Cory Doctorow writes about copyright in the digital world:
Copyright law is hard. It used to only govern relations between giant industrial players. Copyright didn’t regulate reading an interesting tidbit from the newspaper for a friend. It didn’t regulate watching movies. But now, sharing a newspaper article with a friend (by blogging it) involves copying, and so triggers copyright. Now watching a movie (by downloading it) involves copying, so it triggers copyright. The rules that are supposed to be interpreted by lawyers at Fortune 100 companies now apply to every single kid working on a project for her class’s website.
This is like having to file with the SEC every time you loan a buddy $5 for lunch.
The rest of the post is interesting too. Apparently the MPAA is finding it hard to believe in the sanctity of other people’s intellectual property even though it has strictly enforced the sanctity of it’s own. (Found via Copy This Blog)
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