From: Jim Carlile (email suppressed)
Date: Wed Jun 11 2008 - 03:09:41 PDT
It's only within the last dozen years or so that copyright infringement has
been criminalized. Before that it was always a civil matter.
'Infringement' (which is what happens when a copyright is violated) is not
theft. It is infringement. Theft is when you deprive someone of the use of
their property.
In the good old U. S. of A., copyright is seen as a property right, like
owning a house. But it doesn't really matter in the practical sense, because
here authors have no ultimate say in how their works are used. They don't have
'final cut' if they license their works to someone else.
And when works enter the PD, anyone can do anything they want with them.
They can cut them up or issue deluxe scholarly editions. That's just what
happens.
The paradox here is that corporations may-- with perpetual copyright
renewal-- succeed in always granting the copyright holder the rights to their
material, forever. But they'll also make sure that THEY are the ones who will be
holding those rights!
In a message dated 6/11/2008 2:57:27 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time,
email suppressed writes:
Much of the recent threads on here are mired in
misconceptions of what copyright is and in ideas of
copyright as property.
Copyright is NOT property.
It is insulting to compare the ideas behined copyright
as being akin to stealing a can of coke or some
petrol. Copyrights are exactly what they sound like,
the rights to copy a work (in whole or in part!). When
you copy something illegally you aren't just stealing
off someone, you are infringing on their rights.
The idea of intelectual property is one very much tied
up in corpoations. Corporations want to OWN the ideas
and concepts and thus keep trying to shift copyright
further and further in that direction. They have
created the idea of copyright as property to this end.
They do not OWN the ideas, only the rights to
reproduce the ideas and they want to change that.
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For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.