by Gillian Shaw, National Post
Copyright infringement has stirred the souls of artists and publishers since the time of Charles Dickens, who went to the United States in 1842 to ask the Americans to stop pirating his works.
His books were being reprinted there without his receiving a penny, but the Americans told him to jump in the lake.
How the world has changed. Now America’s a bastion for the defence of copyright and the country that once rejected international copyright laws is relentless in enforcing them.
However, 2009 might have marked the year when the enforcers lost valuable ground.
“I think 2009 was a watershed year,” said David Gratton, founder of Work at Play, a Vancouver digital agency and creator of DEQQ, an online service in which artists like David Usher and Nelly Furtado connect directly with their fans. “You wound up seeing industry almost give up the fight on this and realize we now need to think differently.
“It is not the death of copyright. I think the intellectual property that people have is going to be monetized differently. It is a fundamental change.”
Technology has forced the change, one in which there is no turning back.
Digitization makes it possible to reproduce, copy and disseminate material without necessarily getting the assent of the creator — just as American publishers did to Dickens.
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