Musings on Copyright

Copyright is one of those topics that I'm a little hesitant to touch simply because I know there are a lot of details that go along with it that I'm not familiar with. However, I do believe that the safest route to take in most cases is a nice middle ground. I don't think that we should abolish copyright entirely or enforce it militantly. In fact, my experience has been that a little copyright violation actually benefits the original artist.

About eight or so years ago, I stumbled across a musician named Vienna Teng on YouTube. Technically, the video was probably a copyright violation, as someone other than Vienna Teng had posted the video. However, it caught my interest. I clicked on other songs of Vienna's that had been posted (also likely without her consent.) The more I listened to her, the more I liked her unique style. Eventually, I ended up buying a handful of her songs on iTunes and recommending her to several friends. None of this would have been possible without the dozens of videos that had been uploaded to YouTube by random fans of her work.

I also discovered BBC series Merlin on YouTube. Someone had posted the first season in segments of about 8 minutes. After watching several episodes, I decided that this was a series I wanted to continue watching. I then switched over to Netflix to watch the remainder of the seasons. Again, I recommended this series to others who ended up watching it. Once again, the copyright holder (in this case, the BBC) profited because of copyright violations.

I understand that not every situation works out so nicely where copyright is concerned. However, I also believe that this issue is not nearly as black and white as the extremists on both sides would like us to believe.

Have any of you had similar experiences?