17 April 2009

Copyright Industries' Pyrrhic Victories

It's extraordinary how much that formerly-drab old subject of copyright is in the news these days. There's the Amazon Kindle story, the Pirate Bay judgement and the report, yesterday, that Britain's copyright laws are the "worst by far".

Although much of this bad news, notably the idiotic Pirate Bay ruling - these were links, people, you know, just like Google - there's a silver lining of sorts. The gulf between what the laws on copyright say and what people think is fair to do (picking up on the ethical aspect of copyright, again) is so vast and unbridgeable now that I think we're going to see a massive collapse of copyright soon.

As "young people" grow up and become the mainstream voting population, there is simply going to be zero sympathy for the greed and obtuseness of the intellectual monopolists. The current "victories" of the media industries will prove to be Pyrrhic.

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