In viewing these sources I gained a better concept of what copyright laws are.  I was very surprised at the length of copyrights, as well as the fact that they are automatically granted. I had assumed that copyrights were like invention patents and had to be paid for. The rules or lack of set rules associated with fair use laws frustrated me. These laws are up to interpretation and because of that one can easily violate a copyright law unknowingly.  Creative commons helps with this issue as it shows what you are allowed to do with selected works.

In terms of copyright infringement, I’ve always known that downloading music/movies and selling them to others was illegal. Anybody who watches the opening credits to a movie knows that much. But I’ve always wondered how a movie, like Scary Movie, was able to pretty much steal the storyline from Scream, while adding a more comedic angle, and not get sued for copyright infringement.  Now  I know that the reason this was allowed was because it  was a parody of Scream and therefore allowed under fair sse.

With music, I have friends that remix existing songs, and prior to gaining this information ,about copyright/fair use , I thought it was legal. I figured that as long as they changed the lyrics to make the music sound different they were good. I was wrong, as  I learned that the music as a whole is protected. To use a beat and completely change the lyrics or to just sample a beat from another song is all illegal.So the music my friends created is infringing on copyright even though the work differs from the original work.