O'Reilly Community

The Parliament of Canada recently started a public consultation on what changes should be made to Canadian copyright law, after loud public condemnation of a set of proposals a few years ago. Having made more instead of less, because "Using Samba" was available electronically, it behooved me to tell Parliament about my recent experience in the trade-offs in copyright law and in particular to the relevance of digital rights management schemes to publishing.

Last week, Matt Kloskowski on his blog Lightroom Killer Tips (which, by the way, is an excellent Lightroom resource. If you haven't been there yet ... What are you waiting for?) posted an article Is it wrong to steal Lightroom presets? discussing the ethics/legality/morality of copying someone else's presets and applying that to your own work. With the exception of Matt's drug company argument (drug companies use patents to protect their drugs. It's only when the patents expire that others can produce generic copies) I have to agree with him. To equate the process with the final product is not something copyright law contemplates. It's ludicrous to think that Michaelangelo could sue because you happened to sculpt using marble because he used marble! You could give me all the marble you want and there's no way you'll get a David or a Pieta out of me! LOL

I refer without comment to the alert Say No to Copyright Filtering in Broadband Stimulus, put out by the public-interest group Public Knowledge.

Creative Commons is more dependent than ever before on the funds of individuals. More and more people these days are grabbing pictures, text, and other random goods they find online and using them in their own presentations or creative efforts; some of us even build businesses on open contributions. All of us should be promoting the Creative Commons, which has provided licenses to support such sharing in 50 countries and is working with people in many more.