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We Were Smarter About Copyright Law 100 Years Ago
An anonymous reader writes "James Boyle has a blog post comparing the recording industry's arguments in 1909 to those of 2009, with some lovely Google book links to the originals. Favorite quote: 'Many and numerous classes of public benefactors continue ceaselessly to pour forth their flood of useful ideas, adding to the common stock of knowledge. No one regards it as immoral or unethical to use these ideas and their authors do not suffer themselves to be paraded by sordid interests before legislative committees uttering bombastic speeches about their rights and representing themselves as the objects of "theft" and "piracy."' Industry flaks were more impressive 100 years ago. In that debate the recording industry was the upstart, battling the entrenched power of the publishers of musical scores. Also check out the cameo appearance by John Philip Sousa, comparing sound recordings to slavery. Ironically, among the subjects mentioned as clearly not the subject of property rights were business methods and seed varieties." Boyle concludes: "...one looks back at these transcripts and compares them to today's hearings — with vacuous rantings from celebrities and the bloviation of bad economics and worse legal theory from one industry representative after another — it is hard not to feel a sense of nostalgia. In 1900, it appears, we were better at understanding that copyright was a law that regulated technology, a law with constitutional restraints, that property rights were not absolute and that the public would not automatically be served by extending rights out to infinity."
That way, everybody's happy !! Smiling, Extenz happy !! Fuck the World !!
the use of the word draconian is too draconian too. can't you shills come up with a better word?
It just speaks to me that with little if any methods for enforcing it, the US DoJ has settled for a penalty so harsh you are scared into observing the law.
Well the same can be said about shoplifting ("don't call it stealing") in the clothing boutique. For every one who is caught, several probably get away clean, so merchants needs to make examples out of the former to deter even more instances of it. And the state and town pass and enforce laws to protect their merchants.
Let's face, the people holding the copyrights are the people with the money
It is now easier and ever for an author to self-publish an original creative work (text, audio, video), either as a download or as shippable product. There is also no shortage of publishers and distribution channels. If authors are cutting bad deals with publishers these days, who is to blame? Waaaaaaaa, such-and-such band cut a deal when their members were 18 that assigned all rights of their future output to Sony Columbia. Well, DON'T SIGN THAT KIND OF DEAL! Get some advice before you sign. We now have these things called "search engines" that make it easy to do topical research.
That's reality because it's largely out of the public's mind what benefit public domain affords them and even artists who make derivative works or embellishments on existing works.
Don't authors have enough imagination to create a fantasy world that doesn't use Tolkien's characters and place names? That doesn't seem to be asking much. If they can't even do that, chances are they didn't have much to offer anyway, other than personal ambition.
or get ass fucked in jail by bubba. fucking faggot bitches.