Living in today’s world one has access to ample amounts of information collected from previous study, people today rely on this gathered research to develop their own views on topics. Legal views chastise and condemn people for using someone else’s work. From a legal standpoint, reusing anyone else’s work for any purpose is considered illegal. Even though this is considered illegal, in certain instances, modifying and adopting another’s work proves better than trying to work from scratch. Personal use and Profitable use demonstrate two different situations where remixing works of another person proves a better use of one’s creative energy.
Modifying a product for personal use represents the first situation where using another’s studies can aid a person in developing a foundation for a product. As viewed in the computer software field, many people use other people’s works as models for their own works. If people do not aim to market their product, then no harm will come from them using other people’s information as a basis for their own. Computer software modification in this situation would not hurt the sales of the product and instead help sales by satisfying the customer. For this reason, copyright laws should not apply when the person remixing does not plan on marketing this remade work. Ideas stem mainly from past research only a minute number of ideas spring from raw thought. Hindering these ideas with pointless copyright laws that have no effect on the sales of the original product are pointless and hurt society as a whole.
Industrially the world relies on modification of products for profit. Changing a product from an original proves a tricky business; the product must transform completely. When altering a product one has to remember to change the appearance, yet maintaining a similar yet different function from the original work. Competition within the industrial world leads to the creation of high end, efficient products. Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales provides an example of this modification, giving insight into how to alter a product. Seeing a venue for improvement Chaucer revisited the original work, The Decameron, and revised it. Freedoms to manipulate alter and hone allowed Chaucer to generate a well respected piece of history.
Many people argue that allowing people to alter another person’s work has also caused more people to plagiarize. Concern that someone will only slightly alter an original work drives people to not appreciate what using other peoples work has allowed our world to accomplish. Chaucer’s remaking of The Decameron contained many similarities to the original, yet despite the similarities Chaucer conveyed a deeper meaning. Through the reconstruction of the Decameron, Chaucer unveiled how revisiting a work can lead to the unmasking of something superior to previous products. Despite the abuse of freedom to recreate many improvements to the world have developed leading to the conclusion that the enhancements outweigh the mistreatment.
So is there a time when remixing someone else’s works proves to be a better use of one’s creative energy? When one is remixing someone else’s work and only plans for its purpose to be personal use, the law should not hinder these people from modifying the original work to fit the needs of the modifier. When one is remixing someone else’s work for profitable use, though, there is only a fine line between whether the remade work can be considered plagiarism or can be considered one’s own work. To make this new work contains no similar features as the original work and make sure the new work not be considered plagiarism, the author must show a level of ingenuity and creativity that will improve society as a whole. For these reasons, there are situations where reusing or remixing someone else’s work is a better use of creative energy than starting from scratch.
Works Cited
Boccaccio, Giovanni. The Decameron. 14th Century. Decameron Web. 30 Jan 2010.http://www.stg.brown.edu/projects/decameronNew/DecShowText.php?myID=d01intro&expand=day01&lang=eng.
Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Canterbury Tales. New York: Barnes & Noble Classics, 2007
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