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The Parallel Politics of Copyright and Environment

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the I'll-take-the-environment-alex dept.

zumaya100k writes "In recent months, Slashdot has covered the rise of the Pirate Party and the battles in Europe over iPod interoperability. Canada's Hill Times has an insightful column from Michael Geist that links these developments as the growing importance of copyright as a political issue. He argues that copyright is now tracking the environment as a mainstream political issue." (Geist is talking about Canada here, but much the same can be said about the U.S. and other places.)

3 of 128 comments (clear)

  1. Main stream only now? by balsy2001 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    This has been a very big issue for corpoprations and politicians for years now (think of Disney getting copyright extensions for mickey mouse), but only recently due to the advances in technology has it become a household issue.

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  2. And in another tie-in by michaelmalak · · Score: 3, Interesting
    I wonder why the publisher still make me take atoms when all I really want are bits.

    I.e. getting rid of copyrights (or bringing them back to 14+14 years) would help the environment.

  3. Average people giving a crap, finally. by Kadin2048 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I can't believe this hasn't been modded up.

    I think you hit the nail on the head: copyright has been a political issue for a while, but it's only recently that it's started to affect normal people. Thus they care, where they didn't give a damn before.

    Most people don't care about things in the political realm, outside of the small sphere which they perceive as actually having a direct effect on their lives.

    E.g., one of the reasons the gun lobby is so big in the U.S., is that there are a lot of people who own guns, and realize that changes in gun laws could directly affect their lives, and thus take an interest in it, one way or the other.

    If you had as many bittorrent users as there are gun owners, and if those bittorrent users found their bittorrenting to be as important to them as gun owners find their gun ownership and its associated activities, then there's no reason why the "BitTorrent Lobby" wouldn't be equally powerful.

    It's all about making average people care.

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