[Ojc-announce] Re: [Newspoetry] good time to start boycotting amazon.com

[Bill Wendling]

Also sprach sigfried at shout.net:
} > [snip] anyway, what
} > > do you think of copyright law?
} > 
} > I think it blows.  It only protects owners.  The free flow of ideas is
} > critical in countless ways.  Imagine a law where you could only
} > copyright original ideas, and your rights were limited to being cited
} > when someone used them.
} 
} Yeah, but what about the rights of authors?  What if publishing companies
} could publish anything they wanted without asking permission, and only
} mentioning the author's name, no royalties.  Whoever had the biggest,
} fastest press and distribution system would make all the money on published
} books and authors would get nothing but recongnition.
} 
} No special copyright scheme (copyleft, public domain, defensive copyright,
} etc.) protects against this except for standard copyright.
} 
Look at Linux. Linus et al don't have to get a cent for what they write.
Nice companies, like RedHat and VA Linux, have tried to return the favor
by hiring these people or making pre-IPO priced stock available to them.
But that's not why they do it.

So what if a company gets rich off of this email or some other work?
Isn't the most important thing the work itself and the ideas? Over the
ages, there have been countless artists who have never made a cent off of
their work, yet the world would be poorer without them. I don't think I'd
like a world where there wasn't a Van Gogh.

One would assume that, if a person wrote something and some cheesy
company was trying to capitalize on it without any consideration for the
artist, then that company would fail. I can happen and is happening.

Bill