Reading over all of this material on copyright and the napster lawsuit made me think of how almost anything we do on the internet could technically be considered illegal, especially as designers. It all just depends how far people are willing to take a copyright law. As designers we are constantly seeking inspiration from all sorts of things, some people may see us using other peoples ideas for inspiration as infringing copyright laws. Other people would tell you it depends how much you take from someone whether it would be considered illegal or not. So should it be considered "illegal" for us to borrow ideas from other people?
However some people think that if it is put out on the internet they want people to use it. For example images, a lot of people think because it is on the internet it gives them the right to use the image however they want. ge, song, or whatever is against the laws but taking colors or ideas for inspiration are another thing. Everyone gets inspiration from everything and if we were not allowed to use this inspiration then we would never be able to create anything.
I agree that there seem to be a ton of gray areas when it comes to intellectual property and the digital world. There are quite a few websites and blogs on the internet that contain "inspiration" from popular and talented designers. Let's say you're having an off day and nothing cool is really coming to you. A visit to one of these pages can give you ideas that you might not have come up with had you not looked through some successful designs.
ReplyDeleteThe problem is that there a lot of people who take it too far and just blatantly copy the way other people create instead of using this inspiration as a vehicle to think of their own great designs. It gets a little hazy when you get into the "nothing is original anymore" side of the discussion, and thats another reason why its so difficult to copyright work on the internet. I've actually heard some people claim that copyrights on the internet are virtually meaningless because they are so hard to protect.