Copyright is Even More Right in the Digital Age
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.”
October 19th, 2006 at 10:39 am
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?
October 24th, 2006 at 12:54 pm
“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/.
November 29th, 2006 at 10:23 pm
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.