New Copyright Targets

In the book "Remix" by Lawrence Lessig, he talks about copyright issues and how/why they were formed. John Phillip Sousa first introduced these laws to congress in 1906. His main intent was not to make sure he was the only one profiting from his works but so the quality of music would not decline. Lessig states, "His fear was that culture would become less democratic," (pg. 25). Sousa could not have began to dream how important these laws would have become and how pervasive they have been in our society. Copyright infringement suits have been the trend in the last decade and seems like they have left no new technology or site untouched. The latest site to deem the critical eye of the government and copyright laws has been Google and other search engines. Now, some think that giving access or populating sites that may be breaking the copyright laws are considered to be promoting piracy. They want these search engines to block these sites from theirs making it less easy for internet users to find. I find it a little ironic that the intent for the copyright laws were first used so our culture would stay democratic and now they seem to be limiting our right to make the decision if we want to view certain sites.