In a fit of technolust, I bought a spiffy digital camera about a year ago. (And no, I refuse to find out how many more megapixels I could buy today for what I paid for it then.) I've been happily shooting and deleting pictures, and printing off the occasional gem. I finally started feeling like a serious amateur and decided that I needed to buy Photoshop so I could tweak my less-than-perfect shots. So off I went to my favorite price comparison Web site; imagine my shock when I found out thatthis would set me back dollar 600. I confess--my first thought was "Geez, that's a piece of software asking to be sold on a warez site." In fact, the search box example at warez.com is Adobe Photoshop. Surprise, surprise. Of course, my better instincts kicked in, and I realized that I either had to pony up the cash or buy cheaper software. But it got me thinking about copyright in general, what we're protecting, how we're protecting material, and why we're protecting it. Let's look at some examples: * The Digital Millennium Copyright Act makes it illegal to print or even hyperlink to DeCSS, code that decrypts DVDs. That means that a t-shirt with the code on it, sold by Copyleft.net, is itself a violation of the DMCA. * While some musicians have joined in the dogfight over Napster and other file-sharing programs, the Grateful Dead allowed audience taping of all their shows, going so far as to issue special taper tickets for a section near the soundboard. * Margaret Mitchell's heirs attempted to block the publication of The Wind Done Gone, a retelling of Gone With The Wind from the slaves' perspective. * No licensed Brady Bunch merchandise has pictures of father Mike Brady. In fact, he's been air-brushed out of photographs. Robert Reed's heirs refused to sign a contract with Viacom/Paramount for the rights to use his image in Brady products, so he's become a non-Brady.
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