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The documentary Freedom of Expression discusses potential issues concerning first
amendment rights. In a world where censorship is continuing to take away from
what we can and cannot say it may start to affect our ability to make informed
decisions as well as taking away from our ability to develop new works of art. If
our freedoms are not going to be defended, then our rights are going to
continue to be taken away.2
Throughout the documentary I
realized there are many more serious issues to censorship than I had thought.
As the media becomes restricted by censorship, so do we, the people. That is
because we are losing our sources of information about our government.2 The news media
has the wonderful ability of being separate from our government system. This
allows news to be reported to the public about what the government is doing,
good or bad, that helps us make sure our government is doing what we want and
so that we can make decision of what we want to happen with our government. It
is a serious issue if information is being withheld from the public against the
first amendment rights as well as if the government is censoring what the media
can release.3
The government also continues
extending the copyright acts to increase the amount of time a work of art can
stay protected under it. Copyrights are good because it creates an incentive to
create something new to make money. They become an issue when they are extended
too long because with a copyright on a work of art the public cannot use it.3 Without the use
of art from the past it is difficult to develop new works of art because in the
past many ideas and art were made taking pieces of many different works. If the
copyright acts continue to be extended, keeping the works away from the public
domain, the world will never see Mickey Mouse or even the song Happy Birthday.
Right now, movies that use the song in them have to pay a lot of money to do
so.2 That goes the
same for any work of art used or even heard in any form of media. However, the
term fair use protects people or companies for the use of media without needing
permission or needing to pay money under certain conditions.2,3
Fair use is a complicated idea
because there are times when fair use can be pushed too far. For things like
education, people can piece together clips from different movies, news casts,
etc. in order to teach a lesson. People may also parody works of art like music
because it is commercial and humorous taking of the art not direct copying of
it.3 There are some
cases when people take clips of artwork and piece them together and claim fair
use. For example, a person claimed fair use on many Elvis clips pieced
together. This is not fair use because they are not saying anything new. The
people that do this are just taking credit for different pieces of someone else’s
work.2 Fair use is
also allowed for things like research, critiquing, and other forms of work like
those. Without things like critiques speaking their mind and quoting other
works we would not be able to be in a democracy like we are today. This is what
allows for the information we get and different ideas that we are exposed to.2,3
Every single day people stand up for
free speech in more ways than one. Whether they are challenging free speech by
pranks on the public or by participating in the website developed by college
students called freeculture.org, they are standing up their rights. If we do
not continue to stand up for our rights, then eventually they will be stripped
from us.2,4
Works Cited
1. Abram S. New Free Speech. 2010. Available at:
http://stephenslighthouse.com/2010/09/11/free-speech/. Accessed May 25, 2013.
2. McLeod K, Smith J. Freedom
of Expression: Resistance & Repression in the Age of Intellectual Property.;
2007. Available at:
http://www.mediaed.org/cgi-bin/commerce.cgi?preadd=action&key=127.
3. Campbell R, Martin
CR, Fabos B. Media & Culture: Mass Communication in a Digital Age.
9th ed. Boston, MA: Bedford/ St. Martin’s Available at: https://reader.cafescribe.com/reader/Reader.html.
Accessed May 22, 2013.
4. Free Culture
Foundation. Available at: http://freeculture.org/. Accessed May 25, 2013.
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