[reginaldjcooper]

First of all, it's completely ridiculous to compare copyright with slavery.

You were never going to express yourself in exactly that manner, so from a practical standpoint copyright isn't preventing you from doing anything at all. It's a good compromise; how else do we prevent publishers and software companies from grabbing up indie work and selling it without compensating the creator? I don't understand being totally against copyright.

The area where it's going wrong is that Disney and the labels have big interests in extending copyright to ridiculous lengths and strengthening it to the extent that it's an anchor dragging behind any startup that wants to compete in that industry. We should be able to share movies and books with our friends and families. In their perfect world, every viewer would pay a fee for every viewing.

[phaemon]

> First of all, it's completely ridiculous to compare copyright with slavery.

An analogy is not an equivalence. Please learn the difference.

From a practical viewpoint, copyright constrains what I can do with information, and you even admit it's a compromise yourself! I don't accept it's a good compromise. I'd prefer to do without than accept it. I acknowledge that most people (such as yourself) feel differently.

[reginaldjcooper]

> An analogy is not an equivalence. Please learn the difference.

It's an appeal to emotion by comparing it with something so different it barely makes sense, if you prefer to argue from emotion instead of reason, then by all means. Preventing you from emailing a .pdf or .mp3 is nothing like taking away all your basic human rights, treating you like you are subhuman, and forcing you to labor in the fields.

What rights should an author have with their work, then? When have you wanted to, but were unable to, share information that wasn't just "I want it for free"?

EDIT: Reflecting on it, this sounds confrontational, but I genuinely wish to know how copyright is impacting you. I hate all the patent trolls, I hate the patent system, I hate copyright trolls, so maybe I hate the copyright system as well, and just don't know yet.