1. 1
US copyright laws in the Internet and digital age
Since the enactment of the first copyright laws in the United States in 1790, trying to end
copyright infringement on creative works has been an endless battle. The last change to that the
law came in 1976 with music copyright added on in 1909. The basis for all copyright law is the
Constitution, Article I, section 8, and therefore Congress has the right to grant the owners of the
property the sole right to its use, which is a limited monopoly, for a particular period of time
(Sirois and Martin, 2006). Since the late1990s, the US Congress got into the work of legislating
copyright in the age of digital and the Internet with the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act of
1998 (DMCA). Even with the laws, challenges to the law have been made to balance the needs
of copyright owners and consumers.
This paper examines the current debates arguing a that copyright needs to end in some
areas to guarantee consumers their freedom. The first section reviews the legal issues between
consumers and copyright holders since the 1998 DMCA law has been enacted. Section two
examines solutions to the problem proposing a change in copyright law in favor of consumers.
Legal issues since 1998 with the Internet and copyright
When a copyright holder believes that there has been an infringement on their copyright,
the recourse is to take the violator to court. However, to win a case in court, the precedent is that
the plaintiff has to show that an infringement took place and that it was “illicit or improper
appropriation” (Sirois and Martin, 2006, p. 5). Many cases have to be appealed, sometimes all
the way to the Supreme Court, to settle the case and interpret the law. The Supreme Court has
heard a number of digital cases that have changed the way that consumers can access
copyrighted creative content.One area of concern for consumers involves how the United States
and other countries are to deal with the protection of copyright overseas and the reciprocal

2. 2
agreements for the United States to enforce the copyright of overseas creative works. Public
domain is a key issue too because when creative works are public domain anyone can rework
them, add more to them, or change them without being subject to paying copyright.
An aspect of public domain involves foreign copyright. People who make their living
from public domain works were the ones who brought the lawsuit in Golan v. Holder (2012).
In 2011, the Supreme Court heard arguments “about whether Congress can grant copyrights to
works by foreign authors never before protected” in the United States (Brevin, 2011). Google has
put thousands of books, art and music online considered public domain. Moreover, Google
beleives that the public domain works should remain public domain and free in the public
interest. Interestingly Chief Justice John Roberts noted that when Jimmy Hendrix riffed on the
Star-Spangled Banner, he did not have to pay royalties when he performed it at Woodstock. The
question being raised by the Chief Justice was whether works that have been in the public
domain, can have copyright laws applied to them (Brevin, 2011).
Copyright is not forever and once it ends, the product falls into public domain. But the
argument was made that there is a significant difference between extending a copyright to a work
that already has it, versus adding copyright onto a work that never did. This is a prickly point for
many consumers. One group most concerned about how this ruling will affect public learning
and knowledge are academic scholars. Many scholars rely heavily on public domain materials
for their work. Thus they would encounter excessive difficulty in tracking down and receiving
permissions, for example, from many of their subjects, some which are already deceased.
However, the Court ruled that works that were once free in the public domain should have a
copyright so that users have to pay and licensingfees when they are on the Internet especially
(Brevin, 2011).

3. 3
A second area of public concern with the rise of the Internet and digital comes from
artists who now digitally alter other people’s work, like photographs, for use in their own work.
Sampling, as it is called in the music industry, is a new phenomenon because of digital work. For
example one area of copyright law that has yet to be resolved is with using copyright
photographs and using them, or at least parts of them, in new work (Grant, 2009). One artist,
Richard Prince took the photographs of another artist and used them in a collage. Prince argued
that he was not stealing them, but hat his work was “transformative” in that he was “borrowing
in the process of creating something entirely new” (Grant, 2009, para. 1). He lost the case
ultimately, meaning that in some ways copyright is in the eye of the beholder.
The first big digital version of this copyright infringement, however, came with Brian
Burton, aka Danger Mouse’s release of his 2004 The Grey Album. In this album, Burton took the
“melodies, drums and rhythms of the Beatles’s famous album, The White Album” (Sirois and
Martin, 2006, p. 1). He also added in vocals from Jay Z’s The Black Album, a process in the
music industry known as blending, which is something that many DJs do as well as album
producers. EMI, who held the rights to the Beatles got an injunction that forbade the album from
being produced, or played, and to destroy all copies. In response, Internet sites around the world
that had the album, offered to download it for free to anyone on the last Tuesday of February in
2004 and called it ‘Grey Tuesday’ (Sirois and Martin, 2006). One of the issues that was raised
was about the rights of artists or copyright holders of sampling, taking a bit of a song or a the
beat and using it.
A third area for consumers that is being litigated concerns the rights of web companies
that want to air television shows that are currently being seen on broadcast networks through the
Internet. CBS and Aereo, a web-television company, are suing each other over whether Aereo

4. 4
can rebroadcast CBS’s shows. Aereo is making the argument that the it can stream CBS’s
“broadcast signals over the Web” without paying a fee since the signals should be free “over the
air” (Ramchandran and Sharma, 2013, para. 4). Initially CBS sued Aereo for copyright
violations, and the case is yet to be resolved.
Finally, the entire reason for the DMCA, which was to keep individuals from sharing
files of copyrighted music (Sirois and Martin 2006). Sharing music in a song is called, where a
musician takes a part of another piece of music and adds to it. Since 1978 copyright laws blocked
this form of sampling, without giving credit and paying loyalties (Sirois and Martin, 2006). The
DMCA law was not written to protect the consumer, though. According to Mossberg (2007), it
ensures that record companies and movie studies would be able to collect on everyday things that
consumers do with the CDs they purchase without believe that they are infringing on copyright.
One example that Mossberg (2007) gives is buying a CD, downloading the music to their own
personal computer, and then emailing one of the songs to a friend. Since 1998, these are now in
violation of copyright. Even the writing of software that allows for sampling, or for a person to
download on more than one computer content they bought is prohibited. A solution is required.
Solutions to the standoff between Internet consumers and copyright holders
Solutions thus far have been in the favor of securing or trying to secure the rights of
copyrighters to the disadvantage of the consumers. There is little doubt that many performers and
songwriters, for example, were robbed of their copyright in the past so protecting creative work
is necessary. However, the copyright laws for music and the public domain of works for personal
use need to be changed.
Tang (2005) shows that through the passing of laws restricting file sharing, it led to the
creation of software that facilitated file sharing and in the end, was beneficial to music

5. 5
companies. Thus, the laws themselves, when mixed with technological innovation, can find the
answer. This is one possible solution to the copyright problem: stop legislating to try to cover
every contingency and leave it to the public to design technology that will eventually control the
problem. This puts Congressional law making on the back burner and allows entrepreneurs and
others in the industry to innovate the answer not legislate.
A second solution, however, is to lift copyright restrictions on personal use for music and
academic materials. Over time, the music industry will figure out how to overcome the problems
that currently seem to be limiting revenue. Adelle had the largest selling song in 2012 and 2011,
to the tune of over 20 million records. Given that the industry is able to sell albums, even with all
of the technology out there and the ability to gain “pirate” copies of music, people are still
willing to shell out considerable amounts of money to pay for their music. Since individual
consumers are willing to mix up their own purchases with downloads, and students and
academics will still pay for photocopies and buy textbooks in addition to the use of public
domain articles, the notion that copyright holders cannot make money does not appear to be the
case. Thus, people should be allowed individual use rights to music and academic work.
Even with a solution that will allow consumers more freedom, the copyright violations in
the age of digital and the Internet will continue to evolve as new technologies and creative ideas
about how to record music, make art and the like are brought into the mainstream. Copyright
laws have sought to protect the owners. Since the 1990s, and the DMAC legislation in 1998,
Congress has sought to legislate and the Supreme Court rule on copyright but it has come at the
expense of consumer access. To correct this wrong, this paper suggests that personal use music
and academic works should be copyright free to allow the public to find solutions to the problem
if indeed it needs to be restricted.

6. 6
References
Bravin, J. (2011, Oct. 6). Copyright law challenged. Wall Street Journal. Retrieved July
12, 2013, from:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204294504576613182462401072.html
Grant, D. (2009, Jan. 29). Color this are of the law gray. Wall Street Journal. Retrieved
July 12, 2013, from:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123319795753727521.html
Mossberg, W.S. (2007, Mar. 22). Congress must make clear copyright laws to protect
consumers. Wall Street Journal, Eastern Edition [New York, NY], B.1.
Ramachandran, S., and Sharma, A. (2013, May 6). Aereo sues CBS, seeks copyright
ruling. Wall Street Journal. Retrieved July 12, 2013, from:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323826804578466982119594300.html
Sirois, A., and Martin, S.E. (2006, Mar.). United States copyright law and digital
sampling: Adding color to a grey area. Information & Communications
Technology Law, 15(1), pp. 1-32.
Tang, P. (2005). Digital copyright and the ‘new’ controversy: Is the law moulding
technology and innovation? Research Policy, 34, pp. 852-871.
Whaley, S. (2007). Mandatory labeling for digital rights management: A least restrictive
means for rebalancing rights between content owners and consumers. Journal of
Technology Law and Policy, 12, pp. 375-394.