I don't say very much about the current copyright hubbub, mostly because I can't even pretend to have an answer. I am full of contradictions, and can see both sides of the issue.
I am an avid library user, and have worked in libraries. I took a course in Library science and attended a copyright convention. I don't watch TV, and like to zap past commercials on taped programs, but at the same time a do enjoy a cleverly done, non-insulting, entertaining advertizement. I watch and listen to public broadcasting. I flip the car radio is a commercial gets on my nerves. I believe that people who make there living producing "ideas" should get the same sort of recompence as people who produce "stuff". I studied music history for the first three years of college, and was sickened by the stories of brilliant composers dying in poverty even though their music was hugely popular, but printed and distributed worldwide without the composer seeing any of the royalties. I spent my last two years in college training to become an artist, a photographer, a creator and I would like to someday earn my living (or at least enough to support my art habit) with the images I create. I want as many people as possible to see my work. I am poor, and like getting entertainment for cheap or free. I want the artists (musical, literary, or graphic) that I admire to earn a living with what they produce and I enjoy. I am disturbed by the greedy, stuck in a rut, dictatorial attitudes of corporate entities. I think Disney is spinning out of control. I wish that Micheal Jackson didn't own the Beatles' song catalogue. I think piracy is often wrong. I think that people who wield copyright as a weapon are wrong. I think have more questions than answers.
Here is what Ernest Miller at Lawmeme has to say on the subject.
