,000 of songs, it's impossible for them to listen to everything. And when they start creating works, even though they might not have intention to copy, they might ended up just sound almost the same as one of the songs in the other end of the world. What's next? The news will spread to everyone everywhere and from a song writer, he/she will then "evolve" into a copycat. Sad isn't it? Why what can they do?
There was once, my friend told me this,
Friend: Hey! My lecturer said I plagiarized. And guess who is the one I copied from?
Me : Uhm, some very famous scholar's journal?
Friend: Wrong guess! Try again.
Me : The textbook?
Friend: No! It's a 12 year old kid from America!
Me : Wh-Wh-What?? How do they find out in the first place?
Friend: Apparently, they have this software where when they put the soft copy of your work in,
it'll scanned through and check how much you've plagiarized. If it's over 40%, that means you plagiarized and the lecturer will confront you. And this is how I got it.
Me : Wow, that's...scary. So what you plagiarized.
Friend: The word "In a nutshell"
Me : WHAT?!
I don't know how true is it but this is what I heard from him. If every single thing is copyrighted, we'll then have very limited spaces to express our ideas.
Even though it's bad to copy, but sometimes, when ideas build on ideas, it does turned way better and more effective. Ask yourself, why Cinderella from Brother's Grimm isn't as famous as Cinderella recreated by Disney? When you were young, don't you think that Cinderella is original story from Disney? Honestly, I do thought so.
So, is copyright something right or wrong? No one can answer that. It's in between right and wrong. You'll get different answer depending on how you interpret it.
However, there are still a way to make this problem smaller. Which I think is a win win situation. Taking the doujinshi as an example, when you copy other's work, pay for it. With this way, the original creator got compensated and you get to use the characters and build on more ideas. Isn't it good?
Example,
This is the original work of Hana Kimi,
Then Taiwan re-act this in drama,
Next come to Japan,
and another version from the Japanese.
As for what I know, these are all paid. When the original creator got paid for this, the audiences can enjoy the different way of portraying the characters as well. Don't you think this is a win-win situation?
In a nutshell, there is still no fix line what should be copyrighted and what should not be. It depends on how people want to think about it. Sometimes, even though you might not have the intention to copy, you might end up being told copying. The world is too big for us to know everything. Hence, free culture is good in a way but also, because of copyright, plenty of creative ideas vanished just like that.
Your points are good. And you remind me those dramas that I watched before. Let's say one similar drama was made from different country, although they are different people acted in the drama but the story line almost the same. One more, 'hard work gone' it is sad case that when you are trying hard to create a things by own but at the end it was let others get advantages by copying your hard work. Anyway, your examples was made the things clear and easier for us to understand the copyright matter.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that "Even though it's bad to copy, but sometimes, when ideas build on ideas, it does turned way better and more effective."
ReplyDeleteI remember that when Miss Cherly asked us to come out with a presentation topic for an assignment, I just google the topic online to get some idea and come out with a better topic. Is this count as copyright? Eventhough I just use the topic? But I did used the idea of others to come out with a topic for my assignment. Sometimes, we just need something to inspire our creativity or our imagination to come out with a better idea. =)
"The world is too big for us to know everything."
ReplyDeleteI agree! Sometimes, it might merely be coincidental, as brought up by Siew Mun. This is a very fated, interesting concept of like minded minds. Am fascinated by this but this would be more like Psychology not Global Network hoho.
Anyway, yes, coincidental ideas should be a point to take note of, on whether should it be sued or not. But let's take about the examples you've given. I find them all relevant! If I may add in more? Because I feel there's a lot of works that are right in front of our eyes but we just don't realized it.
1) Apollo 18 and Quarantine. - Similar concept of filming.
2) McD's Sundial ad and WWF 'Ocean level are rising faster than ever' ad. - They used the similar shadow concept to project the creativity point in their ads.
3) Knockoffs products which we can find easily in our very own pasar malam.
I believe there are many others but here are the ones I can think of now! *Winks* Also, on the note of how to solve the problem. Indeed there's no definite way but maybe one of it is to compensate. I agree that it is a win-win outcome. Who wouldn't want money right? I think in some sense the original author would feel less insecure in that way. Great examples to share that I didn't know of about paid dramas!
The "In a nutshell" scenario left me speechless but made me laugh in disbelief. That is just so weird! We use "In a nutshell" all the time, we should be sued. Worse, we sing the 'Happy Birthday To You' song almost every month. Funny!
Thanks Jia Xin! Enjoyed! :D
The world is really too big for us to discover.Totally agree with that because everyone is unique and they had their own thought in different things.Copyrighted issues had created so much opinions when it started. It aim's to protect the work but at the same time it's also killed the creativity unintentionally. The users might think that is not a big deal to performs plagiarism but it had causes harm of the reputation to the author without their acknowledgment. Is this how the industry should be looks like? So they come out with the win-win situation that you said. Buy the copyright and remake for a new version. I really thinks that it's a good idea at least the both parties had gain what they want.
ReplyDeleteI like your ‘the world is too big for knowing everything’. It is a sorrow that when the singer is misunderstanding that they are copyrighted for a particular song. They come out with their idea and they had misunderstanding by the listeners which the song is copy from another song.
ReplyDeleteFor example, a Chinese song from ‘Yen-J’, “thanks for your inspiration’ had suspect that copy from the song which sang by Michael Buble, ‘Haven’t met you yet’ and also Colbie Caillat ‘You got me’ of the reason that the song’s started tempo is likely same rhythm with this two songs but the creator also clarify and swear that they had not copied other people works and this song is totally written with their guitar and piano with joyful rhythmic.
So, copyright is a very troublesome right that made people involve in the scandal which can mess up their reputation. However, this copyrights also a kind right of protection to protect the original’s creator from sharing out their art work without permission. It can be good or bad, just only see the people looking the matter in what angles.
Nice post and explanation! In my opinion,whatever that being show first is the original artwork.However, it is important to have a copyright on the new invented product or original artwork to protect the quality of the artwork.IT is also depends on which version is more acceptable by the audience.Sometimes,the edited version might bright up the heat of the original version.
ReplyDelete