Saturday, February 14, 2009

Me the bandit

Friday I was on a seminar in Bergen on the topic "copyright in archives, museums and libraries", and have to conclude that the list of things you may do on the net is far far shorter than the list of what you are not allowed to do.
I understand the need to protect the rights of the people who produce literature, research articles and music, but I wonder if the laws were made for medieval times?

My blogging and flickering has nothing to do with my job, but in my private life I'm probably a crook, a bandit and a pirate, even if I do not share sound files or scan and share whole articles or books (or earn anything on this!). To use pictures or scans of CD covers or book covers is probably not 100% legal either, but damn isn't that a bit strict? What we really want to say by doing it is "buy this record or book". (Well, a lot of bloggers will say "don't buy this shit" too of course, but not me. I only write about the stuff I like).

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