A great article from Michael Geist’s website about a Canadian university conference where the guy between the supremely flawed Digital Millennium Copyright Act admits that the whole DMCA is not only screwed but needs to be scrapped. Along with this extraordinary admission, he goes on to say that the whole idea of ‘copyright’ needs to be reexamined.
‘The most interesting – and surprising – presentation came from Bruce Lehman, who now heads the International Intellectual Property Institute. Lehman explained the U.S. perspective in the early 1990s that led to the DMCA (ie. greater control though TPMs), yet when reflecting on the success of the DMCA acknowledged that “our Clinton administration policies didn’t work out very well” and “our attempts at copyright control have not been successful”. Moreover, Lehman says that we are entering the “post-copyright” era for music, suggesting that a new form of patronage will emerge with support coming from industries that require music (webcasters, satellite radio) and government funding. While he says that teens have lost respect for copyright, he lays much of the blame at the feet of the recording industry for their failure to adapt to the online marketplace in the mid-1990s.’
Bravo! But is the industry gonna heed his words now?