Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
US copyright law is singularly odd  . |
As I said, US copyright comes from a very different mind set and tradition than European or English specifically copyright. There has always been a balance between making sure the author is able to sell his product and making sure that information is widely available. While music, video and books are thrown together in the law, over time, they have been treated very, very differently and are thought of differently.
TV and music are available free over the airwaves. Most books are freely available in libraries. That is set in the public's mind. That is one of the reasons that one rarely if every sees individuals charged with copyright violation for making personal copies in the US and why the music industry's attempt to go after individual downloaders was so disastrous from a PR perspective.
In many other countries, there is no copyright tradition and even if they are signers of the Berne treaty, copyright enforcement is for all practical purposes non existent. That is one of the reason that so many pirate sites are in Russia.