Dave Weinberger on Copyright Protection

One of our own Blogcritics, Dave Weinberger on “Blowing Copyright“:

I realized what I actually believe. (Took me long enough.) “Look,” I said, “I know my argument isn’t coherent. I can’t defend the things I’m saying. But, I haven’t really said what matters to me. I’m not looking for free music. I’m 51 and employed. I can buy the music I want. And I’m a writer; I’m in favor of people getting paid for what they create. The fact is I don’t know what the law should look like . But I do know in my heart three things.

First, the industry’s gotta change. We have a recording business that was built around its ability to solve what was once a really hard problem – distributing music. Now any 11 year old with Internet access can solve it. So, the current recording industry has to change or fail.

Second, I don’t think any of us know how to change it. Our current common sense doesn’t work. I mean, we protect intellectual property, but our own government has a system for making a single copy of a book available for free to thousands of people without the author getting a dime. It’s called the public library. But we’re ok with that. We don’t yet know what we’re going to be ok with on the Web. It’s too early and it’s too different and we should be careful of making bad, hasty decisions.

Third, and this is really what matters to me. The very thing the most conservative among us have dreamt of, have died for since the founding of this country, is now within our grasp: free markets, free speech, worldwide. And we’re blowing it because some dinosaur companies insist on maintaining their grip on every last dollar before their industry dies. 500 million of us can see how close it is, how the world economy would blossom, how the human spirit would get dizzy with possibility, and we’re arguing about how we can best prevent it?….

Dave rocks and inspires.