Is Copyright Similar to a Fundamentalist Religion?

Few thoughts on _Copyright as a Fundamentalist Religion_ by Rick Falkvinge.

There is one more noteworthy analogy between pro-copyright social structures and church. It is believers, people. It is them who church relied upon and it is them, law obedient brain washed pro-copyright believers who really support the copyright monster.

This point is the most striking for me: “starving artists” support copyright. The great majority of musicians, painters, poets, writers, etc. barely make pennies out of their art, and they stand up for “their rights” whenever you question these. Virtually everyone who I talked to for years would support idea of art as realm of ultimate freedom, but would never come along for the conclusion that copyright is in radical contradiction to this idea.

People would agree that you can sell your work to make money (this is important, essential detail: not rights, but work!), but they wouldn’t come along for the conclusion that rights for sale are not necessary then.

People would agree that a law is to implement justice, that law cannot be a compromise in itself, which is the case with copyright, but they wouldn’t come along for the conclusion that copyright law contradicts very idea of law and justice.

And so forth.

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