LA Times: Let's Give a Toast to Prohibition, Circa 2000

[ Thanks to Paul Eggert for this link. ]

"The excesses of copyright law were never better illustrated than by U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel's ruling last week on Napster, the music-swapping Internet service."

"The Napster case is only the latest example of a troubling trend: The hijacking of copyright law by vested interests to the detriment of the general public."

"For that matter, the thriving creativity on the Internet, flourishing in a culture dominated by principles of free sharing, calls into question the basic constitutional rationale for having copyright laws. Do these laws really 'promote the progress of science and useful arts,' or do they sometimes hinder progress? Did copyright laws motivate the thousands of computer enthusiasts who shared in developing the open-source Linux operating system? Did these laws motivate the young people who have written so much freeware in recent years?"

Complete Story

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