From craigblog; New copyright act unfair to artists?
The key is that it's unfair to small artists. No doubt large companies will make sure that all of their material is suitably registered or consolidated such that they can argue that any reasonably diligent search would have unearthed the creator.
Whereas I bet smaller scale artists would be much more subject to a "hey, I searched the internet and didn't find them" definition of reasonably diligent, and consequently stand to be hurt more.
big surprise I guess.
I have two somewhat conflicting thoughts on this:
1) It is amazingly easy to copyright something in theory. The copyright is automagically granted at the time of creation. (Obviously proving the time of this creation down the road becomes difficult if you don't bother to register or, at least, mark copyright on the work). So, this legislation shouldn't be unfair to smaller artists in any really substantial way. Just as currently, attribute the work to yourself (ideally with an approved form of nomenclature) on the page, or in the image. Heck, I would imagine putting copyright notice in the metadata of the file (say an mp3 or image file) would suffice too, as it can be expected that anyone truly searching for copyright will know to check the metadata.
2) That said, attempting to protect copyright in many cases on the internet is starting to seem more and more like a moot point. At least with "traditional" copyright. The whole purpose originally was to encourage creation of creative works by content producers, by ensuring them of a finite period with which they could be the sole benefactor. Today, (on the internet at least), "content producers" do not need any incentive to create content. There are a bajillion people creating all sorts of stuff, just because they want to create. And, even if they desperately wanted to reap commercial benefits from their creation, the continuing glut of content is going to render that more and more unlikely, as there is simply too much to choose from for free. And with micropayments continually dead in the water, there doesn't seem to be any way for the majority of these folks to reasonably expect any remuneration.
I'm starting to think more and more that Cory Doctorow's idea of a transparent meritocracy is the way forward.
-=A=-
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