While I understand both sides of the argument, “Copyright” vs. “Copyleft,” I definitely lean towards the Copyleft. There is a lot of creativity blocked off when corporations block people from being able to use the source material in their works. If you look at the internet now, it’s become so popular to take different source materials to create new pieces of art, such as mashups/remixes or cinematic edits. The success of these types of work can often benefit the original makers because the audience’s interest is peaked, and they go out of their way to find out what the original was like. However, there are cases where the new versions overshadow the ‘original’ versions, and then the new version is regarded as the original (as if it’s the only existing version). There is also the dilemma about money because I agree that artists should be appropriately compensated if their work will be used, as that was the original intention of copyright laws. Still, I also find it unfair to make that price threshold so high and inaccessible. Girl Talk’s first album would’ve cost him over 4 million dollars if he had gone the proper legal route, but that’s an impossible price tag. It’s a price tag like that that makes new-age creativity so hard to achieve, at least how it was in the video. Nowadays, I am glad that there are things like SoundCloud where people can upload their remixes to a platform without being charged with copyright infringement. There should be a better understanding from these publishing and record companies regarding copyright, but that’s not to say that everyone who takes from these companies is right; They should at least list what source material they use, like quoting in an essay.
