Europe's Copyright Reforms Are More Than (Just) A Boring Policy Change; NPR, September 27, 2018

Andrew Flanagan, NPR; Europe's Copyright Reforms Are More Than (Just) A Boring Policy Change

"In the "Information Wants To Be Free" corner, you have advocates like Cory Doctorow, who is of the opinion that regulations on the Internet can have a stifling effect on freedom of expression. They want to preserve the web "as a place where we can fight the other fights" like "inequality, antitrust, race and gender, speech and democratic legitimacy," as Doctorow put it in a recent podcast. (Doctorow obliquely references a 2004 copyright dispute around Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land," which Guthrie, in an unconfirmed statement, said he didn't "give a dern" if others performed.) Doctorow's point is that creativity is best when it's unanchored from profit motive, and thus available to be copied freely. (Doctorow himself walks the walk, making his novels available for no charge.) James Rhodes' recent experience with music that wasn't even protected by copyright isn't exactly encouraging in this regard.

Meanwhile, some copyright holders are very much interested in being paid for their creations. Lisa Alter, a visiting professor at Yale Law School and practicing attorney who specializes in music copyright, tells NPR: "Obviously, whenever there's something new, there will be a period of time where systems are worked out and glitches, but I don't see those insurmountable in the year 2018." As to situations like the one Rhodes experienced with his Bach video? "Could there ever be a erroneous takedown? Sure, but then you let them know and they should put it back up," she says. "But I don't see it being an epidemic. And the technology will get better, the filtering system will improve."