What are the legal restraints of the internet. This is a very blurred line as far I can tell, or more, the lines are clear cut but the engagement of them are blurred.

One of the things mentioned in the lecture was whether you can use things for your own material such as songs and what not, also the mention of ‘covering’ a song on youtube; is this a breach in copyright ? The short answer is YES! Anything that you use in a public space that was not directly created by you is a breach of copyright. Here is where it gets tricky: even though it is technically a breach in copyright you will not get prosecuted for it until the original creator decides to act upon it.

So why haven’t all the covers of songs been taken down from youtube, there are a few reasons. First being it is free advertisement for the artist, their song has gotten another thousand or so views on youtube without them having to do anything. The next was mentioned; it gives the artist a bad name, and this is also counterproductive in that sort of industry being known as a ‘sour grape’ for taking down the 13 yr olds cover of your song because she doesn’t have the right pitch in the second verse, hypothetically. The last of which being that it is not worth going through all the lawyers and everything to sue the person who did the cover because of the sheer amount of money that you would need to pursue that course of action.

One last thing I’ll mention about the lecture was the idea of defamation. If you are saying something mean about someone without conclusive evidence and go about it in the correct way you should’t be saying it. The internet is just another society and as such there are certain societal laws that you you need to stick by.

In Summary: Anything you use that isn’t yours is copyright but is not incriminating until the holder of the copyright decides to act upon it and play nice on the playground of the internet kids!