Rant on (lack of) Copyright Law Changes

This isn't, nor is it meant to be, a blog that discusses politics. Unfortunately, as long as politicians are writing our laws, we can't talk law without talking politics. I don't know what it's like for my friends across the pond or around the world, but copyright laws here in the USA are as outdated as they are draconian.

Faced with the new openness of the internet, the idiots running this country did little to clarify many of the new questions of copyright that the internet brought. Instead they extended how long a person or corporation could hold a copyright. Then, in the name of preserving intellectual property made it illegal for me to make a backup copy of my cds(if they have useless anti-piracy methods built in).

Further proving that my country's "leaders" don't have a clue what's going in the market are some of the idiotic things done since then. From introducing market stifling induce act to failure to pass net neutrality, they have shown that they are not interested in making our laws reflect the realities of the 21st century. Instead they are more interested in harsher and harsher penalties for infringement.

Meanwhile, the rest of us are still facing questions such as, "who has the copyright on blog comments?" Are you serious? Our laws are so outmoded, that it's not clear that a commenter on a blogpost gives up most rights to his words when posted on an open forum? Until I read about this, I hadn't realized how bad things had really gotten. It's crap like this that a law called "Digital Millennium Copyright Act" should have resolved.

I guess let that be a lesson for us all. Make your copyright policy on your website obvious. I'll start.

Any comment you leave on this blog you are giving me and blogspot the right to display that comment for *forever*.

I can't believe I have to say that...