[LINK] Theft, copyright, larceny...

[Janet Hawtin]

On 6/26/07, Rick Welykochy <rick at praxis.com.au> wrote:

>
> Disney has also gained infamy for adopting the song "The Lion Sleeps
> Tonight" as its own ... for use in the Lion King (?) The South African
> family that owns the rights to the song was/is trying to obtain redress.


Most of the Disney catalogue is folk, public domain or traditional
story telling repurposed and pwned.

Seems that these mega corps think it is fine to screw the little
> guy, but my goodness do they bring down the full force of the law
> when they have a reason to squeal.
>

Someone from ANU coined the phrase information feudalism =)
I think its probably time we had a think about the implications of
private control of discourse, ideas, participation.
Franchise of the information ecology has a social cost.
As a nation we do not own the primary conceptual real estate franchises.
This means we participate in technology and information flows as and when
the primary
franchisers permit. We participate in ways which profit them. We subscribe.
This is straight out good business sense for them. I just think it is borked
policy for us as a nation.

Janet