[d@DCC] Discussion question: Does copyright scale?

[Russell McOrmond]

(just thinking out loud, looking for some discussion to solidify the idea)

  I was at a picnic this afternoon where I had the petition and some FLOSS
CDs out:  http://www.digital-copyright.ca/node/view/453

  I had one person come up to me and ask about the petition.  Turns out
she had never heard of copyright, and didn't know that there were laws
that made any type of copying/sharing of any material illegal.  She 
thought you had to sell things commercially before such laws applied.

  Lessig suggested that, "with a p2p system, you can share your favorite
songs with your best friend-- or your 20,000 best friends" (in Free
Culture).  Lawyers for the copyright holders always say that these are two
different things, suggesting that something OK at a small scale becomes a
problem at a larger scale.

  The same question about scalability applies to copyright law itself.  
A regulation on the activities of commercial companies doesn't scale to
applying to all citizens.  For copyright to be workable in the future
there needs to be some recognition on the part of copyright holders that
they must give up a fair bit of claim to control if they wish copyright to
apply to all citizens and not just commercial companies.

-- 
 Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: <http://www.flora.ca/> 
 Get Creative: iCommons Canada Launch Party : September 30, 2004
 http://digital-copyright.ca/node/view/461  Creative Commons, Open Access, 
 Free/Libre and Open Source Software  : In Canada, Eh!
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