“Infringement Nation” paper by John Tehranian
November 20, 2007 by parkerAs we discussed in our meeting tonight, the recent symposium “Infringement Nation” by John Tehranian brings up a lot of great copyright issues. Among them, and this is certainly much broader than just copyright, is the distance between our societal norms and the relevant laws. He estimates that if he were held liable to the fullest extent for all of his various and harmless infringements, his bill at the end of a year would be in the 10 figure range. (Incidentally, Tim Wu explored the same topic, separation of norms and laws, in an excellent series called American Lawbreaking on Slate last month.)
Tehranian’s piece also goes into some questionable copyright legislation and the march towards Panopticonian technologies (his word!) in the hands of media holders. It’s a good, short read.
Ars Technica has a good article summarizing the piece, but for the real meat, download the PDF of the paper itself.
I might start posting the “minutes” of the meetings here, because a lot of things come up that it’d be nice to have the links to. Anybody care to sound off on that idea?
