Copyleft is the action of owning content, but not charging for others to use it. Crowd Sourcing is the ability to create the base for something, but letting others add on to it so it can become amazing.

An example of a copyleft and crowd sourced  object is the Linux OS. It was created by a man who wanted everyone to have a great OS, but didn’t want to deal with the issues of paying for too much. He created the base product of Linux, but people continue to add and tweak it. Now, I’m not saying it’s perfect, but it is the ideal. There needs to be a thing where people can freely play with objects and make it their own. It’s how people find what they want to do in life. Now I’m decently good at computers, but a lot of people aren’t. This is where the real issue of Linux comes in: It’s not very simple to use. People would get confused and upset if they found something other than the windows or mac OS on their computer. It’s very unfamiliar and complicated to most. I wish people could learn how to just play around with the system, but I understand why they don’t try. They don’t want to break the computer completely (although you really can’t unless you hit it with a hammer or something), and then pay for it to get fixed. Maybe if we had classes that explained how computer technology works, we wouldn’t have this problem? But most people aren’t interested in that kind of stuff and get bored of it easily.

Anyways, if we all were open to the idea of adding and taking, free or charge or rude opinions, I think we would make this a better place for all of us.

In class we were talking about the issue of copyright and who it was really protecting. Copyright is the ability to own an object, and with that ability you are able to charge people to use and distribute your work. In the early years of copyright, the copyright licence would only last for fourteen years. Gradually, it increase. But were those increases really for the right reasons? Starting in the late 1920’s, Walt Disney created his famous character, Mickey Mouse. Back then, copyright only extended to 28 years, with a 28 year renewal. Once they had reached that threshold, Disney decided to push lawmakers to change it. At this point, Walt Disney was long dead, but the Disney company was thriving off of his work.

Now, copyright has been extended to a person’s lifetime plus 70 years. This is great for independent content creators who want to profit off of their work, but it seems unfair to have these big companies profit for so long, and basically have a stronghold in the industry. Maybe it’s just my anarchist in me speaking, but I believe that we should all share the wealth. All content creators should be treated equally, and they shouldn’t have to work for massive companies that steal all of their hard-earned money. Not only that, but these companies also control how politics work, and the inner workings of society. (That sounds very conspiracy theory, but let me explain myself: For example, Disney could sponsor a presidential candidate for a ton of money, this gets the candidate exposed to many people, giving them a greater chance to win the election, etc.) The copyright laws were originally put into place to protect content creators and their work. It was not supposed to protect empires. That is my biggest issue with how copyright has changed over time, and I honestly don’t really have an idea on how to fix it. It’s more of a systematic thing, where you realize the system is corrupt, but it’s so big that it has gotten out of control.