Free the Information
Information does want to be free, you know. No matter how snidely one curls one's lip at that saying or what putdowns one flings in the direction of whoever it was who actually said it, or something like it, but different, the free exchange of information is an essential part of our strength, growth, and progress. The more we know, the more we have, the more we are.
And yet, it ought to be possible to get some kind of direct recompense for one's writings or one's music or other intellectual creations that are clearly someone's work--though not so clearly someone's actual material possessions in the way that property is.
Copyright has always been intended as the legal resolution to the tension between free speech (free exchange of information) and just recompense for labor and creation. It is intended to provide a balance--neither too much one way or the other.
Lately though the balance has threatened to become badly skewed. Not, as many loud voices scream, because the Internet makes it so darn easy to spread information everywhere (though this is an important thing to be aware of and to understand) but because corporate desire to grab and hold intellectual property for as long as possible threatens the free exchange of information all the way down to the basic stories that make us human and teach us how to live. There's another push on right now to raise copyright protection an additional 20 years, 20 years beyond the current law--life plus 70 for works created after 1978--far beyond the realm of just recompense and mostly for the benefit of packagers and distributors and corporations whose property it might now be, but who did not create or write or develop the intellectual property they're striving so mightily to keep out of the hands of others.
A successful writer, author of a number of cherished books, says why wouldn't I want my grandchildren to have that money? And the answer, or at least an answer is, you very well might, but how does it benefit not only your grandchildren (and actually your great- and possible great-great-grandchildren) but society at large? Isn't this kind of benefit vastly beyond what I would get for labor that is not intellectual? If I build a house and sell it, then it's sold. I don't get a little bit more money every time it changes hands for the next hundred years. I don't get a few pennies each time someone drives by and admires my design or takes a tour of the rooms.
And yet, life plus seventy years is merely difficult. Some parts of our heritage will be lost or untouchable for some long number of years. But it's not even close to the attacks going on right now over our rights to use the books and music and movies we read and listen to and view. What if you had to pay every time you read a book? What if you couldn't loan it to friends? What if libraries were illegal?
The free exchange of ideas. It's an essential cornerstone of this country. It's what we criticize in Cuba and Afghanistan and China. We honor writers and we honor ourselves when we find ways to stand up and say this is important--the free exchange of ideas. Balance must be maintained.