A Question of Copyright '02

A number of articles about the case appear in the Financial Times' site. A lead article by Lawrence Lessig appears there, with responses from Thomas Hazlett, Richard Epstein, Edward Welbourne and Frank Walker (the responses appear on the page below Lessig's article).

Time to end the race for ever-longer copyright

[T]he striking feature of the argument was that in spite of 600 pages of filings in support of the Sonny Bono law, it was clear that the justices did not believe the extension had anything to do with the constitutional aim of promoting progress. Rather, they expressed an impatient contempt for what Congress had done. The question they were struggling with (rightly) was whether they had the power to do anything about it.

An article in the LA Times also gives an excellent overview, with details on both sides of the issue. (Requires registration.)

The Cultural Anarchist vs. the Hollywood Police State

Lessig doesn't merely want to free the past. He wants to free the future as well. That's something else that the entertainment companies want to lock up. The laws they are proposing and the technologies they are developing, he says, will make creativity on the Internet a wholly owned subsidiary of the Recording Industry Assn. of America and the Motion Picture Assn. of America.

A series of four articles by Dan Kohn, published in TidBITs (a free email and Web publication covering the Macintosh Internet community), offers a unique analysis of the situation and goes a long way towards suggesting alternatives to the current copyright compensation models.

Steal This Essay

Put simply, in a world where there are essentially no costs to replicate content and it is effectively impossible to stop anyone from doing so at will, the current economic model underpinning content creation will be dead.

An interesting follow-up, and one that ties in more directly and references Lessig's Supreme court case, is an article by TidBITs publisher, Adam C. Engst, which stems, he says, from an attempt to explain to his three-year old the need to share toys .

Copyright: Who Should Benefit?

It may be nearly impossible to create something new without reference or influence from a work of the past.

From these the links expand exponentially, spirally ever outward. See the above articles for an seemingly endless supply of links to additional news, commentary, call and responses. Here are a few examples:

• Read the TidBITs Talk postings in response to the above articles (see bottom of the article pages).
  
  The copyright of the article A Question of Copyright '02 in Theatre is owned by Steven M. Alper. Permission to republish A Question of Copyright '02 in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

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