Studios' copyright goal is total control
Jack Valenti says he and his movie-industry employers are all for compromise in the copyright wars. But the solutions they advocate for an admittedly tough dilemma, copyright infringement, are grossly one-sided...
...The major media/entertainment companies believe that control of information -- absolute control over how it can be used -- belongs to the owner of the copyright. They insist, moreover, that copyrights should be able to last indefinitely.
This is not a compromise, no matter what Valenti calls it. This is a radical agenda, one that overturns tradition and would ultimately wipe out the public domain, without which our culture would be vastly poorer.
At least, you can understand the industry's paranoia. File sharing and other technologies -- all of which have entirely legitimate uses that the cartel would eliminate along with the illegal ones -- are an obvious threat to the business model of the past half-century, a highly centralized and grossly inefficient business that rips off the artists, overcharges the public and limits the market...more [Mercury News]
We're locked in a struggle with an industry that would throw out the baby with the bath water. They don't want innovation that they don't control. Remember, these are the same people who tried to kill off VCRs. Valenti himself got in front of Congress back in the early 80's trying to get the video tape revolution killed. These same people thought that TV would kill the movie industry. Do you really want them to have veto power over innovation?...mj
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