Re: Napster destroys Western Civilization

On Mon, 8 May 2000, David Hale <dhale[_at_]aggt.com> wrote:
>
> On Sun, May 07, 2000, John Lederer <johnl[_at_]ibm.net> wrote:
> >
> > On Fri, 5 May 2000, David Hale <dhale[_at_]aggt.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > Napster, however, should (does?) have the means of screening out
> > > access to copyright protected material.
> >
> > How does one do that when no copyright notice is required?
> >
> > Where would one put a copyright notice (or denial of copyright)
> > on an mp3?
>
> As I mentioned later in my original post, no one said it was going
> to be easy or painless, just possible. It is within Napster's
> technological ability to block all file transfers except those that
> it knows are in the public domain or are permitted by the copyright
> holder. This is different from the Betamax case where the down
> stream recordings made were impossible to monitor. While I
> understand that this might effectively destroy Napster as a
> practical application, it is the kind of distinction a court could
> latch onto.

How unerringly you point to one of the greatest irritations of modern copyright.

"All is forbidden unless permitted" replaces "All is permitted unless forbidden".

Though I have no proof I freely estimate that the majority of writings (and music) for that matter is written or composed without the expectation of copyright. Willy nilly we force copyright upon all to preserve the income of commercial speech and in the process deal a heavy blow to speech.

Matthew, Mark, John, and Luke would have had trouble spreading the gospel unless they remembered to affix a denial of copyright to their work. The Koran would not have swept the Mideast. Confucius would have remained a minor court flunkey with the court undoubtedly owning the copyright. "We have nothing to fear save fear itself.." and would have been a bit less memorable had we needed to obtain copyright permission before repeating it.

Regards,
John

John Lederer
<johnl[_at_]ibm.net> Received on Tue May 09 2000 - 21:49:51 GMT