[Gllug] Re: Anti-DRM event in Central London tomorrow!

[David Damerell]

On Monday, 2 Oct 2006, t.clarke wrote:
>Seems to me the argument that copyright (as it exists with a ludicrously long
>protection period) is somewhat bogus.  Lack of huge royalty fees for
>ever and a day didnt stop the likes of Mozart, Bach, Beethoven etc it
>would seem ! 

That's pretty close. It seemed like a useful compromise when it came
in (or, more accurately, when the original laws intended to maintain
publishing monopolies got bent into a new shape); that doesn't make it
a fundamental right or necessarily the most useful compromise - in
particular the damage done to the public domain is much more when
anyone can distribute music essentially for free than (say) in 1850
where only people with printing presses can distribute books anyway.

In particular one of the things society _ought_ to say is that if
people want the legal right to restrict distribution of their works
they cannot also employ technological restrictions.

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