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Copyright is Even More Right in the Digital Age

4 October 2006 3 Comments

Well, even the title is hilarious, so check out this speech by Sumner Redstone [pdf], chairman and founder of Viacom at a conference about “Progress and Freedom”. Some noteable quotes…
– “Copyright is even more right in the digital age because copyright compels creativity. It furnishes the incentive to innovate. Therefore, limiting the protection of copyrights threatens innovation.”
– “Finally, at the risk of sounding naive, let me state the obvious: copyright is, well, right. It’s inherently right for both the creator and the consumer. It’s the right thing to do. If you slave over a song, invest years in bringing a film to fruition, you ought to reap the rewards of that labor.”
– “To those who champion the death of copyright as the only way to ensure a “free market in ideas,” I respond with these statements of utter certainty. Instead of wealth and jobs and great content, you will strike a lethal blow to America’s greatest industry and the heart of its economy. Instead of creating an outlet for free expression, you will generate a government bureaucracy to control it; a Department of Creative Repression, if you will.”

3 Comments »

  • Dannie Jost said:

    OMG! Why do I have a little problem with somebody like the gentleman that you pointed us to when he claims that “the copyright industries are increasingly a major driver of the U.S. economy”?
    Ouch… that one hurts! A copyright industry?

  • Thomas Madsen-Mygdal (author) said:

    “Copyright industry”, ouch.

    It seems like it’s an example of the means becoming the goal, http://bootstrapping.net/2006/08/08/how-did-the-means-become-the-goal-itself/.

  • Shawn A. Hessinger said:

    Yes. It’s a terrible thing when an artist labors over a song then, because he/she does not have the financial ability to release it themselves, they have to sign substantial portyions of it away to some media conglomerate who then becomes very self-righteous when suddenly someone’s stealing from them for a change.

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