Copyright is a powerful weapon, and it grows more powerful every day, as lawmakers extend its reach and strength. Funny thing about powerful weapons, though: Unless you know how to use them, they make lousy equalizers. As they say in self-defense courses, “Any weapon you don’t know how to use belongs to your opponent.” Recording artists get an extra 45 years of copyright, and it’s promptly taken from them by the all-powerful record labels, who then use it to strengthen their power by extending their grasp over distribution channels. Authors are given the right to control indexing of their works, and it’s promptly scooped up by Google, who can use it to prevent competitors from giving authors a better deal. For so long as copyright holders think like short-timers, seeking a quick buck instead of a healthy competitive marketplace, they’re doomed to work for their gatekeepers, rather than the other way around. Cory Doctorow ☀
Saturday 20 June 2009
7 notes
-
johnfitzpatrick reblogged this from ericmortensen
-
burntbythesun liked this
-
ericmortensen reblogged this from publiccommunication
-
publiccommunication reblogged this from azspot
-
tommaso liked this
-
suddenly liked this
-
azspot posted this
A GNT creation ©2007–2012
