Does Copyright Foster or Hinder Innovation?

• Current themes evident in copyright arguments from 100 years ago

  From thepublicdomain.org comes this interesting and revealing series of excerpts from the legislative history of the 1909 Copyright Act.

  
  
• What modern copyright law means to our culture

  What does it mean to our culture that we have imposed the most draconian restrictions on the reuse of intellectual creations than at any other time?

  
  
• The myth of "original creation"

  Techdirt has an interesting article up about the myth of the "original creator" - the idea that copyright protects individual creators working in a vacuum come up with new, unique ideas that are not based on anything that precedes them. This is, as any author, musician, or inventor knows, not the way it works in practice.

  
  
• The long history of restrictions on speech

  It's too easy to look at recent trends, or project current biases, on the law, and assume that the trend extends backwards in time in a similar fashion. This is a useful lesson to keep in mind whether one is look at law and technology, or Constitutional issues.

  
  
• Unravelling the Canadian Copyright Lobby

  Especially important to everyone in Canada - but important to everyone, since copyright and IP are increasingly international issues due to attempts at harmonization (WIPO, for example) - comes this expose by Michael Geist on the undue influence pro-copyright lobbyist organizations have had on Canadian policy documents.

  
  

Post title: Does Copyright Foster or Hinder Innovation?

Authored by: krisnelson

Date posted: May 30, 2009

Categorized as: business • copyright • intellectual property • law • technology

Tagged with: copyright • intellectual property • law • technology