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When Elephants Dance
One Michael Fraase has written an excellent piece on the battle between the entertainment industry and everyone else titled "When Elephants Dance." Well worth reading, and bookmarking, and referring newbies to in order to get them up to speed in the digital content wars. His solution is right on, too, IMHO.
Of course it's slashdotted by now... Here's a copy out of google's cache...
Technology -- No Place For Wimps! Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia Chatroom -- http://www.wemissjerry.org
I'm probably wasting my breath by saying it here but I'll do so anyway.
Revert the term of copyright to 14 years, immediately and retroactive to all existing works.
I like this one. At least the first part. I have serious doubts about the ethicality of making it retroactive. Someone who created content (or bought it - but let's not delve into that) and released it under the assumption that it would be protected for whatever period copyrights were at the time would legitimately feel screwed by the country going back on its promise.
Recognize moral rights in the works authors create, like every other civilized country on the planet. Make it immediate and retroactive to all existing works.
Huhh? What laws in other countries does this reference? What's this "moral right"? Does the guy I paid to help build my house have a "moral right" to my house?
Prohibit any corporation from owning a copyright. Corporations create nothing; they're consensual hallucinations and exist at our pleasure. I don't know about you, but I'm not much pleased any more.
That's the point where I realize I should dismiss this as probably the ranting of someone with the intelligence of a pre-pubescent crack-addict.
Corporations serve several purposes and are very crucial to our economy. It's amazing how few demagogues realize this. I, as an author want the ability to sell my copyrights for money - to corporations. When you take away my ability to do that you're taking away some of the value of my creation to me. The bottomline is that artists will get shittier contracts and compensations because they can give less away.
Our economy thrives on separation of roles. Taking this away will force the author to be in the business, not only of creating content, but also that of distributing, marketing and promoting it. That is as much in societies interests as prohibiting anyone from getting a job and "giving away" the fruits of their labor is.
Mmmm.. Donuts