Rip! (Week 6)

This week's classes were really cool.  They started out a little boring with all the talk of copyrights and legal stuff, but the movie really interested me.  I've always been interested in all the BS that corporate America can pull on individuals and screw them over with their big-time lawyers and stuff, and the video brought about so many more ways they're screwing over the "little guys."  I agree that people should be able to copyright and patent their work and designs, but I think they should last a much shorter amount of time.  Like we talked about in class today, I think patents should last for about 2 or 3 years, with a possible appeal process for an extension.  I think that songs should have an even shorter time limit on their restrictions from public use.  People like Girl Talk should be able to use bits of songs in his work because he's only using small pieces of songs to make complete new songs.  It's not like he's playing a whole song by someone, so after the song loses some popularity and stops making the artist solid money, the song should be free game to mixers and downloaders everywhere.  I think if we don't get a handle on what major corporations can control now, our country is just going to get more restricted, controlled, and "lame."  America is said to be a free country, yet there are so many ways where we allow major businesses and companies control our lives for us.