Copyright Law - was: Linux World domination (was Re: [NCLUG] PC for Linux (Ubuntu))

[Brian Wood]

Chad Perrin wrote:

> 
> As such, everything I said previously about EULAs being treated as though
> they were "contracts" -- apply that to copyright law itself, too.  The
> difference is that the enforceability of EULAs *might* break down if you
> challenge them in court at significant, obscene expense, while that of
> copyright is essentially ironclad and, with the addition of more laws
> shoring it up in favor of corporate control of ideas all the time, it's
> only getting stronger in legal terms.

I think most people support the general idea of the copyright laws,
which is that if someone puts forth a creative effort they should be
able to benefit from their work, without somebody else "stealing" it
from them.

It's like so many other things these days, something originally intended
to protect individuals is being perverted to provide corporations with
"protections" that were never intended to apply to them. Software
patents are another example. Why do we need patents in addition to
copyright protections?

It's like what happened in the record industry, where due to the
extremely high cost of the equipment involved individuals could not
afford to produce their own records and had to give up at least some of
their rights to the money people. The problem is that the record
companies leveraged their position to extort a higher and higher
percentage from the artists. Now that anyone with a PC can produce a
record, the companies are fighting tooth and nail to keep hold of their
stranglehold on the industry.

But I'm sure Gutenberg and his fellows were accused of similar tactics
when they first started printing books :-)

beww