Copyright Readings

I- hmmm.

I have stolen digital content on the internet, and I am likely to do so again. I self justify some of these thefts with later purchase of the works involved, but by no means all. Usually I steal things because their legitimate formats are unavailable to me (I don't own a tv, and also (therefore?) don't have cable) such as British tv, tv shows whose network does streaming with commercials, but using a horribly coded engine to do it with (I'm looking at you, CBS).

I understand and acknowledge that this is illegal. But I don't agree with the way that the law is currently set up. The systems in place to try and answer the reasons I steal have become much better (hulu, netflix, audible), but they still aren't optimized, and neither are the laws and underlying philosophical definitions of property and ownership of digital content.

Reading the readings this week I was saddened at how much hasn't changed law-wise since many of the readings were written (1996? Modems?), how much this is still a muddle.

In the Revising chapter, I enjoyed the history of copyrights, and I liked how the author pointed out the current disconnect in the "copyright bargain," which seems a very good way to think of it, even if that bargain is a drunken three way of a mess.

The Liberal state reading was good, but perphrastic. Immoderately so.