On September 1st, 2012, The Economist released an article about copyright laws and their effect on internet users. Noting that “smartphones and the internet have made copyright law look even more obsolete,” the article questions why “the response so far has been not to update the laws but to widen their scope and stiffen the penalties.” Remember SOPA? PIPA? ACTA? Those acronyms harken back to a time when Wikipedia went dark, Reddit lead an internet boycott, and protesters took to the streets all over Europe. Those bills were defeated, but they could return under a different name.
Then again, The Economist thinks that the tide is turning. The article pointed to a Canadian law setting a more permissive standards, new internet-friendly legislation out of Britain, and the prospect of “format shifting” in Ireland and Australia. The article concluded with an interesting thought:
A decade ago, commercial websites featured nasty lawyerish warnings against copying the content. Now many of these same sites sport icons encouraging people to share the content as widely as possible over e-mail, Facebook or Twitter. Loosening up may make more money than locking down.
Check out The Economist source article here.
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