Forum Post: They Lose Nothing From Me

"Every time you copy a video the writers and performers lose money. That's why it's illegal."

Bullshit! If I make an archive copy of a dvd I bought that's illegal. But it shouldn't be! The media corporate masters, with the collusion of our politicians, want us to re-buy their low quality digital recordings when they go bad after a few plays. Worse, the copyrights for the immortal corporations that own them, and take most of the revenue, now last up to 150 years. The corporate villians have stolen the public domain. I'm stealing it back. The exaggerated intellectual property laws are not for the benefit of authors, screen-writers or performers. They're for immortal corporations ... not real people.

Then there's the communications I can't afford to buy. No one loses money when I download and view a TV broadcast or cable presentation. If I sold copies they'd have a legitimate complaint. But my collection allows me to participate fully in the art and communications of our time, even though I have no money to pay for it. I'm made a better person by increasing my knowledge and broadening my perspective.

I consider my participation in our culture by collecting videos I could not otherwise afford to be a liberation activity and a revolutionary act. Disney, Sony and the Corporatist politicians who do the bidding of the masters don't like my non-commercial use of their jealously guarded, excessive and hoarded intellectual property. It's in defense of freedom of speech and thought. They can eat my shorts! What I do costs them nothing.

• "They hang the man, and flog the woman,
• That steals the goose from off the common;
• But let the greater villain loose,
• That steals the common from the goose."

Anonymous, in The Tickler Magazine, February 1, 1821.