Just in case you’re not up to speed in how messed up copyright is right now, here’s a great article you should read by Eugene G. Schwartz.
They made me realize that I had not recognized how firmly copyright law was legally grounded in the business interests of both publishers and authors as a privilege granted by government, balanced against the rights of public interest and access. I had thought it went without saying that copyright was grounded in balancing the moral right of authors to the fruits of their labor and the ownership of their intellectual property; and that copyright balanced that right with the naturally inevitable diffusion of ideas in an open society: the public’s (i.e., the individual’s) right to the unfettered use of expressions that had become absorbed in our common consciousness, discourse and experience.
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As I am now convinced that intellectual property does not have the same standing as real property — and for good reason grounded in the nature of things — I have not abandoned my conviction that the writer and artist enjoys a moral right that is superior in ethical value to me than any real property’s economic value.
Read the full article @ BookBusinessMag.com.
