HowlRound: Last month, all of my social media accounts were ablaze with the effort of my fellow artists to save the Internet from the existential threat of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). This bill would’ve empowered the Federal Government to shut down websites accused (but not proven to be engaging in) online piracy, enabled software companies to go after open source developers whose products could be used for piracy, and, thanks to ambiguous language within the bill, paved the way for an internet blacklist not dissimilar to the one China uses to crack down on political dissent. While piracy is a (overstated) problem, SOPA (and its sister bill, PIPA) represented a huge overreach by an Internet-ignorant Congress—several sponsors of the bill violated copyright on their own Congressional websites—and corporate forces determined to maximize profits from their intellectual property holdings.
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Nourishing the Commons: Rethinking Intellectual Property
HowlRound: Last month, all of my social media accounts were ablaze with the effort of my fellow artists to save the Internet from the existential threat of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). This bill would’ve empowered the Federal Government to shut down websites accused (but not proven to be engaging in) online piracy, enabled software companies to go after open source developers whose products could be used for piracy, and, thanks to ambiguous language within the bill, paved the way for an internet blacklist not dissimilar to the one China uses to crack down on political dissent. While piracy is a (overstated) problem, SOPA (and its sister bill, PIPA) represented a huge overreach by an Internet-ignorant Congress—several sponsors of the bill violated copyright on their own Congressional websites—and corporate forces determined to maximize profits from their intellectual property holdings.
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This article is dead on. It really speaks to the fact that copyright as it is now and as it was originally intended to be have diverged into two completely different things, and that instead of encouraging creativity and new ideas from old influences, we are strangling it. Copyright law has grown and festered into a truly awful thing, which runs completely contrary to what it was intended to be. It has become a way for people and corporations to make money, instead of a way to foster and encourage creativity, and reward people for new ideas. As the author points out, I think the way it was intended originally in the Constitution, and the way in which it was practiced early on in this country. Using that as a starting point to restructure the laws would be a huge step forward, and is one that we all need to move towards in order to prevent things from becoming even more ridiculous in the sphere of copyrights and Intellectual Property then they already are
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