As far as thinly veiled larks against big-business (read: recording industry)copyright go, the one posted on slashdot this morning pointing at worldofends.com was a nominally interesting morning skim. It basically sums up (on the lines) some fundamental rules or concepts about what the internet is — an agreement with little mindless bits flowing moving because of it — and (between the lines) that business and industry in their attempts to control it will fail miserably because they just don’t get it.

I especially liked the quote from John Gilmore: “The Internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.”

Irregardless, my thoughts about copyright remain firm. I don’t really buy CDs anymore. It’s not that I get all (or any) of them in mp3 format from various sources — it’s that I find almost zero value in the product these days. I have the music I want. I don’t often listen to top-forty radio, so I don’t hear anything really new. And the industry threatens to sue me (in the vast essence that I am part of humanity, and they are suing parts of that group) every time we don’t use their product by their dated rules. “Glorified mix-tapes,” I think was the term I heard. (Sorry, Jess. Give me some mp3s of your work and we’ll sell them from my site!)

I would still argue the culture-mod reference: music is my mind-drug. They (and we ourselves) lavish it upon us through multiple media sources — but when we try to control that fragement of our own cultural expression, they attempt to cut us off and limit our access to the popular mentality. When music, unlike structured entertainment, enters our minds it instantly becomes fluid with society. I will gladly pay for it’s distribution — though only a fair price — but I have complete ownership of what is in my head.

DVDs, on the other hand: my few feeble attempts at movie piracy have made it perfectly clear that the film industry IS giving us that little bit of extra value that encourages me to continue paying for their products. I’ll still shell out a few bucks for a good movie (or PS2 game for that matter.) That, and movies are structured in a way that music is not. They have a form that is tangible beyond music, pictures, sounds, words, or story combined. They are encapulated and while they become a fragemtn of pop-culture, there is a higher magnitude of devotion there, and most of us choose to partake consciously.