In the Copyright Wars, the Great News & the Setbacks
Two recent developments suggest that the reactionary regime of maximalist copyright can still command a lot of raw political power to beat back commoners, flout legal principles and craft the law to its liking. Yet at the same time open networks and default norms of sharing are getting some serious traction these days, as two other developments attest. Could a post-reactionary world of free culture be at hand?
First, the bad news. A few weeks ago the EU extended the term of copyright protection for music recordings by another twenty years – an ignoble replay of what the U.S. Congress did in 1998 for U.S. copyright law. You may recall that the Disney Co. was determined to stop Mickey Mouse from entering the public domain, and the motion picture, recording and publishing industries were just as eager to reap a public giveaway worth billions of dollars.
If the copyright extension had not been adopted, lots of British music recordings from the 1960s from the Beatles to the early Stones and many others were expected to enter the public domain in 2012. Now there's a chilling thought: music that's still popular becoming free! Alternatively, the artists themselves could begin to distribute the music themselves, rather than having to let the record labels have exclusive rights for another 20 years.
- Read more about In the Copyright Wars, the Great News & the Setbacks
- Log in or register to post comments
Recent comments