[Web4lib] Consumer Group Raises Concerns about Google PrintLibrary

[Chuck0]

Thomas Edelblute wrote:

> Thomas Edison bankrupted the French movie producer (whose name I forget)
> by pirating his movie depicting a voyage to the moon and distributing
> freely across America.  Copyright law is designed to offer protections
> from unauthorized reproductions and financial incentives for authors and
> artists to continue to create new works. While open source has its
> merits, it does not over-ride the need for IP protections.  Hollywood
> would not make films without these protections, and some of my favorite
> Science Fiction authors would not write without these financial
> incentives.

Yes, that is the current dogma as promoted by the corporations, schools, 
and other American institutions.

Are you saying that Hollywood wouldn't be making Bewitched 2 if there 
was no copyright law? Given the crap being produced by Hollywood these 
days, it would be a good thing to disrupt that monopoly and give 
independent producers a crack at your local movie theaters.

In fact, there are many artists who are more motivated by their craft 
than they are by money. All of us have to worry about getting money to 
pay the bills and the rent, but there are ways to support artists such 
as public monies.

Most musicians and artists out there do not benefit from intellectual 
property law. They don't have the money to buy lawyers to litigate and I 
suspect that many artists simply don't care about IP.

Of course, we all know that artists will continue to create new works 
without intellectual property law. Artists have created works for 
centuries without IP laws existing. And IP laws actually INTERFERE with 
the creative process. As I stated in a previous email, art and music 
rely heavily on borrowing. The current regime of IP law interferes with 
the free flow of ideas, which isn't just harmful to artists but to our 
culture.

Chuck
Infoshop.org