[clug] 'Rip!' on SBS, last Tuesday night

[Alex Satrapa]

On 11/01/2010, at 10:59 , Ric de France wrote:

> At the end of the day, is the original concept of copyright good? Yep - well
> I believe so - feed the starving artists so they can produce more good
> music, pictures, art, etc.

The best way to support starving artists is to attend their exhibitions or purchase their works.

Copying a work of art is your way of saying, "this is good enough for my collection, but not good enough to encourage the artist to produce more."

You don't need copyright to help artists, you need sponsors.  To get sponsors you need to raise the awareness of the community at large of the artistic process - exactly how much work goes into producing those songs you download as MP3s?  Who gets the money when you buy a CD?  Who gets the money when you buy a song from iTMS?  Who gets the money when you go to a concert?

Cutting copyright back down to 7 years is more than enough to encourage artists, and discourage corporations holding the culture of the 21st century hostage.  What need is more cultural awareness, not more laws.

Alex