The article distributed in class written by Lawrence Lessing was very interesting in the way it addressed copyright laws. If you think back, you have probably violated a copyright sometime in your life. Have you ever downloaded a song you really like, or burned a CD for one of your friends? If so you have violated a federal law! Lessing points out in his article that copyright laws extend for a very long period of time, this being the lifetime of the owner plus 70 years after their passing. He points out that they basically go on forever.
Although Lessing takes the side of the public domain over copyrighting, he still understands the need to copyright some materials to an extent. The article gives me the notion that copyright laws hinder ones creative thinking because anymore you can not even share the same idea as someone without violating copyright laws. With all the movies, book, etc that we have in today's world, it is hard to come up with new ideas. Copyright laws may have some effect on the stifling of this creativity!
To read more on this idea, follow this link:
http://sloanreview.mit.edu/the-magazine/2009-winter/50203/does-current-copyright-law-hinder-innovation/
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