Copyrights and copyright law are a pet interest of mine. The topic fascinates me, to no end, and does so, for a few reasons.
- American views of copyright are so different than those of the rest of the world. In more than a few countries I have visited, one can go into a legally-operated store and buy copies of music, movies, or software, for close to nothing. The music surely comes from files passed around the internet; same for the movies. The software — I don’t even want to guess where it comes from, but if I had to, I would guess that it has a well-used registration code or, more likely, it’s an OEM or corporate licensed version. And in those autonomous countries, who national sovereignty is recognized by the US, it’s legal to buy and sell such things.
- I think it’s wild, the idea that protection of copyrights is helping to push large sections of the world into this whole Fascism 2.0 realm. I’ve read a number of arguments on the subject, and it’s interesting stuff, from a theoretical point (I love a good argument). Businesses have built their business models around strict copyright enforcement worldwide, and then press their government, or the US government, to do their bidding to pressure everyone, everywhere, to adhere to this strict set of laws that supports the business plan. It makes for some interesting reading, especially when the WTO is deconstructed this way (and which then begs the question of why anyone would want WTO membership, ever) [More on WTO issues, here.]. A good example of this is the Russian website, AllofMP3, which, under Russian law, legally sold MP3 files, without an digital rights management strings, to anyone around the world (legally, under Russian law), for pennies. They had a good business — until the music industry in America seems to have been successful in getting the US government to pressure the Russian government to shut down the business. One interesting side note was when, before the Ru government shut it down, the music industry in the US convinced Visa to stop doing business with AllofMP3, which would have taken a big bite out of their web-based sales. It’s worth reading the Wikipedia entry on AllofMp3. That DRM, or restrictive files types, would make a comeback and regain popularity is just funny — the only ones interested in data in less-usable formats are th businesses, not the consumers.
- It cracks me up that, technically and literally speaking, copying the data and moving the data around likely does not violate the actual copyright laws. This makes me giggle, to no end. How funny, that the actual laws in question say something different that is being interpreted by the courts.
It all seems to boil down to American businesses, with business plans that are out of date and out of touch with the world in which we live today, are pressing the US government to take action to turn back the clock. It’s like trying to put the atomic genie back in the bottle, or thinking that we can end war (or sibling fighting, for that matter).
Like there was any chance that the Linux users would not write code to get DVD’s to play on their computers…..
Technological innovation in support of the wants and needs of the users is going to end right after there’s peace in the Middle East, I’m sure.
