Writers can become manic about copyright.
“It’s my intellectual property and I’ll be damned if I’ll let anyone steal it!”
I read an interesting article by Scott Bradner (University Technology Security Officer at Harvard University. Writes a weekly column for Network World. Serves as the Secretary to the Board of Trustees of the Internet Society (ISOC). A trustee of the American Registry of Internet Numbers (ARIN)), called Progress Only by Permission.
A few excerpts:
“The Copyright Clause in the U.S. Constitution reads: ‘To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.’ The copyright part of this clause—the part referring to authors—has become a stick to bludgeon technology, not just to protect authors’ rights.”
“In theory, the office should be properly protecting authors’ rights while not interfering with activities that do not infringe on those rights. But a lot of the time it does not seem like the Copyright Office follows that theory. Far too often it seems eager to block technologies that have a chance of interfering rather than those that will, by necessity, interfere.”
[ referring to a legal statement by Ralph Oman ] — “In Oman’s world, Congress would have had to deliberate and preapprove of the Internet, music players, digital recorders, VCRs, personal computers, tablets and any of a thousand innovations of the last 30 years just because they might be able to be used to violate someone’s copyright.”
Smoothly switching gears…
An article by Joe Konrath called, Piracy…Again:
[ after relating four instances of having his writing stolen ] — “What continues to amaze me is how freaked-out authors are by this. The thought that someone is sharing their work—without paying for it—seems to evoke the same reaction as having someone hack your bank account and drain your life savings.”
“Copyright is unenforceable in a digital world. Period. Exclamation point. At no time in history has any individual, company, or industry been able to stop file sharing. No country or law has been able to stop it.”
[ in response to a comment that an author doesn’t want their work stolen ] — “Then don’t write. Simple as that. JK Rowling has lost millions of dollars, because she refused to let Harry Potter come out in ebook form. Newsflash: you can get ebooks of all the Potter books from pirate sites. She didn’t cater to her fans, so her fans catered to themselves. And if Rowling can’t stop it, with her billions and armies of layers, you can’t either.”
“If you have an ounce of brains in your head, you will quickly realize that piracy is always going to be here, that nothing can be done to stop it, that artists can still make money, and that you’d be much better off worrying about something you have control over, like writing more and better books.”
So, that’s Joe…
What do you think?
Is it possible to stop book piracy?
Does illegal file-sharing of a book actually increase its sales?
What good is a copyright?
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