Who Owns Your Copyright
Len at Dark Bilious Vapors riffs on the war against individuals by RIAA, and others, in their copyrights crusade and then Steve at The Modulator posts on Choicepoint.
With that in mind, why do businesses have the right to total control of their property and to take control of the property of individuals?
If the powers-that-be believe that people need to pay separate fees for the same song on tape, CD, DVD, MP3, etc., how do they justify business gathering the personal information of individuals and selling it.
What is the difference between going into a concert with a recorder and making a tape of the concert to sell to others without the knowledge or permission of the performers, and a business gathering financial and personal information without the explicit permission of the individuals and selling it.
Choicepoint is an information bootlegger. If you don’t own the copyright to your life, there is no meaning to copyright. Agreeing to provide a business with information by filling out a form doesn’t automatically give that business the copyright to your life. They aren’t sending a copy to a friend; they are selling your information. This isn’t “sharing”; this is “piracy”.
I don’t want to hear about “opt in” versus “opt out”. The assumption is that if you aren’t explicitly given permission to tape a concert, it is illegal to do it. The same assumption should be applied to your personal information. If your information is sold, at a minimum you are due a royalty.
On a related note, this BBC article: Courts question anti-piracy rule, would seem to indicate that the courts feel that the FCC is over-reaching in its attempts to push the “rights” of business, requiring hardware manufacturers to build equipment to the specifications of some copyright owners.
