07 Sep 2009
The Copyright Black Hole

This is the best description yet of the morass we made for ourselves with "intellectual property" law.

James Boyle, professor at Duke Law School, has a piece in the Financial Times in which he argues that a 'copyright black hole is swallowing our culture.' He explains some of the issues surrounding Google Books, and makes the point that these issues wouldn't exist if we had a sane copyright law. Relatedly, in recent statements to the still-skeptical European Commission, Google has defended their book database by saying that it helps to make the internet democratic. Others have noted that the database could negatively affect some researchers for whom a book's subject matter isn't always why they read it.

(link) [Slashdot]

14:43 /Copywrongs | 1 comment | permanent link