[ Thanks to Kelly
McNeill for this link. ]
“When copyright was first invented (that’s right, somebody had
to invent it — it is not a naturally occurring element!), one of
the main reasons for doing so was the copying was difficult and
expensive. The percentage of capital required to produce a copy of
a book, for example, was a high percentage of the total cost of the
book (at least at the wholesale level). Since copying was a
technological feat based on capital investment, marketing, and even
some R&D, it seemed to make sense to provide a governmental
crutch or subsidy (through protective enforcement) to stimulate the
business of copying information….”
“Personally, I get the impression that copyright issues have
turned America into a kind of “lawyers’ paradise” where huge piles
of money are extracted from a potentially efficient system in order
to subsidize an obsolete, lethargic bunch of corporate dinosaurs. I
see that a handful of writers, musicians, and actors garner the
vast majority of big-money contracts and opportunities to showcase
their talents, while a thousand other who are just as great — or
maybe even better — are shunted aside because of the low-risk
mentality of these giant distribution houses.”
“A revolution is coming — a revolution from the production
side, and a revolution from the consumption side — where both
sides have a lot to gain and most participants have little to lose.
It is only the middlemen who are truly challenged to provide
something of value, or else get out of the way. Copyright may
not be obsolete as a concept, but its current implementation and
the current array of legal precedents are about to be shaken to
their foundations. The paradigm has already shifted; it is only a
matter of time before the people catch up with it.”