Purpose of Copyrights

Copyrights are the sheer essence of everything surrounding today's entertainment industry. It is a universal law created to protect authors' original creations by securing, for limited times, to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their creation. In doing so, artists can comfortably release their work for the public to enjoy and receive benefits for that. Though, recently the problem of copyright infringement as pertains to music has grown exponentially. But the real questions are still unanswered. Is the real purpose of copyright to benefit the author or the public? Is it doing a good job at doing so? What's the future of copyright?

The owner of a copyright has the right to print publish, perform, film and record the work to which they own the copyright. It exists to benefit the public by providing creators with both the incentive and the financial means to create original works. In other words, the whole point of Copyright is to enable creators to receive fair compensation for their work. This has nothing to do with the general public. Copyright merely gives artists a cushion so they will actually release their work without worrying that someone else will do the exact same thing they are and make money off their idea. The only way the public benefits is they get to enjoy the works that they produce but the artists aren't producing for the public they are producing for themselves. Though as Dylan Horrock stated, there was a huge shift in copyrights from individual ownership to corporate ownership. As a result, artists no longer hold the copyright to their work but instead the large company that they work with owns the copyright. This now takes away from any benefit that creators may have had, which was being able to show off what's theirs. Copyrights really allow artists to walk around with a big "Hey, look what I did" sign. It's a way for artists to clearly show what they did and that it's theirs though the actuality is that they don't even own the rights to it they merely get the benefits of being listed as the creator on the copyright, fame. This changed the whole industry.

The whole industry was now being controlled by large corporation who now have full control to manipulate all the artists who copyrights they control. The artist, to a degree, becomes a puppet. They go on the road and perform something that technically, by law, isn't theirs. A perfect example being the superman story that Horrocks told where a contract to begin production gave copyright control to the publishing company, DC, and they went on to make a ton of money with the superman comics while the creators got zilch. In the case of the music industry when artists make and release a record, they don't own the rights to any of the songs, the labels do and that copyright can be bought sold and stolen like a piece of property. So the bigger issue becomes whether copyright law, as they currently stand, actually benefit anyone other than the large company who own the copyright. In reality, both parties lose out if copyright law