Outdated copyright

In response to the Steven Colbert / Lawrence Lessig interview on the same topic:

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/215454/january-08-2009/lawrence-lessig.

Very short and simple, copyright law is not out of date. The original artist of a piece should have ownership of their work. Fair Use, however, covers the majority of the remixing issues. A quick overview of Fair Use states that anyone can use any other work in part as long as the original intent of the original work is not lessened by the use. One tricky point, though, is that the new work cannot compete with the old work without permission. This would be considered infringement, as the competition could feasibly lessen the original work's monetary value or detract from sales and profits of the original work in some way.

This last point is the one that should be addressed. There must be some way that the law could be expanded to include non-monetary remixing of works. The key here is that the remix of the work would be non-monetary. The remixing artist, nor anyone else, could not make profit from the original work. In this case, the remixed work would be no different than what fan fiction is to the worlds of screen and print.

In fan fiction, new artists use the characters and/or settings of existing works to create new adventures or scenarios. While this is currently an acknowledged form of copyright infringement, fanfic writers are rarely litigated against as their works are rarely used for profit. Instead, they're looked as publicity, as new readers may stumble across these first and then pick up the original work. They're used as community builders, as more and more writers or contributers create more works, bringing in more fans and creating a greater following.

Remixing should be allowed, but only under certain limitations. Original artists should retain their copyright and their ability to turn a profit from their work, they're the ones that put the time and effort into creating the original work, after all. But a fan should be able to pay homage to their favorite artist by retelling the artist's story, be it audio, video (much more difficult, really), or literary through their own eyes, as long as they're not making money from it. Should a profit be turned, perhaps a royalty system could be devised, and then only with the original artist's permission.