Legal Commentary

Copyright - Tell Me Lies by Michael Geist

By David Canton

Michael has a must read post entitled  Tell Me Lies  that is the text of his remarks at a copyright conference yesterday.

He starts with a quote from a recent article by Clay Shirky ( another must read) on the future of newspapers that says:

“When someone demands to know how we are going to replace newspapers, they are really demanding to be told that we are not living through a revolution. They are demanding to be told that old systems won?t break before new systems are in place. They are demanding to be told that ancient social bargains aren?t in peril, that core institutions will be spared, that new methods of spreading information will improve previous practice rather than upending it. They are demanding to be lied to.”

Michael goes on to relate the last sentence to copyright issues, giving 8 examples where over the last few years we have been demanding to be lied to about copyright issues. 

Basically, as Michael Wesch said a couple of years ago in his video Web 2.0 … The Machine is Us/ing Us - copyright is one of those things that we must rethink.

Full post as published by eLegal Canton on March 19, 2009 (boomark / email).