MPAA Talking Points On Copyright Reform: Copyright Is Awesome For Everyone!
With the possibility of comprehensive copyright reform in the US in the air, we warned that lobbyists from all sides were about to be very, very busy on Capitol Hill, and it has already begun. We’ve heard from very reliable sources that the MPAA has basically been blanketing Congress with the attached document, visiting as many offices as possible and leaving it behind as their talking points on why copyright is just freaking awesome.
Of course, since this is the MPAA, the document is all sorts of misleading. Let’s dig in a bit, shall we?
“From the printing press, to motion pictures, to recorded sound, to the Internet, for its entire history, copyright law has evolved and developed in response to new developments in technology and the marketplace.”
Well, that’s one way to look at. Another would be, from the player piano, to radio, to TV, to the photocopier, to cable TV, to the VCR, to the MP3 player, to the DVR, to internet video, the entertainment industry has flipped out and used copyright law to try to block the development of new technology and marketplaces, often against their own best interests. Given that, you’d think that we’d know by now to take the entertainment industry’s claims about copyright law and new technologies with a rather large grain of salt.
Michael Sauers is currently the Director of Technology for Do Space in Omaha, NE. Michael has been training librarians in technology for the past twenty years and has also been a public library trustee, a bookstore manager for a library friends group, a reference librarian, serials cataloger, technology consultant, and bookseller since earning his MLS in 1995 from the University at Albany’s School of Information Science and Policy. Michael has also written dozens of articles for various journals and magazines and his fourteenth book, Emerging Technologies: A Primer for Librarians (w/ Jennifer Koerber) was published in May 2015 and more books are on the way. In his spare time he blogs at travelinlibrarian.info, runs The Collector’s Guide to Dean Koontz Web site, takes many, many photos, and typically reads more than 100 books a year.
View all posts by Michael Sauers
With the possibility of comprehensive copyright reform in the US in the air, we warned that lobbyists from all sides were about to be very, very busy on Capitol Hill, and it has already begun. We’ve heard from very reliable sources that the MPAA has basically been blanketing Congress with the attached document, visiting as many offices as possible and leaving it behind as their talking points on why copyright is just freaking awesome.
