The Guardian: Copyright law should distinguish between…

The Guardian: Copyright law should distinguish between commercial and cultural uses
Cory Doctorow

In theory, there’s just one set of copyright rules and they apply to everyone, from Sony Pictures to your neighbour’s eight-year-old who wants to photocopy his Spider-Man comics and sell them to the other kids.

Regardless of who wants to make a new Spider-Man comic, movie or other derivative work, that person has to hire a lawyer, have that lawyer call up Marvel Comics, set up a call or a face-to-face, negotiate a contract, sign it, pay a fee, and report on their ongoing uses, opening their books for auditing and inspection.

Sony Pictures can do this. It can send lawyers to Marvel and Marvel will send its lawyers back to Sony. Everyone gets to sit at a long table and hammer out the deal, then they issue a press release and go into production.

But little Timmy can’t do it. He never could. And yet when you talk to comic book creators, they’ll tell you that they got started by drawing copies of other peoples’ work.