Change You Can Believe In or Not?
President-Elect Obama has changed the copyright notice on Change.gov to Creative Commons. Does this signal that an Obama presidency will loosen the intellectual property laws? It might be a great source of irony that the publisher industry that so whole heartedly embraced the Obama presidency might soon be fighting against it if, and when, Obama does try to institute a relaxation of the tight controls over Intellectual Property. I.e., what if the DMCA is repealed, abrogated or overturned? How about allowing some legal format shifting by legitimate digital property purchasers? That's the change that I want, but maybe not what authors, publishers, and those on the other side of the spectrum are looking for.
As a writer who’s been published only electronically so far, I’d be happy to let someone who bought one of my books change file formats or make a copy to a second device they own.
I’d also be happy to see the new administration stomp on the Mouse’s ridiculous manipulation of copyright law.
Angie