ASCAP’s attack on Creative Commons

“The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers
(ASCAP) has launched a campaign to raise money from its members to
hire lobbyists to protect them against the dangers of “Copyleft.”
Groups such as Creative Commons, Public Knowledge, and the
Electronic Frontier Foundation are “mobilizing,” ASCAP describes in
a letter to its members, “to promote ‘Copyleft’ in order to
undermine our ‘Copyright.'” “[O]ur opponents are influencing
Congress against the interests of music creators,” ASCAP warns.
Indeed, as the letter ominously predicts, this is ASCAP’s “biggest
challenge ever.” (Historians of BMI might be a bit surprised about
that claim in particular.)

“As a founding board member of two of those three organizations,
and former board member of the third, I guess I should be proud
that a 96 year old organization would be so terrified of our work.
And I would be — if there were anything in this fundraising pitch
that was actually true.”

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