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At the behest of large media companies, Congress has passed increasingly restrictive copyright laws over the last half-century. Among other actions, they have substantially increased the term of copyright, decreased the amount of material flowing into the creative commons, and harmed the public's fair use rights. Such drastic measures protect the monopolies of a few corporations at the steep price of the public's freedoms.

These regulations constitute no less than an attempt to transform our country from a "knowledge society" with a free flow of information to a "permission society" in which information is restricted by a few media companies. In order to impede this perilous transformation, it is imperative that Congress loosen, rather than strengthen, existing copyright laws.

In this research hypertext, which was completed for Stanford's E-Rhetorics class on technology and society, I will explore how current copyright regulations are dangerously deviant from their moral and economic bases. I will demonstrate that the presence of overly-restrictive copyright laws hinders, rather than protects, the ability of innovators to create new material. Finally, through the case studies, I will show that current copyright regulations harm the public concretely in real life, not just in some abstract manner.

What is copyright?

References
Image: CNN.COM

This research hypertext was prepared for the Stanford E-Rhetorics class by Benjamin Nham. You are granted permission to reuse or reprint any original parts of this site under the terms of this Creative Commons license.