Erstellt am: 18. 2. 2009 - 11:01 Uhr
Today's webtip: Smash Hits
When I watch the whole copyright fights going on, I usually feel like I am watching a 50 car pileup on a 3 lane highway. In slow motion.
In something like that, it no longer matters who was right or wrong, everyone involved is going to get hurt. Some less than others.
One of the interesting side effects of the copyright conglomorates war against piracy has been an increased awareness by individuals of the potential value of their own copyright. Well, that and the level of aggression people are willing to use in order to protect their perceived interests.
It feels as though the weird are turning pro (for those of you who don't know, those words were referring to a sentence written by Hunter S. Thompson. A copyrighted sentence. A sentence that was actually a witty turn of words on another sentence that was much older and presumably already in the public domain when Thompson decided to steal it. That older sentence has also been used as the title and verse in at least three songs by the bands Boyzone, Billy Ocean, and Bow Wow Wow. It is also commonly used in day to day English as a short hand way of expressing a somewhat more complex concept involving hard work and fortitude)
Where were we?
Ah yes. Protecting your copyright.
One British comedian has set his personal level of copyright problem solving at "stun" (that was a reference to a.... oh frak it, I'm sure someone somewhere came up with the idea originally, and I know it was used in a copyrighted work, several to be less precise, but I can't be bothered with it.)
When one of his audience members pulled out a phone and started doing something with it, the comedian decided it must have been to facilitate copyright infringement of his material, so he smashed the phone.
And you thought the R.I.A.A. played hardball...
Anyway, you can read about it on BoingBoing.