Copyright and I have a relationship that one could describe as average, I think.
I respect copyright holders desire to protect their product from others using it for personal monetary gain. You shouldn't be able to make money off of someone else's work. However, I don't necessarily think that gives media producers the right to remove/block/sue users for the uses of copyrighted material that are just for fun. I have made short films that used copyrighted music, and I have uploaded them to YouTube. I am getting no financial gain from this process, so I do not believe that I have violated copyright law. However, the videos still get picked up by YouTube's copyright hunters. They haven't been removed, but now the copyright holder can use my video to post their ads on. Essentially this turns the content I made just for fun into a commercial for a music conglomerate. Also, for some reason my videos are blocked in Germany. I still have yet to get an explanation for this.
But my cordial relationship with copyright becomes blurry when it comes to pirated film and television put on to the internet. I watched streams of previously aired content through unofficial channels, and this is sort of frowned upon by major media conglomerates. But once again, there is no exchange of money involved, so where's the harm in doing what I'm doing? The conglomerates call it piracy and they want to crush it. However, I think they are viewing it entirely the wrong way. What internet "pirates" are doing is providing competition that they can't handle. What it essentially comes down to is that Pirates provide an expediency and worldliness sights like Hulu can't provide. If the television shows were put up online within an hour of airing on television, and weren't region blocked, then there would be no need for piracy.
So overall, I think copyright holders just needs to chill it with the lawsuits, and focus on making better products and not alienating themselves from the people with disposable income.
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