This fantastic piece by Cory Doctorow describes copyright and the problems he sees with it. Here are a few passages worth sharing:
There’s a word for all the stuff we do with creative works — all the conversing, retelling, singing, acting out, drawing, and thinking: we call it culture.
Culture’s old. It’s older than copyright.
The existence of culture is why copyright is valuable. The fact that we have a bottomless appetite for songs to sing together, for stories to share, for art to see and add to our visual vocabulary is the reason that people will pay money for these things.
Finally, he says “If culture loses the copyright wars, the reason for copyright dies with it.” I think Doctorow has an interesting perspective on this topic since he’s a content creator and thus has a vested interest in keeping copyright to his own works. But he walks the walk and actually releases his own content online for free as well as allows people to buy hard copies of his books and other works.
A lot of what he has to say reminds me of Lawrence Lessig and his idea that copyright is strangling creativity. Creativity breeds culture and that’s why I’m with these two guys in how they want to deal with copyright.
1 Comment
March 28, 2009 at 8:21 pm
What nonsense. Cory is a chicken-little who justifies his view of how the world works by telling everyone the world will end unless we do it his way. How long has copyright been in existence? Hundreds of years. Has culture ended yet? Doctorow’s just another “the end is near” false prophet demanding that everyone do it his way.
The fact of the matter is that Cory makes money being the preacher against copyright. It’s his schtick that gets him attention – which leads to sales. And let’s not forget all the side things he does – like lectures and getting paid for being the “internet expert”. The fact of the matter is that it his system doesn’t work for most everyone else.