Copyright vs. Copyleft

It's curious how things change for somebody's own benefit. Walt Disney started its success by copying some of the features of Buster Keaton's "Steamoat Bill" and, if I remember correctly, it was the first company to ask for Copyright.

I don't know how do australian laws work but in Spain we have a very particular system. In the past few years there's been a national discussion about what to do with intellectual property. Should it be legal to download every single song or movie?What about those authors who are not well known for most of the audience?

So the Government decided to give special power to a private society: SGAE (Sociedad General de Autores = Author's Society). They would charge a percentage/canon for every single virgin CD/DVD, every song played on the radio/TV, songs played in restaurants and bars, for every copying device, DVD players, and so on.

So, in the case of CD's and DVD's, the SGAE collected money by arguing that someone could record any copyright material in them. To me it's like if you could put a person in probation because they bought a knife and...who knows what could they do with it!

So what many shops and bars have decided to do is put Copyleft music so no one could charge them. And many artists (spanish Nacho Vegas) are selling, or giving away, their music as Copyleft and it's been a success for them. They are playing live more than ever and earning the same amount of money as before. The ones to lose: music companies, not bands. But copyright is about creativity and ownership, as the US copyright policy says: copyright is to promote the progress of science and useful arts, so companies should think about rebuilding their industry.

Small explanation of Copyright vs. Copyleft