All copyright and intellectual property laws should be abolished.
It's gratifying to this anarchist librarian to be alive when digital technology exposed the stupidity of a system that people hadn't questioned in generations.
The power behind "copyright" only exists to those who can afford to pay lawyers to sue people who "infringe" their claims to copyright. You'll notice that violence underlies the copyright system, in this case the threat of state violence if a court rules against you as the alleged "infringer."
It's even more easy to demonstrate now that the system of state-enforced intellectual property exists chiefly to benefit companies who want to enforce the scarcity of a physical product. Digital technology makes it easy to copy these intellectual products, thus challenging the middlemen who profit from the scarcity of these products. This is vividly illustrated by the ongoing collapse of the music industry, which was a network of capitalist middlemen who enforced scarcity on an arbitrary selection from a music culture. Now bands and artists can share their work on Myspace, on websites, and through other digital channels. This has democratized music creation and distribution. The music industry fights this by talking about infringement on intellectual property. They are really just trying to protect their monopoly on distribution and profit.
A stupid, barbaric system.
The RIAA legal campaign against file sharers will die within two years. I knew about their strategy before they launched it in desperation. The RIAA knows that they've lost the war. They were even of this opinion when they were fighting Napster.
Chuck
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