Current Events — HabitableZone

Current Events » in reply to No, big business perverts the free market.

Where the heck did that come from?
TB — (archived)

I posted a direct link, a short quote from the article, and a joke related to my habit of doing direct links with no comment at all, never mind a political one. Everything else you are ascribing to me seems to be a product of your fevered imagination. Unless you draw all of that from my use of the term "mainstream media?" Well, until the internet and other alternatives, that term didn't exist. I used it for a reason. For the record, AP has been on this hobbyhorse for a few years now, and their targets have been equal-opportunity as far as political positions go.

For thousands of years of human literacy there were no copyright laws, and the world got along just fine. The writer sold his work to a publisher, who sold it on the open market and made his fair profit, and (in the olden days) subsequent publishers then moved in and sold new editions without paying royalties. They kept the proceeds, but they credited the author, too, they rarely plagiarized.

Yes, and for thousands of years a prime method of acquiring property was to gather your personal gang of goons, go in, and take it. What's your point?

I suggest you take a look at the actual history of copyright law. It's a little more complex. It's obvious that we are now on the far end of the curve of ease of information distribution from the hand-written manuscript, and dealing with this is not going to be easy for anyone.

I have no particular dog in this fight. I am working on becoming a paid writer, and it would be nice if my work wasn't spread all over the internet for free. Beyond that, I figure it's mostly the publisher's problem.

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