So recently, this past weekend, I finally finished my new Anime Music Video. It’s video taken from Spirited Away to the Eagles’ classic hit, Hotel California. If you know both the song and the movie you’re probably saying to yourself “Huh, those actually make a pretty good pair…” which is what I said when I decided to put them together in an AMV. So when I first started this whole thing I decided that I was going to do it as legally as possible: AKA actually purchasing the media from which I would build the AMV. So I went and bought the Eagle’s album and then I went and bought Sprited Away and promptly put them onto my computer for manipulation.
So this weekend I finally get it all together and I go to put it up on YouTube and low and behold they decide that my Eagles music is copyrighted and they block it. So the audio doesn’t work on YouTube. This never happened with any of my previous AMVs and I think I know why. It’s because I went about getting the audio files legitimately. It was because I did the right thing and paid for the media that I get screwed out of showing off my AMV. As can be seen the AMV is still not up on the site and that’s because the file for the video is not small and it’s been somewhat of a bitch trying to get it up on the site via ftp.
However, that’s not the point of my rant here. The point of my rant here is that more and more media that we choose to legally purchase is blocked from our being able to use it how we, the customer, want to use it. Take iTunes for instance. In order to use any of the fraking music you purchase on iTunes anywhere besides your own iTunes accounts and your own iPods you have to get a converter and convert the files out of the iTunes file type. I recently was forced to do this because I am apparently a lowly member of society who still is forced to use CD’s in my car and doesn’t have an iPod jack. I converted the files so I could put them on a CD so I could listen to them in my car. Not so I could spread them around to millions upon millions of Internet users. Not so I could make a bazillion CDs and give them away while standing on the street corner. No, I was forced to go a roundabout way to listen to the music that I FRACKING BOUGHT.
So this is a big FRACK YOU to all those people who think more protection of copyrighted work is going to make our world a better place. It’s not, it’s just going to piss off the people who were willing to support you in the first place. Copyright is so damn close to dead, yet so many people hold onto it like it’s mana from heaven. It’s not. It was put in place to encourage people to create things. I have a feeling that my generation is of the opinion that you should create and distribute as widely and as fast as possible and damn the possibility that someone will rip us off. The only people we’re afraid of being ripped off by are the large corporations who avidely support copyright law while simultaneously stealing independent artist’s work. Copyright is becoming little more than a shelter for large companies to hide behind and pitch rocks into the independent artist community.
BLARG!
I want to clarify real quick here. I don’t support tearing down current copyright law. I believe it is a necessary protection of the independent artist against large companies ripping off their stuff. I’m against enhancing and expanding copyright law to mean more than it did originally. Companies want to turn every piece of copyrighted material into a “limited use” purchase, where the purchaser can only use the article they purchase in a manner defined by the company. I think that to do that is to go a step too far. Copyright used to mean: I can’t take other peoples stuff and sell it. Today some people want to make it: You can only use my material in X way or you are breaking the law.