As usual, Dan doesn't mince words:
Supreme Court Endorses Copyright
Posted by Lisa at January 16, 2003 08:34 AM | TrackBack
Swipe a CD from a record store and you'll get arrested. But when Congress authorizes the entertainment industry to steal from you -- well, that's the American way.We learned as much on Wednesday when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Congress can repeatedly extend copyright terms, as it did most recently in 1998 when it added 20 years to the terms for new and existing works.
The law, a brazen heist, was called the Copyright Term Extension Act. It was better known as the Sonny Bono act, so named after its chief sponsor even though Disney and other giant media corporations were the money and muscle behind it.
Who got robbed? You did. I did.
Who won? Endlessly greedy media barons will now collect billions from works that should have long since entered the public domain.
(part seven)
"The consumer's victory," Valenti said,
As his MPAA clones all nodded their heads.
We were once the public, but now instead
It's seems we're consumers until we are dead.
And that which seemed right for the public to own
Is the consumer's to buy, on the net or the phone.
As the government looks for a war that is fast,
The first amendment has become the last.
(cont. elsewhere)
Posted by: Alan-a-Dale on January 19, 2003 06:08 AM