The real issue behind so much of these cases is a fundamental disconnect between the culture that produced the concepts of copyrights and patents and the one that now uses (abuses) them.
Our culture is willing to shove its peers and its progeny under the bus in exchange for ephemeral fame and fortune.
"Free devalues work" seems to come from a particular sort of adversarial view of the creator/consumer relationship. It's like they think that getting people to buy something is the creator winning and consumers getting something for free is the creator losing. Almost like they feel like they have to trick consumers into paying and someone else providing free content is akin to a magician showing the audience how the tricks are done.
If there's one trait that a majority of Americans seem to possess, it's the almost pathological desire to position ourselves as the underdog in any conflict. So of course, people like Henley, Nicks, and Mellencamp are just lone artists speaking out against the evil faceless hordes of the internet. These scrappy do-gooders have only a pitiful alliance of multinational corporations, lobbying firms, pocket congressmen, and the bureaucracies of the governments of the majority of the nations of the world to help them defeat the pirates, and by pirates i mean primarily poor teens and twenty-something fans. (But let's face it; if Mellencamp, Nicks, and Henley are seeing a decrease in their royalty checks it's not because of piracy. It's the mortality rate of their aging fans.)
Could this be a fake designed to use the Streisand effect against Jeffrey Morris? Seems pretty weak and aklaw.co.uk doesn't even have a website. Of course, Addlestone Keane might just be yet another old-fashioned internet-clueless law firm.
They use fees as scapegoats. "Don't blame us - we don't want to charge you a buttscratching fee - we have to. The buttscratchers insist on it!"
They imagine people will just shut up and pay up. Instead, people are doing the smart thing and saying, "Stop paying people to stand around, scratching their butts!"
It was much easier when the record companies decided you were going to be a hit and made it that way via near total control of the media outlets. Relying on your own talent and effort to bring you success is a scary prospect, but that's the world artists live in now. The vast majority of us have been living in this world for a long, long time. Deal with to it.
They want soapboxes that they can use to spread rhetoric while at the same time denying their opponents those same avenues.
When an actual expert comes along with facts and information they want to silence them even if it means denying that opportunity for themselves. After all, they represent big media companies - they can always make more soapboxes, whereas their opponents suffer mostly from obscurity.
What are the chances that someone got confused and thought that Wikipedia and Wikimedia were related to Wikileaks and decided to take a shot at them IRS vs Al Capone style?
On the post: Bartenders Looking For Greater Intellectual Property Protection For Drinks
me me me
Our culture is willing to shove its peers and its progeny under the bus in exchange for ephemeral fame and fortune.
On the post: Comic Book Writer Mark Waid Defends Copying, Points To The Value Of The Public Domain
Adversarial Economics
On the post: Don Henley Still Really Confused: Actually Claims Copyright Office Is Not An Advocate For Copyright Holders
Hooray for the underdog?
On the post: Legal Threat Demands We Shut Down Techdirt
fake?
On the post: Ticketmaster Says People Don't Like Service Fees Because We Don't Understand Them
Scapegoats
They imagine people will just shut up and pay up. Instead, people are doing the smart thing and saying, "Stop paying people to stand around, scratching their butts!"
On the post: John Mellencamp: The Internet Is An Atomic Bomb For Music
Ugh...
On the post: Why Are Entertainment Industry Spokespeople So Scared To Debate Critics?
Rhetoric vs. Knowledge
When an actual expert comes along with facts and information they want to silence them even if it means denying that opportunity for themselves. After all, they represent big media companies - they can always make more soapboxes, whereas their opponents suffer mostly from obscurity.
On the post: FBI Claims Wikipedia Can't Display Its Logo
Wiki...
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