The deception of “buying” digital movies
Copyright, as it exists in the 21st century, is a scam.<p>It does not protect the artists, the creative works, or the little guy. It is a product of decades&#x27; worth of lobbying by very rich and powerful organizations and megacorps.<p>I&#x27;m not against the idea of a copyright. An artist has the right to enjoy the fruits of their labor, and creative works do have value.<p>However, the original idea of copyright has been bent, broken, dismembered, and sown back together in a Frankensteinian abomination and now serves only to line up pockets of people in the publishing industry. And the US has, through its trade deals, exported this thing worldwide.<p>Disney lobbies for life of author + 70 years copyright duration not out of goodwill towards authors (in fact, it&#x27;s been trying to wriggle out of paying royalties to some of them!). Amazon uses copyright as an excuse to push DRM, locking out competition and limiting users&#x27; rights (Kindle, Audible DRM). DMCA is constantly abused to take down fair-use content.<p>Meanwhile, book authors are struggling to find a reason to write books, since many barely recoup the costs. Musicians decry royalties paid out by Spotify (that aren&#x27;t actually so small, but the majority of the cut is taken by the music industry). Photographers try in vain to stop people just copy&#x2F;pasting their photos online (what are they going to do, sue everyone?), including in some cases big companies that didn&#x27;t even bother to check the copyright.<p>They aren&#x27;t being protected. They are being milked.