Harvard Study Finds Weaker Copyright Protection Has Benefited Society
Copyright is a compromise in which individuals agree to grant a temporary monopoly of ideas (writings, music, movies, etc.) to the creators, in exchange for theoretical increased output. Over the last 50 years the "temporary" part of that compromise has been lost, thanks to lobbying and expensive ad campaigns from the movie/music moguls to encourage people to not "steal from the artists" (the moguls want a monopoly on that activity, too, it seems.) To further pursuade people, the industry has waged a years-long legal battle against its fans and customers, in which anyone suspected of filesharing is threated to pay $3000 or go to trial and risk being fined at a rate of $250,000/song shared. This article is interesting in that it looks at the motivation of copyright and the effect of filesharing and concludes that the industry is on the wrong side of the argument. If file sharing is allowed, artists will still get compensated and people will still get an abundance of creative works, the only downside is that the middlemen may find themselves being made redundant... I think that's an acceptable downside, personally...
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