> It's just one of those things. The Internet/Usenet and copyright law
> just *don't* mesh nicely, and they're not going to mesh nicely ever.
Probably true, but so what? The net makes copyright law easier to break and
harder to enforce but that certainly doesn't mean that the law itself has
somehow been weakened by the existance of the net. Content providers who are
willing to go to the mat over the misappropriation of their work will continue
to win cases against content pirates in court, just as they've continued to
in the face of inventions like the photocopier.
> I'll try to provide a pointer to an excellent article by Esther Dyson
> about the death of copyright law and how artists and authors will have
> to begin creating new types of income streams related to their works
> of authorship.
All the "death of copyright law" articles I've read have had this wheezy air
about them that reminds me of those old Popular Mechanics articles about how
everyone would be flying their personal helicopters to work by 1975. The
concept has a information-utopia feel to it that a lot of people find
attractive but I doubt that companies like Time-Warner are going to roll over
one morning and say "gee, it's kind of *hard* to keep up with the prosecutions
on all the people steal our property; let's just give up and let them take it!"
--
::: Lazlo (lazlo@swcp.com; http://www.swcp.com/lazlo)
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