Although copyright law is a somewhat recent development, having been first enacted in 1710 (in the UK, 1790 in the US), it hasn’t fully kept up-to-date with the works it protects. Aiming to grant “the creator of an original work exclusive rights for its use and distribution” (historyofcopyright.org), it was originally elaborated around the publishing industry in order to protect and offer an economic incentive to authors and inventors. At least in theory. The Copyright Law “protects the creative investment of the author” (Davis, J., 2006). Without it, “authors would have no economic incentive to create” (Davis, J., 2006).

Most of the world adheres to the Berne Convention terms of Intellectual Property with small differences between territories. How strict or loose the Copyright Law and how well enforced it is, will differ from country to country (TestTube News, 2015).

“All over the world, for a century or more, IP (Intellectual Property) law evolved gradually and was driven by a belief on the part of the governments that while the interests of owners should be protected, IP’s main purpose was to benefit the national economy and citizenry” (Dutfield, G., 2006). So claims Graham Dutfield, senior research fellow at Queen Mary’s University, and other scholars. The financial interest was so large that the US’ “early copyright laws were, even by today’s standards, unacceptably xenophobic” (Dutfield, G., 2006) as it applied only to American citizens or creators resident in the US up until the 1830s. Thus, benefiting only the American economy.

While the Copyright Law is intended to act as a financial incentive to creators who can then commercially exploit their work, provided they haven’t assigned their rights to someone else, there is a growing debate that, in practice, the law hinders further expansion of the cultural sphere when it fails to provide the freedom for others to build upon someone else’s original work. One of the main advocates of this theory is Harvard professor Lawrence Lessig, who firmly believes that culture should be free and that the current copyright law is too strict to allow for cultural expansions.

For Lessig, the law as it is nowadays, although “at its birth had only publishing as its concern […] today [it] regulates both [publishing and building upon someone’s original work]” (Lessig, L., 2005). However, Lessig still believes that there is a great amount of work that can benefit from looser regulation such as those works of lesser-known independent creators who can freely distribute their intellectual property in order to promote themselves.