Quote:
Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward
Steve, Kennyc, here is the reality. All democratic forms of government are for sale, directly or indirectly. (directly is bribery, indirectly is providing load of campaign funds to help get a candidate elected that will fully support your views.) So....
Who provided for the public's side on copyright? Nobody. So those corporations that will benefit economically from longer copyright keep influencing the governments (see above), with no organized resistance. What you are getting is disorganized resistance (piracy). The corporations have been stealing from the public (by lengthening copyright terms), so they have lost most moral "high ground". The result is more and more totalitarian laws in order to "protect" copyright. It's actually to protect corporate profits. It's not to encourage artistic creation, it's to maintain former art as a perpetual property. And that is completely against the concept of copyright in the first place....
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For being disorganized resistance, it seems pretty effective. The *AAs might as well have government in their already-bulging hip-pocket, yet ever-more Draconian laws are put in place...this to me is a sign of desperation, not success. To me, it's a sign that despite the lack of organization, right or wrong, it's working. Until such behavior stops being a civil matter and becomes a criminal one, it will continue. Organized resistance will probably never happen in our lifetimes, because there are too many vested interests which will result in, at best, stalemate. One of two things needs to happen to break the cycle:
- Self-publishing. I see self-published musicians/singers/songwriters on a daily basis, and their overhead is much higher, so don't tell me it's not possible/practical/convenient/whatever. I envision, in place of megapublishers, a string of micropublishers which would each consist of an editor/formatter, and a marketing rep/agent. Of course my view is that ebooks should be the rule and pbooks the exception, but that's a different debate. What does this have to do with the copyright discussion? Lobbyists will no longer be in control of IP as they are now, ergo less (if any) resistance to sane copyright law.
- Honest elected officials. You show me an honest politician and I'll show you a dead one.