Valid vs fair copyrights

Posted Oct 25, 2003 11:09 UTC (Sat) by man_ls (guest, #15091)
Parent article: Suing Your Customers: A Winning Business Strategy? (Wharton)

Unlike the automobile cartel that tried to stop Henry Ford, the recording industrys copyrights are perfectly valid.

Just reading the article, it would seem the motor patent was just as valid as the copyrights in question. This does not mean they are fair -- witness the huge number of musicians complaining about royalty payments. The RIAA is, plain and simple, ripping them off. Many of them would surely prefer people listening their music for free than fattening an already bloated industry, who steal their copyrights (the copyright owners here are the companies, not the authors or performers).

As to the media coverage of lawsuits, I think now the mainstream press is so much more on the side of business than in the 1900s, the "public outrage" is not so easy to see. It's a very different situation indeed, since the downloader is willing to believe she is committing a crime.

I notice that this is not the appropriate forum for this kind of thing, so focusing on the SCO comparison: in this case, the kernel hackers are the lawful copyright holders, and they seem to be quite happy with the situation. So I guess the applicability is not so good in this respect. But it shouldn't take long before big software companies start using the same strategy as SCO, in the open: suing their customers. Then we will see.