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Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan
No, I'm thinking like a member of a functioning community, a social system that operates on discussion and agreement for mutual prosperity. Communities have worked for a few thousand years now.
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Social systems are not designed, except by utopians. Same goes for economic systems. These things evolve. The common law in the US has always worked by leveraging off what has evolved. Statutory systems, when they work, do the same. Otherwise, they crash & burn, becoming unworkable (Prohibition) or totalitarian (communism.)
Copyright will work when we figure out how the digital environment works, but currently, copyright impedes getting there.
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Congress changes almost as fast as Lady Gaga's wardrobe. Presently, confusion reigns and dollars break all gridlocks... but that can change if we commit ourselves to enacting change. If we decide to sit back and let others do our thinking for us... then yes, we are truly screwed.
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I am not at all optimistic about that - I hope you are right & I am wrong. But what I see happening is a progression toward more & more legal fetters on the consumer by the special interest groups, left & right.
But be that as it may, what I see is that the digital environment is like acid that dissolves the analog environment, and some but not all creators are trying to stop it. Others see what is happening & are acting without trying to save copyright. Check out Zoe Keating's website
http://music.zoekeating.com/
for an example in the music world of someone who is adapting to the real world rather than trying to save the old one. And she isn't relying on making a new law. Act rationally in the emerging digital environment & if we are lucky the law might follow.