How far is too far?

What constitutes copyright infringement these days? It seems that something as simple as downloading a picture from a Google search could end in a lawsuit in the ranges of thousands, and even hundreds of thousands, of dollars. In fact, just recently, without even having downloaded anything, a media company decided to take legal action against our IP address. While this should come as no surprise in such a sue-happy society, it goes beyond what many people, myself included, feel is reasonable. To the point, though, how much is too much? When does ‘borrowing’ go from ‘fair use’ to ‘copyright infringement’? What are we, and are we not, allowed to borrow, re-use and transform?

The First Amendment specifically protects the freedom of speech, but it’s unclear as to exactly how far it protects this vital freedom. Does it also cover the freedom of expression? Many Supreme Court justices have ruled as such, and I feel that that decision very fairly judges the amendment. We have seen that it goes just far enough to protect someone’s freedom of expression, so long as they are not harming another, or hindering any of their freedoms.

So does this cover copyright infringement, and if so, how? Media and Culture ballparks the unreasonable price of $50,000 to simply borrow a few seconds of media from its copyright owners. This puts it well out of reach of most people to use it under the ‘fair rights’ clause that has for so long existed in the United States. Copyright holders can even file a lawsuit for using an extensively modified version of their copyrighted media. With legal costs upwards of hundreds of thousands of dollars, it becomes impossible for the average citizen to make use of something catchy that they think they could alter to good effect. This is simply irrational.

Yes, I agree with most everybody that an artist’s work should be protected from being stolen. But when someone else takes their work, credits them for it, and then goes on to modify it so that it hardly resembles their original work, should this not be acceptable, given that the artist gives permission for such a modification? Or are we to suppose that we cannot express ourselves through the use of existing media and art? Personally, I feel that the greed of copyright companies is a gross injustice on our personal freedom of expression and that we ought to be allowed to alter things in such a way that I have described. Unfortunately, a lot needs to change in this country before any such changes can even be put on the table. I certainly hope that these changes happen sooner rather than later, before we become stifled under the very ideas that were invented to protect us.