Slashdot Mirror
Everyday Copyright Violations
Schneier has pointed out a great law review article about the problems with copyright. The author takes a look at normal daily practices and how many commonplace actions actually result in what can be considered copyright violations. "By the end of the day, John has infringed the copyrights of twenty emails, three legal articles, an architectural rendering, a poem, five photographs, an animated character, a musical composition, a painting, and fifty notes and drawings. All told, he has committed at least eighty-three acts of infringement and faces liability in the amount of $12.45 million (to say nothing of potential criminal charges). There is nothing particularly extraordinary about John's activities. Yet if copyright holders were inclined to enforce their rights to the maximum extent allowed by law, he would be indisputably liable for a mind-boggling $4.544 billion in potential damages each year. And, surprisingly, he has not even committed a single act of infringement through P2P file sharing."
Isn't this concept applicable to laws in general? How many of you think that you could drive to work without making a single violation? Hell, when was the last time you got on the highway and the majority of the traffic wasn't going at least 5 mph over the speed limit? And depending on what state you live in, you have varying laws that you most likely break every day. The law is getting so intricate that few people understand exactly what it entails anymore. Ideally, the law should be easily understood; written in the vernacular. We shouldn't need lawyers to translate it for us.