Good Copy Bad Copy
Good Copy Bad Copy vividly displays the global dilemmas of copyright law. It brings to light many important issues regarding copyright and culture that most people don’t even think about. With the arrival of the Internet, file sharing, and many other technological advances, there is much that needs to be delimited concerning intellectual property and music copyright.
The important questions that need to be asked are: who really owns what? And what is copyright?
The US Constitution includes one law that was added in order to protect the creators’ rights. This has provided a guideline of sorts and many lawsuits have been won due to this regulation. But it hasn’t been able to get rid of piracy. It is still rampant. Piracy has been defined as the unauthorized taking or theft of intellectual property without compensation to the creator.
In many countries one can easily come by music, movies, and even books that have been illegally copied and are being sold openly on the streets. The buyers are not unsuspecting either; they usually know the source of the product. Yet somehow they don’t see any harm in purchasing pirated material. Sometimes the excuse is that the pirated product is cheaper, although the quality is also cheaper. But in countries like Nigeria, the pirated movies are just as expensive as the genuine movies.
In Nigeria pirating is a huge business. Everybody has heard of the Alaba International Market where you can find pirated movies in a number of genres. Nigerian movies are no longer pirated, because producers know where to find sellers and they could get into a lot of trouble. However, they have no problem pirating foreign movies.
Something similar occurs in Brazil with music CDs. Street vendors make hundreds of dollars a day from selling pirated music.
This film features many interviews with people of different nationalities who possess different standpoints regarding intellectual property. The list includes DJs, copyright lawyers, producers, artists and even file-sharing service providers. Watch this film now.