Recently there have been quite a few copyright-related posts which came
up in my feedreader. This is of course a complicated and layered problem
which can’t be solved in the couple of paragraphs of this blogpost, but
at least I can post a bunch of great materials which should contribute
to the edification of all of us.
From
comixtalk.com:
Copyright Is Not theft
http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/IeTybKL1pM4&hl=en\_US&fs=1&color1=0x234900&color2=0x4e9e00
Also from comixtalk: [Nina Paley Discusses State of Sita Sings The
Blues](http://comixtalk.com/xerexes/nina_paley_discusses_state_sita_sings_blues).
This is an animated movie (which you can [watch for
free](http://www.archive.org/details/Sita_Sings_the_Blues)) that had
legal problems because of the backing soundtrack, even though the music
in question was created in 1920, so it should be in the public domain.
You might also be interested in the documentary [rip! a remix
manifesto](http://ripremix.com/) (embedded below for your convenience).
It is a documentary (Michael Moore style) talking about the issue. And
while it isn’t perfect, it manages to raise a lot of interesting issues
(
BTW, personally I find the songs on the [Grey
Album](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grey_Album) much better than the
originals on the Black album - just a random example how derivative
works can improve the original):
Finally here is a presentation from
TED comparing industries with
different level of copyright protection (via
[Slashdot](http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/05/25/2222207/The-Fashion-Industry-As-a-Model-For-
IP-Reform)):
http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/zL2FOrx41N0&hl=en\_US&fs=1&color1=0x234900&color2=0x4e9e00
This should be enough information to keep you outraged for weeks :-)
PS. Just a quick rundown of my current opinion: all [works
are](http://hype-free.blogspot.com/2009/09/myths-of-innovation.html)
[derivative](http://hype-free.blogspot.com/2009/08/myth-of-cognitive-quantum-jumps.html).
But even if we skip over this, long copyright stifles innovation. And
even if we don’t consider (or don’t accept) this premise, labelling
*all* copying as “theft” is (depending) wrong, (possibly purposefully)
misleading and unethical. For example I posses the copyright for all the
materials published on this blog (since it is my original work), but I
explicitly grant anyone to reuse the content under the conditions of the
[
CC-
BY-
SA 3.0](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) license.
PS \#2: An other interesting documentary to watch is [Patently
absurd](http://patentabsurdity.com/). I didn’t include it above because
it deals with patent law, not copyright, two domains which are
frequently bundled together under the term “Intellectual Property”
(together with trademark law), but the fact is that these three domains
are completely separate and the laws governing them are distinct, ergo I
didn’t want to add to the confusion.
PS \#3: Technology != Breaking the law. Just because I use bittorrent,
it doesn’t mean that I’m breaking the copyright law! I might be very
well downloading a Linux
ISO (as I frequently do), one of the many
*free* (as in freedom) material from
[Clearbits](http://www.clearbits.net/) (previosuly legaltorrents) or a
World of Warcraft patch for that matter.