Economist Debate on Copyright

The Economist held a debate on the thesis that current copyright laws do more harm than good. A vote held had 79% agreeing with that position and 21% feeling that while copyright laws can and should be improved, they still do more good than harm.

I find myself in the minority position, in part on the theory that no new law is a good law. But we have a reasonably effective system for the creation of content in many media under current laws, and without any copyright laws I think chaos would result and make things worse. On the other hand, I can not but believe that current laws should be improved to extend fair use and to enable more digital mixing.

I am a big supporter of open source, but I am not a fanatic! Lots of open source efforts fail, and there is a real benefit to copyright laws that provide incentives to creativity.

One aspect that would seem important is protection for cultural products. I don't want to see cheap Asian knockoffs of traditional African, Asian and Latin American designs taking international markets away from traditional craftsmen!