Semi-OT: Congress about to limit artists' copyright rights

[Chuck]

All copyright and intellectual property laws should be abolished.

It's gratifying to this anarchist librarian to be alive when digital 
technology exposed the stupidity of a system that people hadn't 
questioned in generations.

The power behind "copyright" only exists to those who can afford to pay 
lawyers to sue people who "infringe" their claims to copyright. You'll 
notice that violence underlies the copyright system, in this case the 
threat of state violence if a court rules against you as the alleged 
"infringer."

It's even more easy to demonstrate now that the system of state-enforced 
intellectual property exists chiefly to benefit companies who want to 
enforce the scarcity of a physical product. Digital technology makes it 
easy to copy these intellectual products, thus challenging the middlemen 
who profit from the scarcity of these products. This is vividly 
illustrated by the ongoing collapse of the music industry, which was a 
network of capitalist middlemen who enforced scarcity on an arbitrary 
selection from a music culture. Now bands and artists can share their 
work on Myspace, on websites, and through other digital channels. This 
has democratized music creation and distribution. The music industry 
fights this by talking about infringement on intellectual property. They 
are really just trying to protect their monopoly on distribution and profit.

A stupid, barbaric system.

The RIAA legal campaign against file sharers will die within two years. 
I knew about their strategy before they launched it in desperation. The 
RIAA knows that they've lost the war. They were even of this opinion 
when they were fighting Napster.

Chuck

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