Logo D66: wel of niet ?

[Mark Koek]

REPLY TO: D66 at nic.surfnet.nl

Stukje input van een auteur (John Perry Barlow van de Grateful Dead) in
antwoord op een recente uitspraak van de directeur van Time Warner over
de Napster-zaak.

Aardig in het verband van deze discussie, dacht ik.

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"This is a very profound moment historically," Time Warner President
Richard Parsons says. "This isn't just about a bunch of kids stealing
music. It's about an assault on everything that constitutes the cultural
expression of our society. If we fail to protect and preserve our
intellectual property system, the culture will atrophy. And corporations
won't be the only ones hurt. Artists will have no incentive to create.
Worst-case scenario: The country will end up in a sort of cultural Dark
Ages."

A profound moment, indeed. Indeed, it is an assault on everything that
has stifled the cultural expression of our society. It's an assault on
the system that stole every dime The Chambers Brothers ever made while
grotesquely enriching Brittany Spears.

There is certainly the potential for a cultural Dark Age here, by which
I don't simply mean what would follow the death of Time-Warner. Rather,
I refer to the very real possibility that Time-Warner and the rest of
its loathsome kind will die with most of the expressive genius of the
20th Century buried with them, embedded in their corpses by their last
success: using copyright to prevent the digitization and, hence,
perpetuation of all that creation.

Only massive civil disobedience will prevent this ugly future. Speaking
as someone who has created a lot of "intellectual property," I can
assure you that my primary incentive was the possibility that what
passed through my heart would be heard. I want it to be available to my
great grandchildren. But they will never hear it unless it's stored in
some other medium than the material objects the record industry
manufactured, all of which will be as mute as stones by then.

Of course, I wanted to be paid for it, and I was. Just as Mozart,
Beethoven, Bach, and countless others were paid, despite the absence of
copyright protection.

The only people who are likely to lose the lesser incentive of wealth
will be the likes of Richard Parsons. His loss will be our gain. Unless,
of course, he wins.

Mad as hell,

Barlow


Meer over John Perry Barlow: http://www.eff.org/~barlow/

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