Quote:
Originally Posted by Elfwreck
It is hurting the readers as well-but it's not *all* in the name of greed.
Copyright exists to find a way to convince authors, artists, & scientists to publish widely, rather than to limit their distribution to channels they can personally control. (In the US, that's official; in other countries, it's implied.) Without some kind of limitations on copying & distribution, nothing prevents Random House from downloading Steve Jordan's new book and releasing it under their own logo, without paying him anything for it.
Copyright may not be the only way to prevent this, but it's what we've got for now; attempts to abolish IP law need to *first* figure out how we'll prevent corporations from taking over people's work without compensation.
(That said--I like a lot of Stallman's ideas, even if I think he's a bit over the top in spots. And I think the lack of privacy online is a big concern and will be a bigger one.)
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Well, copyright in its proper form is a good thing. The problem isn't what it should be. It's what it's become at the hands of a greedy few. Why should my readers suffer just because someone wants to rob, pillage, and plunder everyone and everything they can all the merry day long? A really fine example of this is fair use. Wow, is that ever under attack. These days you can actually get sued, and in some cases thrown in jail, just for whistling a song without a license for public performance, or even playing your radio, or worse yet, sharing a legally purchased copy of a book with a friend. Some companies will actually press criminal copyright theft charges against you if you let someone else borrow your book to read it, instead of forcing them to buy their own copy. I myself don't agree with that stance. But I'm just a mouse fart compared to the huge, multi-billion dollar corporations driving all this copyright and copytheft madness.