Tim Wu's Slate 'Lawbreaking' column on copyright infringement
American lawbreaking: Illegal immigration. - By Tim Wu - Slate Magazine
from: Tim Wu
Tolerated Use: The Copyright Problem
Posted Tuesday, Oct. 16, 2007, at 7:32 AM ET
What are the most violated laws in the United States?
Traffic laws take first place, perhaps, but your next bet should be on copyright. Every week, in various ways, you probably violate the copyright law. How? When, say, you check out old MTV videos on YouTube. Or if you, bored at work, decide to research the surprising origins of the character Grimace. Or if you make a mix CD for a friend or play DVDs at a house party. Each will lead you into a facial violation of the copyright law, and in today's world, it's almost unavoidable. But is it a bad thing?
Copyright is the nation's leading system for subsidizing the creative industries, especially film, television, and book publishing. Its total evasion can threaten the cultural health of a country—witness places like Hong Kong, where piracy has decimated what was once a booming film industry. But, like many laws, copyright has acute difficulty in adapting to rapid, real-world change. The politics of copyright policy—concentrated media companies vs. millions of disorganized consumers—simply do not lead to balanced legislative outcomes. Consequently, the copyright law only sometimes adjusts itself to new challenges in the courts or the legislature. Instead, in recent years, it is often in copyright-enforcement practice that change is happening, where tolerance of lawbreaking has become the main way copyright is adjusting to the Internet age. ...
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