Things I Know I Know

As long as I'm on the copyright theme today, I might as well put up the links to singer-songwriter, Janis Ian's excellent articles on intellectual property, file sharing, and the music industry:

The Internet Debacle--An Alternative View

and

Fallout--A Followup to the Internet Debacle

Posted by debco at 08:26 PM | Permalink

Dan Gillmor, in harmony with Lessig's talk cited below, tells us about why we must engage in the copyright debate. So far, the entertainment industry has been successful in debating the issue on their own terms and there's much about copyright and our own rights to the future and our culture that are getting lost along the way.

His advice:

• Don't let Hollywood frame the debate
• Don't forget that users of copyright--readers and scholars and viewers--have rights, too.
• Resist the idea that culture should be centralized and commodified and held as property for longer and longer periods of time.

Gillmor suggests that the time is now to look at alternatives. We need to reestablish the balance between creators rights to compensation and the public citizens' rights to own their culture and build upon it. And we will need to involve everyone (you and me and that guy over there), not just big companies.

...also via Boing Boing

Posted by debco at 08:20 PM | Permalink

Here's a movie of Lawrence Lessig's talk (slides and voice) at OSCon. It's about copyright and culture and why 'limited time' is an important part of the mix.

Excellent stuff. Though it will take a long time to download on a dial-up connection.

...via Boing Boing

Posted by debco at 08:15 PM | Permalink