Tucows, one of Canada's Internet success stories, has a great post on copyright. Copyright's Creative Disincentive was written by David Weinberger and does a terrific job of discussing copyright and culture. Tucows will be appearing at the final copyright roundtable in Peterborough today and is urging Canadians to contribute to the process.
Tucows Speaks Out on Copyright
7 Comments
Recent Posts
The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 199: Boris Bytensky on the Criminal Code Reforms in the Online Harms Act 
AI Spending is Not an AI Strategy: Why the Government’s Artificial Intelligence Plan Avoids the Hard Governance Questions 
The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 198: Richard Moon on the Return of the Section 13 Hate Speech Provision in the Online Harms Act 
Tweets Are Not Enough: Why Combatting Relentless Antisemitism in Canada Requires Real Leadership and Action 
The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 197: Divest, Ban or Regulate? – Anupam Chander on the Global Fight Over TikTok
A fairly well written article
although it is relatively narrowly focused on copyright with respect to cultural works. One has to wonder how long it will be until the rights holders for “This is Spinal Tap” give him a call (“then cranking up the copyright protection dial to eleven”).
It isn’t a well-written article. It’s 100% self-serving, to save them money. And the argument about how Richler wouldn’t have written more books if his advances had been higher is simply stupid and wrong. He sure wouldn’t have continued writing if he’d got zero advances or if the moment he published a book, it was open season to copy it.
Yawn
@Bob, next time you go to write a post think first: “Am I about to be an ass and waste everyone’s time with trite dualisms?”. If, as in this most recent example, the answer is “Yes”, please help make the world a more intelligent place and just turn off the computer.
For everyone else, just read the article, then you too can
Quod erat demonstrandum…..and you guys wonder why the government just adds your names to the bortom of the form letters snd counts it all as one
Bob. Perhaps I am incorrect, but based on your posting and others you’ve made here before, that your claim the article isn’t well written is because you don’t agree with it.
What I took from the article was not, as it appears that you read it, that there should be no such thing as copyright. His point, as I took it, was that for those who create “cultural” works, in the majority of cases they are doing it not to get rich but to contribute. If you are the Floridian Bob Morris that I found through Google, I can see where you are coming from, to a point.
Your own comment about not continuing if zero advances or open season on copying is well out of the context of the article. Tucows never claimed that the copyright term should be ZERO, what he claimed was that making it too long, and making copyright restrictions too onerous in the name of “encouraging” the production of cultural work, has exactly the opposite effect, in particular pop culture work. It reduces the production.
bob, not sure if you are troll, but I will assume not.
first, we are strong supporters of copyright and fair compensation for creators. you will note that the author of the piece is a successful author who has been published by major publishers numerous times and spent time on the nyt best-sellers list.
second, I am not at all sure what you mean when you say it will “save (us) money”? on what?
one of the interesting takeaways from the peterborough discussion for me was how polarized things are in this dialogue. people would hear “ISPs should not collect levies” as “there should be no government support for culture”.
the real shame is that this is such a lost for the “other side” (which is clearly how they see themselves). geeks are very often creators themselves, writers, musicians, photographers. and geeks are exactly the innovators they should be working with to change distribution methods and business models to prosper in the richness that the Internet facilitates.
replace fear of the Internet with embracing change and this will all be a huge win-win. or continue to cling to the past and continue to spin around the bowl.
This is a well written article that I am glad Prof Geist linked. It’s not likely I would have ever seen this in the wild had it not been posted here. I haven’t visited Tucows in years, but they used to be one of many leaders in free downloads back in the day. This was an excellent read.
@enoss “geeks are very often creators themselves, writers, musicians, photographers. and geeks are exactly the innovators they should be working with to change distribution methods and business models to prosper in the richness that the Internet facilitates.”
Very true. Though I would add everyone who has an internet connection is a content creator now, not just geeks.
@bob morris. Trolling wont help your cause. Not worth the time to even address your wrong-headed idiocy.