Grover Ponders

SlashDot has an article up highlighting how Associated Press is using the American DMCA against other web sites. If you assume the DMCA makes sense (which is getting harder and harder to do for me), then this might be reasonable. But I do have a question here...

You see, the comment in the SlashDot summary contains the quote "We get concerned when we feel the use is more reproduction than reference, or when others are encouraged to cut and paste. That's not good for original content creators". So let me get this straight. AP is complaining that they took the time and effort to report a story/event, and now are claiming to be the "original content creators"? It would seem to me that the "original content creators" are the people or events the story is about. Has anyone bothered to ask THEM if they have a problem with AP doing a story on them? Can't we take this DMCA argument to the extremes and have those people use the DMCA against AP?

While this line of questioning IS silly, it does serve as a nice pointer into the flaws of Copyright in it's current state. Sure, a reporter somewhere, presumably paid by AP, took the time and effort to draft a story. That person deserves some reasonable compensation for their work. But as far as I am concerned, that person, or any other person/organization that may have bought that work, does not deserve to benefit for what accounts to a few hours of work, for the rest of their lives plus XXX years. This is what the current copyright law is mandating. There is a concept of timeliness involved. If I write code to solve a particular problem, well, I have copyright on that code. But the methods and techniques used in that code will be obsolete in a year or two. So it doesn't make sense to have a copyright on my code for 50 plus years (variable of course depending how long I live). Heck, the ideas expressed in that code are not copyright-able in the first place - just the specific instance of the code I wrote. The same concept applies to anything that can be copyrighted - books, movies, news articles, etc.

The copyright system is flawed. It is being abused to secure a revenue stream for the copyright holders - who more often than not these days are NOT the original authors. The system is being abused to eliminate competition. Eliminating competition removes the need to build that "bigger and better mousetrap". Which in the long run means that a select few (those who control the copyrights) are holding back everyone else from advancing technically, socially, culturally, etc. Just so they can make a few bucks.

But, as bad as it is, the copyright system is worlds better than the patent system, or the concept of intellectual property. It may be flawed, but it is what we have, until someone can determine a better system, and convince the law makers to enact it.