I’ve always been annoyed by the fact that it is organisations pretending to act on the behalf of copyright creators that have been at the forefront of the push to change laws that make it harder to create and not be censored by apparent “infringement”. If Shakespeare had operated under current laws, it would not surprise me if he was done for copyright infringement on Romeo and Juliet (having lifted many plot ideas off an Italian poem). Would our culture be better off for that? Looking forward to this report:
British Academy Says Copyright Hindering Scholarship

A report from the British Academy, to be launched on 18 September, expresses fears that the copyright system may in important respects be impeding, rather than stimulating, the production of new ideas and new scholarship in the humanities and social sciences. It is in the nature of creative activity and scholarship that original material builds on what has gone before -’if I have seen further, it is because I had stood on the shoulders of giants’ - therefore provisions that are overly protective of the rights of existing ideas may inhibit the development of new ones.

Cory Doctorow from Boing Boing has a simple solution (and one that used to be the status quo until the copyright owners went crazy with new powers). It used to be that you owned a book or CD or even a computer program whereas now, they are trying to convince you that all you own is a licence.
How Copyright Broke: Locus Magazine, Cory Doctorow Commentary, September 2006

The answer is simple: treat your readers’ property as property. What readers do with their own equipment, as private, noncommercial actors, is not a fit subject for copyright regulation or oversight.

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