You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘Copyright’ tag.
This could be a small win for corporate greed, but somehow I think the internet is a little to big for their money grubbing to contain.
“The men linked to the Pirate Bay file-sharing site were defiant on Friday after a Swedish court found them guilty of breaking the country’s copyright law.
The Stockholm district court sentenced Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij and Carl Lundstrom to one year each in prison for “assisting making available copyrighted content.”
They were also ordered to pay damages of 30 million kronor ($4.3 million Cdn) to a number of entertainment companies, including Warner Bros., Sony Music Entertainment, EMI and Columbia Pictures.”
An appeal is already in the works so the founders are not currently in jail or responsible for paying some silly amount of money.
“But the group said any verdict would be appealed, and the website home page carried a message equally defiant:
“As in all good movies, the heroes lose in the beginning but have an epic victory in the end anyhow,” said a message posted to the site. “That’s the only thing Hollywood ever taught us.”
Peter Sunde, one of the four founders of the site, said in a video posted Friday the court’s ruling was “bizarre.” “It’s so bizarre we just have to laugh about it, it’s unreal,” he said. As for the damages awarded, Sunde said the number was meaningless. “They could have gotten one billion,” he said. “We can’t pay and we won’t pay.”
Predictably, hollywood is crowing about their victory.
Part 4 is fresh off the press, read the first part here and part two here , part three here if you need to catch up.
Section Three: Evolution, Reactions and Compromise.
“The Internet is the widest public space that mankind has ever known. A space where everybody can have their say, acquire knowledge, create ideas and not just information, exercise their right to criticize, to discuss, to take part in the broader political life, and thus to build a different world of which everybody can claim to be an equal citizen”
–An excerpt from the proposed Internet Bill of Rights.[1]
[1] Collaborative work. “The Internet Bill of Rights” Last updated: November, 2005. http://internet-bill-of-rights.org/en/appeal.php Accessed: August 10, 2008.
Part 3 is fresh off the press, read the first part here and part two here if you need to catch up.
Section Two – Democracy, Autonomy and Copyright.
“I argue that a purely market-focused information policy—in particular one focused on exhaustive propertization of the physical, logical, and content layers of the information environment—exacts a significant normative social cost in terms of personal autonomy”.
-Yochai Benkler –SIREN SONGS AND AMISH CHILDREN: AUTONOMY, INFORMATION, AND LAW.
The introduction can be found here
Section One: The Permission Culture – Antagonist or Friend of Free Culture?
“Copyright may be property, but like all property, it is also a form of regulation. It is a regulation that benefits some and harms others. When done right, it benefits creators and harms leeches. When done wrong, it is regulation the powerful use to defeat competitors.”
– Lawrence Lessig, Free Culture.
The internet has drastically changed western culture. It has opened up new avenues of communication and ways for people to share information and ideas. Lawrence Lessig is a Professor of Law at Stanford Law School and founder of the school’s Center for Internet and Society and Author of Free Culture a work the essay is based on. Yochai Benkler is the Berkman Professor of Entrepreneurial Legal Studies at Harvard, and faculty co-director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, I used his article Siren Songs and Amish Children: Autonomy, Information, and Law to look at issues of autonomy, freedom and how they intersect with the digital world.
It is a long essay, so I will post it in 3 parts over the next couple of days.
** Note, this essay and other essays on the site are for educational purposes only. Plagiarism is a serious academic offense. This blog is not going anywhere so cite a reference if you use my work. Plus, if you can google this essay, so can your prof. **
The introduction and thesis: Read the rest of this entry »
Your opinions…