bunburya
June 3rd, 2010, 05:59 PM
I was doing a bit of research for an essay I am thinking of writing and came across this quite ridiculous article from the Wall Street Journal about "copyright critics" (as if all the opponents of the current legal framework for the protection of copyright were one monolithic entity). It's from a year ago but I found it so silly and sesnationalist I thought I'd share it with you.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124199933659205011.html
Starting off it's not terrible, just praising the works of authors and the like. It really gets silly around here though:
But copyright, the rampart of the mythical city, is besieged by a widespread movement antagonistic to authorial right and the legitimacy of intellectual property. So-called public interest groups serve the new information super powers, the Standard Oils of our age, whose interests would be advanced if they did not have to bother with permissions and payments for what they call "content." The Creative Commons organization, for example, is richly financed by Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Mozilla, Sun, the Hewlett Foundation, and others of type.
You heard it here first, Creative Commons is just a lobby group for all those big nasty corporations who of course hate intellectual property (like Microsoft)...
More intellectual laziness and a repeat of the old piracy strawman here:
The opponents of copyright are no more disinterested than its defenders, although they do a good job of pretending, and their theories have become the window dressing for the piracy of software, music, movies -- and soon the written word. They may claim that they are not against copyright per se. But if, as they repeatedly assert, copyright is an unjustifiable tax, a monopoly, and a bar to creativity, why wouldn't they or anyone else be against it, as in fact they are?
And so on.
Anyway, just thought I'd share that with you, it annoys me how people can distort the debate so much, though I suppose this is par for the course for WSJ.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124199933659205011.html
Starting off it's not terrible, just praising the works of authors and the like. It really gets silly around here though:
But copyright, the rampart of the mythical city, is besieged by a widespread movement antagonistic to authorial right and the legitimacy of intellectual property. So-called public interest groups serve the new information super powers, the Standard Oils of our age, whose interests would be advanced if they did not have to bother with permissions and payments for what they call "content." The Creative Commons organization, for example, is richly financed by Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Mozilla, Sun, the Hewlett Foundation, and others of type.
You heard it here first, Creative Commons is just a lobby group for all those big nasty corporations who of course hate intellectual property (like Microsoft)...
More intellectual laziness and a repeat of the old piracy strawman here:
The opponents of copyright are no more disinterested than its defenders, although they do a good job of pretending, and their theories have become the window dressing for the piracy of software, music, movies -- and soon the written word. They may claim that they are not against copyright per se. But if, as they repeatedly assert, copyright is an unjustifiable tax, a monopoly, and a bar to creativity, why wouldn't they or anyone else be against it, as in fact they are?
And so on.
Anyway, just thought I'd share that with you, it annoys me how people can distort the debate so much, though I suppose this is par for the course for WSJ.