copyrighting

Copyright laws are definitely outdated and should be rewritten to apply to the internet culture that has infiltrated the world. With the rise of popular do-it-yourself video sites like YouTube, licensed music is being used for noncommercial purposes yet has the potential of being illegal. Copyright laws, essentially, limit one’s own creative expression. Also, remixed versions of songs by different artists are and deejays becoming just as popular as the original versions. I would consider this free advertising. However, many of these artists do not receive permission to remaster these songs.

Radiohead’s free download release of In Rainbows was a very smart business move. The same amount of people who downloaded this album from their website were probably going to download it from a peer2peer network anyways. Likewise, those who were planning on buying a tangible version of the album will most likely still do so. Because artists make such a small fraction of album sales anyway, Radiohead did not suffer a great profit loss. They usually sell out all of their shows, which is how they make a great majority of their money. If anything, now that the album was available for free, more people will be able to afford to see Radiohead live.