"Then, most likely get sued anyway because your tiny guitar riff resembles another. Even if you hadn't actually copied the original and came up with a similar riff on your own. If a tiny sample that doesn't bear any relationship to the original can be attacked, what about an original piece that unwittingly does sound like another?"
Copyright accrues to "original works of authorship," which means if you create a tune without knowing anything about one that is closely (or even exactly) like yours, you have created a new copyrighted work.
I have to wonder aloud, why did the accused infringer have to copy someone else's 2 seconds of music instead of creating his own 2 seconds worth to loop on? Wouldn't it have been...well...more "creative" to actually create? Or was he merely trying to co-opt someone else's fame?
I admit that I stumbled upon techdirt only today, so I don't know all the backstory. The articles I have read so far are all really interesting and the contributors have a gift for writing. But I find this paragraph particularly fascinating:
"What Techdirt says is that the music will be available for free whether the artist likes it or not, either through file sharing, public libraries, or trading with friends, and the artist must consider how they deal with that. The response initially was to just make it more and more illegal and futilely trying to make it go away, jeopardizing the open nature of the internet in the process. That's what Techdirt is against."
Although this merely states what techdirt is "against," it appears that the general message of this site is that we should all be against intellectual property laws and we should all be allowed to take whatever appears "out there" for our own, because that's what is going to happen anyway. Who wouldn't like that?! As much stuff as we all want for free!
So please forgive my naive question: What is tech dirt's stance on the content that it posts on this site. Can I just take it and email it to my friends, post it on my own website with or without my own comments and edits, seek advertisers to support my website based on the copies and comments I post there? Unfortunately I don't see a license agreement here. It would be nice if you prominently posted an agreement signed by you that gives all of us readers a royalty-free license to display, reproduce, prepare derivative works, and distribute copies of what appears here, forever and for whatever reason.
Since I am a newbie here, maybe I'm just missing it. Please advise me publicly so all newbies like me will understand where to find it. Thanks in advance!
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@ PaulT
Uh....there's a mistake here:
"Then, most likely get sued anyway because your tiny guitar riff resembles another. Even if you hadn't actually copied the original and came up with a similar riff on your own. If a tiny sample that doesn't bear any relationship to the original can be attacked, what about an original piece that unwittingly does sound like another?"
Copyright accrues to "original works of authorship," which means if you create a tune without knowing anything about one that is closely (or even exactly) like yours, you have created a new copyrighted work.
I have to wonder aloud, why did the accused infringer have to copy someone else's 2 seconds of music instead of creating his own 2 seconds worth to loop on? Wouldn't it have been...well...more "creative" to actually create? Or was he merely trying to co-opt someone else's fame?
What is tech dirt's license?
I admit that I stumbled upon techdirt only today, so I don't know all the backstory. The articles I have read so far are all really interesting and the contributors have a gift for writing. But I find this paragraph particularly fascinating:
"What Techdirt says is that the music will be available for free whether the artist likes it or not, either through file sharing, public libraries, or trading with friends, and the artist must consider how they deal with that. The response initially was to just make it more and more illegal and futilely trying to make it go away, jeopardizing the open nature of the internet in the process. That's what Techdirt is against."
Although this merely states what techdirt is "against," it appears that the general message of this site is that we should all be against intellectual property laws and we should all be allowed to take whatever appears "out there" for our own, because that's what is going to happen anyway. Who wouldn't like that?! As much stuff as we all want for free!
So please forgive my naive question: What is tech dirt's stance on the content that it posts on this site. Can I just take it and email it to my friends, post it on my own website with or without my own comments and edits, seek advertisers to support my website based on the copies and comments I post there? Unfortunately I don't see a license agreement here. It would be nice if you prominently posted an agreement signed by you that gives all of us readers a royalty-free license to display, reproduce, prepare derivative works, and distribute copies of what appears here, forever and for whatever reason.
Since I am a newbie here, maybe I'm just missing it. Please advise me publicly so all newbies like me will understand where to find it. Thanks in advance!