In this post from June of 2014, I argued that the Internet is a reason for the average person to care more about copyright, not less. The premise of that piece was that just because it’s a right most people will never need or care to enforce, that’s not a reason to allow—let alone get fooled into evangelizing—a weakening of ...
Years ago, I heard a great discussion among a group of veteran, political journalists; and they were talking about the cliché in which candidates say, “I don’t want to get into a character debate. Let’s talk about the issues.” Although that particular sentiment was a byproduct of the “family values” rhetoric of the GOP, one of the journalists made a ...
Google remains the third largest corporate lobbyist in the country, spending a reported $4.62 million in the second quarter in Washington, with Amazon, Facebook, and Apple spending a combined $6.07 million in the same period. Naturally, each company has its own interests—Facebook would like more skilled immigrants in the U.S. and Amazon wants to deliver goods by drone—but all of ...
Okay. A bunch of my artists rights friends and colleagues need to take a breath, because some of you are doing exactly the kind of stuff we hate when the tech industry exaggerates or fabricates negative aspects of copyright. In the last 24 hours, I’ve encountered a handful of artists rights proponents sharing links and comments proclaiming that the Copyright ...
About two weeks ago, movie star Jim Carrey was in a libertarian lather over California Governor Brown’s signing the new state law mandating vaccinations for nearly all children. Carrey posted an indignant tweet accompanied by a photograph of a young boy with autism — a photo he used without permission. Carrey later apologized for his misappropriation of the child’s picture, ...
