I woke up this morning with about the most obvious observation in my head, and simply could not get back to sleep. (Given what time that was, it’s a good thing I have today off…)
Clearly the problem with intellectual property is that the content creator isn’t terribly important anymore. Copyright extensions don’t serve the artist, they serve whatever corporation has taken over distribution.
Which is why publishing is losing its tiny little mind. Because we don’t need the corporation for distribution, as long as we’re willing to accept that we’re not going to reach, you know, a billion people. See? It’s greed being a problem again.
That’s all. (Next time I think I’m going to ramble on about creative re-use, orphan copyrights, and other aspects of the status quo that are just weird.)
It’s slightly worse — congress votes on legislation written by the distribution companies, but they are thinking of individual content creators when they do it. Same with patents as copyright — they are thinking of people tinkering in their garage while voting on legislation written by big pharmaceutical companies.