Copyright Laws

While I do not have any articles to base my blog on this week, I have been recently inspired from our in-class discussion of our final papers. Today in the presentation that discussed copyright laws in regards to movies, music and even books, I realized that companies are now being sued for advancements in technology. When we discussed today that the manufacturers of DVD players, Tivo's and VCR's are being sued for making a machine available that has the ability to copy a copyrighted material. But why are these manufacturers being sued? You would think that these companies would want their shows and movies being taped so that they can be watched continuously, or perhaps capture a dedicated viewer for another week if they have the ability to watch an episode of their favorite show at a later time. I think that these industries should focus only on the distribution of the information, rather than the gathering of it, or the devices through which data can be saved. An example given in class was that it is acceptable to record a TV show, however if you make a thousand copies and place them all in your front yard for others to take, then you would be breaking copyright laws. Another copyright issue that struck me as odd today was the capabilities that Apple has. While Apple offers the IPod that in some way encourages music pirating, they also offer music that can be downloaded to the device. Whether you illegally download music, or you pay for every song you have, Apple provides you with a device to listen to your music. If the manufacturers of devices such as VCR's and Tivo's are being sued for infringement on copyright laws, then why isn't anyone suing apple? I personally think that there would be a lot less controversy and problems if the music industry would just accept the fact that people are going to pirate music, and they should stop filing lawsuits against people. Sure these industries are losing money, but the reality is that technology is changing, and with this the availability of music is also changing. No one needs to buy Cd's anymore because they can get the music online, so why doesn't the music industry try to find another way to deal with this, for instance stop putting out Cd's and sell the songs online only.