[LAU] ASCAP Assails Free-Culture, Digital-Rights Groups

[drew Roberts]

On Saturday 03 July 2010 06:49:05 david wrote:
> I used to write and sell poetry. Didn't make a living at it, it was just
> part of the creative writing business back then. At the time, poets in
> America made a living in only a few ways: wrote greeting card verse!, or
> were university professors. (I think one woman poet made a good living
> writing small books of maudlin verse that were sold on rotating racks
> near the greeting cards.) One of my poetry instructors (and my
> undergraduate advisor) has had several poetry collections published. I
> have one of them. None of the poems strike a chord with ordinary people.
> He's probably not sold enough copies to recoup the publishing cost!

I seem to remember reading some science fiction once where poets were the 
stars and musicians were in the state poets are in now.
>
snip
>
> Just think what the world would be like if someone back in the early
> days of movie making had patented the whole movie making process

I heard that Hollywood is where it is and not the East coast because things 
were patented and they went far away to "hide" - that's one story I have read 
at least.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_Picture_Patents_Company#Backlash_and_Decline

> ("business process patents," anyone?), then used their resulting wealth
> to successfully keep extending patents the way Disney Corporation got
> copyright protection extended to prevent Mickie Mouse from entering the
> public domain). We'd have only Hollywood movies - and barrages of patent
> infringement suits keeping Japanese, Chinese, Indian and European movies
> out of the United States! There'd be a flourishing black market in
> "foreign" films, with "film runners" smuggling the latest Hong Kong
> martial arts movie across the borders into the grubby hands of organized
> crime who would shift it down to shady "film dealers" and "speakeasy
> movie theaters"!
>
> All because of copyrights and patents. See - back on topic!
>
> ;-)
> David
> gnome at hawaii.rr.com
> authenticity, honesty, community

all the best,

drew