Sion Touhig writes: "In reality, what is happening on the web is the transfer of the authors' labour to large corporations for nothing. Anti-copyright lobbyists have become either unwitting allies, or shills, for big business. "
It's quite the opposite. Pro-copyright lobbyists for the 'little guy' are only helping the large corporations. It is not the magic sigil (C) that makes punters pay the photographer, it is the fact they want a decent photo, and the photographer gets to keep the negatives. The copyright only ever had any relevance to traditional publishers, as they were they only ones who could ever afford to prosecute infringement. You can't put the genie back in the bottle - even for the sake of millions of hard working little guys. The best we can do is let the photographer deal with their audience directly. We can recreate the situations where the photographer keeps the negatives, i.e. they keep the high resolution original and let out low resolution previews. The audience can then club together to pay for the release of the high resolution version. Photographers can still sell their labour in a free market even if copyright is a chocolate teapot and everyone has photo-reproduction equipment. Making copyright infringements attract a million quid fine and/or ten years in jail does not actually accomplish anything if the little guy still needs to catch one of millions of culprits, and needs to mortgage their house to afford the prosecution. "Stronger copyright for the little guy" is an oxymoron. Any time you want your copyright enforced against an infringing 'large corporation', you simply find another larger 'large corporation' with deeper pockets and sell them your copyright. Copyright is not a weapon designed to be wielded by artists, but by their publishers. Unless, of course, you make copyright infringement a criminal offense to be prosecuted by the state, requiring only the merest of tip-offs by the aggrieved author. Do millions of little guys really want this to happen? Copying binary digits = grand theft digital ???? _______________________________________________ fc-uk-discuss mailing list fc-uk-discuss@lists.okfn.org http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/fc-uk-discuss
