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EFF Co-founder Faces Copyright Heavyweights At EG8

ndogg writes "EFF co-founder John Perry Barlow faced down copyright heavyweights ... on a panel he described as 'the Lions Den' discussing issues of intellectual property. He was the lone dissenting voice ... Mitterand had commented that copyright debates had grown so calm now that everyone agreed upon the ground rules."

5 of 151 comments (clear)

  1. amusingly by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    the official eg8 site has taken down this exact section of the talk

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0Nl2Xnmd5g

  2. Re:Excellent by MoonBuggy · · Score: 4, Informative

    Never the less, seeing this guy shake up the cozy little panel of "experts" makes me very happy.

    I quite agree. I think that as a famous musician, and thus as one of the very people that his opponents on the panel claim to protect, he was superbly placed to make his points. When all the rhetoric centres around promoting the arts, it's perfect to have a set of businessmen talking about it in the abstract, and then to have an actual artist come in with this:

    I may be one of very few people in this room who actually makes his living personally by creating what these gentlemen are pleased to call "intellectual property."

    He added that he was more interested in talking about "incentivizing creativity by people who create things, and not large institutions who prey on them and have for years."

    If the big media guys want the public on their side, they'll have to do so by convincing us that syphoning money into the middle-men is a good idea, because I don't think the "protecting the artists" façade can hold for that much longer.

  3. Re:Frederic Mitterrand ? by Richard_at_work · · Score: 3, Informative

    It doesn't matter what Mitterrand thinks of Polanski's case, Polanski is a French citizen and thus is protected from extradition from his country - Mitterrand couldn't do anything short of changing the law...

    And we all know the shit storm that changing laws to suit the US causes here on Slashdot...

  4. Re:Conroy vs. Sarkozy by e70838 · · Score: 4, Informative

    I am a french voter. There was almost no alternative to Sarkozy and it was not so predictable that Sarkozy would be so terrible.
    By putting DSK in jail, you have removed the most promising candidate for next election.
    I promise I will not vote for Sarkozy even if that means voting for the worst asshole.

  5. Re:Excellent by MoonBuggy · · Score: 4, Informative

    Perhaps not by name, but who hasn't heard of the Grateful Dead?