The file-sharing website Megaupload has launched a lawsuit against Universal Music Group, and it might mean nothing less than the end of new art being created in human civilization. The details of the case are actually not that important. What is significant - and downright terrifying - is that a company that specializes in making money by allowing millions of people to share music, movies, software, and photos on the internet has made enough money doing it that they can now afford to sue a major music corporation.
Megaupload claims it fights copyright infringement by deleting reported files and by closing the accounts of repeat copyright infringers. But obviously, if Megaupload deleted all illegally posted files and all copyright infringers they would lose most of their income. Megaupload charges a fee to download files, and even if the files are removed for copyright infringement, Megaupload can legally keep the money they made. Record companies, movie studios, and porn sites are now in grave danger. File-sharing companies seem to be making more money from their artwork than they are.
To protect themselves copyright owners should have spent as much money as possible to have the current copyright legislation, the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, struck down for the unfair burden of forcing them to police their own copyrights. If they'd been successful the laws that offer government protection for copyrights in magazines, newspapers, television and movies would have applied to the internet as well. These laws would have held file-sharing companies like Megaupload responsible for copyright violations the same way it has held these other publishers responsible.
Copyright laws worked for decades without a hitch, until the DMCA came along. The DMCA has protected thieves and burdened creators for so long that the artist or creative company that can afford to launch a lawsuit in defense of its copyrights may now be a thing of the past. How long will an artist produce new work when it is constantly being stolen? How long can a society or civilization survive without art that is worth paying for being made? We're not sure but we think we're about to find out.
The way I explain it is that it looks like a movie set with people in it and in a blink of an eye it turns into a painting. I'm not sure that is adequate, but it is the best I can do. --Roy
Pornography and governments have an on-again-off-again relationship. Sometimes the government ignores porn and a decade will pass without any new laws regulating it. Other times governments clamp down on porn and pretty much make it illegal in any form. Right now (in 2011) we are in a period of leniency towards porn, but its time is nearly up. The reason is this: right now governments are failing to defend intellectual property and copyrights. This creates a situation in which there is so much file-sharing going on world-wide that the only way to make a living producing photos is to make porn. Small-time artists who make tasteful nudes cannot sell enough to make up for the huge losses they suffer from file-sharing. By contrast, pornographers motivated solely to make money actually depend on low production values to generate profits. It's when the only nudes around are these sordid, sadistic, and seedy kinds of porn that people start feeling they've had enough and governments start outlawing porn.Opinion from Body In Mind
Alias Barack Obama: a lie is born: The greatest identity fraud in history Paperback – July 10, 2012
