What Everyone Knows About Copyright

Current copyright law goes too far.

The protections given corporate copyright owners are out-of-whack with consumer expectations.

So everyone ignores the law. Everyone?

Wall Street Journal: You watch physics lectures and Harlem Globetrotters [on YouTube]?

Bill Gates: This social-networking thing takes you to crazy places.

WSJ: But those were stolen, correct?

Bill Gates: Stolen's a strong word. It's copyrighted content that  the  owner wasn't paid for.  So yes.

Yes, everyone.

More after the jump.

It is no accident that Bill Gates was quoted as saying these things just after he announced he would quit his full-time role at Microsoft in 2008.

Hilary Rosen (left) has been saying the same sorts of things ever since she left the RIAA.

When I say everyone knows copyright has gone too far, I mean everyone. I think the people inside the MPAA and RIAA today know protections have gone too far. But they are required to keep pushing in the same direction regardless. It's a business imperative.

But the time has also come for the rest of us to push back. We are losing the technology race to China because of our copyright laws. Our companies are kept from innovating, while those who ignore our law continue to do so. The only new outfits that are growing (like YouTube) routinely ignore the copyright laws restrictions.

We need comprehensive reform that puts the law back inside the bounds which our people are willing to obey.

When everyone is disobeying a law the law must change, or it's irrelevant.