Wired News

A very interesting book is out called Darknet. It deals with one of my "favorite" issues: The entertainment industry's abuse of copyright law. The author makes a great point in comparing multimedia information of the 21st century to the literar media of the past. We should have the same rights with digital multimedia formats as we have (had) with the written word.

For example, I can reference a small excerpt of the article in this post. I give full credit to Wired magazine and in the end, more people will read the article, click on ads, and subscribe to Wired.

Like so...
"We are moving from a text-based culture -- where people have been allowed to borrow and take snippets from books and magazines and journals -- into a visual culture," Lasica said. "Those same kind of rights, to quote from a movie or TV show and annotate it or comment on it, have been stripped away."

Darknet outlines Hollywood's multi-pronged strategy for locking down content. The tactics include using technological advances (DVD encryption is one example) and strong-arming or co-opting tech companies.

Lasica finds that Hollywood also wields huge influence in Congress. In the book, he describes the 1998 passage of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, or DMCA, which makes cracking encryption a federal offense. The DMCA, Lasica argues, overwrites fair-use laws, which protect scholars and artists who appropriate materials for purposes of education and political expression.

"That's a good example of how the public doesn't realize how their rights are being whittled away," Lasica said. "I'm pretty sure that even members of Congress aren't fully aware of what they were passing." from Darknet Casts Hollywood as Heavy -Wired.com

Easy, right? The article/interview even links to an excerpt of the book. After you read that you might zip on over to Amazon.com and buy yourself a copy. Everybody wins. Wired, the author, the publisher, Amazon.com (or your local bookstore if you can tear yourself away from the computer), and their employees. You have less money, but at least you have a subscription to Wired and a great new book.

And if you are still not convinced the copyright law is out of control in the US, read this (also from Wired). If it's this hard to record Happy Birthday, just imagine what you have to go through for an entire CD's worth of songs.