Do You Know the Law?

    Many people do not actually know what Copyright is prior to learning; everyone has a different answer because they are not so sure what it might be. Before we learned about Copyright and Piracy I only knew a little bit from what we learned in English class. After we had talked in class I realized that my definition was close to what it actually is but not nearly as detailed. I didn’t think that the fine for copying someone’s work was as high as it is. If people realized how big the consequences were maybe it would limit the number of people who copy things illegally.

    Many artists have had issues with Copyright infringement probably because most of them do not know that there is another song out there that is like theirs. For example in 2007 country singer Tim McGraw was filed with a 20 million dollar lawsuit. He was being filed with this because the singer and song writer James Martinez said that Tim’s song “Everywhere” was like his song “Anytime, Anywhere Amanda.” I do not think that it is right because he filed this many years after the song was written and Tim’s song writers should be the ones taking the blame because he did not even write the song. Tim even said that he has never heard of Martinez’s song. This case is still pending but, according to the copyright law and fair use it clearly says that he is breaking the law if he is found guilty. He is breaking the law because he used some of someone else’s work without their permission and he did not change enough of it to make it his own.