Forbes: Copyright Class Warfare

In his weekly column in Forbes.com Jess Collen of Collen IP draws an analogy between class warfare and the copyright wars. In this case, he asserts that it’s the 99%ers  who are on the wrong side of the demilitarized zone. It’s been stated, glibly, that “information wants to be free,” and given the amount of pirated material freely available that may well be a sentiment shared by the 99%. Collen points out however, that the material that’s created by artists, writers, filmmakers and others is actually their property. It’s not there for the taking. He points out that people don’t walk out of a fruit store with their pockets filled with apples and oranges because the price is too high. To take it one step further, you’ve never heard anyone argue that the fruit really belongs to all of us because its provided by the Earth which belongs to us all. Fruit takes hard work to produce, on property that doesn’t actually belong to all of us. It’s a thought provoking article, most definitely worth a read.