On Copyright Infringement

What is it about the digital age that makes everyone think that copyright has disappeared?

As scanners became more commonplace, my late uncle, a professional photographer, found himself having to defend his work from being illegally duplicated and used without any payment or attribution.

I subscribe to an email list for free ebooks (i.e., public domain books), and we constantly receive "I'm looking for" posts regarding free ebook formats of popular modern books still covered by copyright. Think Tom Clancy and John Grisham. Do you really think that these guys would make their works available for free?

Plagiarism was a minor problem when I was going to school, but today it's big business, with whole web services devoted toward helping teachers identify plagiarized material.

This morning, a friend just informed me that one of her poems was illegally reprinted in an anthology and is being sold by someone who never sought her permission.

Copyright doesn't just protect the big guys, like major record labels and Tom Clancy; it also protects the little people like you and me. I work hard to create my blog posts, fiction stories, and knitting patterns, and while I may choose to make some of them available for free, I expect my rights to be respected. No one has the right to use or make money on my work without express permission from me.

The law supports me without my having to lift a single finger -- technically I don't even need the copyright notice that I just added to the bottom of my blog. Any original material created since April of 1989 is automatically protected under U.S. copyright law, although my copyright footer strengthens my case, and official registration strengthens it even more. There's even a pretty cool concept called creative commons copyright that any creative person should look into.

Now I'll be the first to say that some of the copyright laws in this land have gone too far. As far as I'm concerned, if I buy a CD, I bought the music and should be able to listen to it in any form I want as long as I'm not broadcasting it or making money off of it. And the idea that the term of copyright gets extended every single time Mickey Mouse is about to enter the public domain smacks of big business interfering in Washington politics. But the founding principles behind copyright are good ones, and should not be infringed just because some idiots in Washington have attached a helluva lot of pork to them.