Web 2.0 and Copyright

Posted on October 20, 2006
Filed Under What's New |

This post from CNET news takes me back to this morning when I wrote about the ethics of copyright abuse. Here’s an argument against. I have a different point of view:

Earlier I wrote:

One of the lesser told stories however is about established content organisations continually disregarding artist rights. I know my own writing appears around the web and on corporate intranets not because it’s been lifted from my blog - this is not about blog material - but because there is a market in illegally traded writing and it involves mainstream media enterprises.

The illegal sale and resale of written works came to a head in the American courts last year when the Writers’ Guild of America successfully won back payments for American writers from database owners who syndicate to a variety of intranets and websites. Since then some database owners have continued to distribute European works where the copyright rightfully resides with people like me. My own cease and desist orders have had a mild effect but the big players just keep rolling claiming they have legal agreements with European rights’ holders (they don’t).

There is no confusion over copyright. Everybody knows the law. There are European news organisations though that continue to regard all works they publish as rightfully theirs even when the law is clear that in some cases it isn’t. It’s just a question of how big your legal muscle happens to be whether you flout copyright, prosecute, or fume. Next time you read about copyright issues in a European newspaper, be skeptical about undisclosed interests.

I don’t necessarily agree with the Belgian Courts but some action to reward all content providers whose work is reused in full or substantial part, including those content providers not supported by big business, would help. We’re in danger of having rules only for those with the muscle to enforce them - civilised?

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