What’s wrong with copyrighting your work? Nothing. Copyright offers incentive to be creative. Unfortunately there’s an ongoing battle to extend the amount of time a work can be copyrighted for that has led to parties involved into pulling some sneaky tricks. The very astute Larry Lessig noticed that not EVERYTHING was legit with some of the signatures on the petition.
Larry Lessig’s Blog: “If you read the list, you’ll see that at least some of these artists are apparently dead”
By the way, if you don’t know who Larry Lessig is you should read his bio. Here’s a short snippet for those that won’t follow the link.
Larry Lessig’s Bio: “Lawrence Lessig is a Professor of Law at Stanford Law School and founder of the school’s Center for Internet and Society. Prior to joining the Stanford faculty, he was the Berkman Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, and a Professor at the University of Chicago. He clerked for Judge Richard Posner on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals and Justice Antonin Scalia on the United States Supreme Court.
Professor Lessig represented web site operator Eric Eldred in the ground-breaking case Eldred v. Ashcroft, a challenge to the 1998 Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act. He has won numerous awards, including the Free Software Foundation’s Freedom Award, and was named one of Scientific American’s Top 50 Visionaries, for arguing “against interpretations of copyright that could stifle innovation and discourse online.”
Professor Lessig is the author of Free Culture (2004), The Future of Ideas (2001) and Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace (1999). He chairs the Creative Commons project, and serves on the board of the Free Software Foundation, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Public Library of Science, and Public Knowledge. He is also a columnist for Wired.”