[free-sklyarov] Backlash

[Kris]

At 12:22 PM 7/26/2001 -0700, Seth David Schoen wrote:

 >What are the biggest harms from copyright today?  It's not that people
 >have to pay for books and movies!  As long as public libraries are
 >strong, it's not a big deal that you have to go pay $12 or $20 if you
 >want your own copy of something.  Yes, certain prices have been
 >inflated, but the "having to pay for copies" isn't a terrible harm
 >to the public.

Yes, I often think of the price differential between the cost of a book 
containing information in the public domain and the cost of an equivalent 
book containing information that is copyrighted as a corporate tax.  Not as 
a tax charged by the government on corporations, but a tax imposed by 
corporations on the public.

 >The real harms are the erosion of protections for the public's side of
 >the copyright bargain -- the attacks on the fair use and first sale
 >doctrines, for example.  The real harms are when copyright keeps works
 >out of print, even when somebody wants to buy them (and people like
 >Eric Eldred are prevented from reprinting them on-line).  The real
 >harms are when copyright is used to withdraw and suppress a book
 >(because someone's heirs find it embarrassing).  The real harms are
 >when copyright is used to prevent criticism and parody -- which
 >happens all the time, even though the law is supposed to protect
 >those uses.

This is the true damage that copy protection brings.  What is going to 
happen in  50, or 500 years from know when people try and use the knowledge 
that our generation has created.  If is it all encrypted there is a damn 
good chance there won't be anything there for them to read.  So much for 
our place in history and that of any generation that follows that cripples 
its media.

Kris