Copyright, Patents, DRM, and Your Rights

I decided to start this blog because I, like so many others, feel that copyright and patent protection have gotten way out of hand. They have gone well beyond what they were created to do and seem to have taken on a life all their own. They have become a tool for big business to use to maintain the status quo, to help them keep a strangle hold on all competition. Instead of fostering innovation, which is their only reason for being, they are hindering it. Copyright protection has become a tool that businesses have been using to justify their taking away consumer's rights, your rights.

Big business has been using terms such as piracy, theft, intellectual property, and others in an attempt to brainwash the general population into believing that it is the grave danger to our way of life that they say that it is. Piracy was originally a term used to describe those that used force to take over another vessel on the high seas, commit murder, steal, rape, and do other atrocities; now it is used to describe someone that copies a music CD. I for one fail to see the connection, but it is a connection that the music industry is more than happy to foster.

Theft? Sorry, but copyright infringement is not theft. If I take your car without your permission, I now have it and you don't, that is theft. If I copy your music CD, you still have your original, no theft was committed; a law was broken, but call it what it is, copyright infringement, not theft. This may sound as if we are arguing semantics, but we are not. Theft has certain connotations associated with it and those should not be associated with copyright law.

The term 'Intellectual Property' is another piece of spin that business is trying to use to confuse the issue. An idea is not property, never has been, and never should be. Again, they are trying to work in the action of theft. If an idea is actually property, and you 'borrow' it without my permission, then you stole it; theft took place. That is what they would like you to believe but the logic is faulty.

I know that this is all a very controversial issue and that nothing should be presented without being backed up and that is what I will strive to do. I intend to post information, legal actions taking place, and any other information that would shed more light on the issue. Will I be biased in what information I post? To an extent, I'm sure that I will. I strongly believe that copyright and patent law is seriously impeding innovation and stomping all over consumer's rights and I will be presenting information to support that. That being said, I will not sweep anything under the rug that runs counter to my opinions. I'm not sure how often I will be able to post, as often as possible, but I do have a day job, kids, bills...