cooking up the offense like he's cooking ravioli

Last Saturday on the morning walk with Rachel, I stopped by the bookstore and picked up Freedom of Expression – Overzealous Copyright Bozos and Other Enemies of Creativity by Kembrew McLeod. In 1998, McLeod trademarked the phrase “freedom of expression”, as a statement on our society’s overzealous desire to trademark EVERYTHING, with the USPTO. I completely enjoyed this book – as if it wasn’t obvious enough by 50 page per day pace and studying enough to (hopefully) ace my network routing midterm.

<p>Like many of the books and essays I have read before, McLeod argues that innovation and creativity stem from previous work and cutting off access to the past halts progress. I don&#8217;t completely agree with the <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonny_Bono_Copyright_Term_Extension_Act'>Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act</a> and I don&#8217;t agree the <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DMCA'>Digital Millennium Copyright Act</a> at all. We don&#8217;t prosecute gun manufacturers or auto makers, but both of their products can be used to break the law, which is why I feel it completely unfair to criminalize programming and innovation. As for the <a href='http://elvispelvis.com/bonosonny.jpg'>Sonny Bono</a> thing, while I feel like I should be sympathetic to companies like Disney that expect Steamboat Willie to remain copyrighted, I don&#8217;t. For starters, Steamboat Willie itself parodied Steamboat Bill, Jr. and Disney has used many of Grim&#8217;s Fairy Tales (I know I am close, which fairy tales were they actually?) for their own movies. Walt created a massive empire (and I am thankful he did &#8211; Disneyland truly is the happiest place on earth) thanks to the public domain. It wouldn&#8217;t hurt them to contribute to something they have so greatly benefited from.</p>

<p>So in conclusion, the book was good.</p>