Series links:

• Part 1 - Introduction
• Part 2 - Copyright and the Public Domain
• Part 3 - Copyright and Technology
• Part 4 - Positioning Copyright
• Part 5 - Policing Patents
• Part 6 - Closing Comments (This page!)

What Does It All Mean?

If you think that copyright law, patent law and intellectual property has nothing to do with you, you're wrong.

These laws were created to protect artists, authors, composers and inventors.

But their creations can be sold to large corporations, who aren't reasonable humans and have a duty to maximise profit.

It's Not Anti-Corporate, It's Pro-Responsibility

Of course, not all corporations are evil. And this isn't an anti-corporation rant. There are some very unreasonable creators out there too. It's just that it's the corporations who do the most damage when being unreasonable.

We have spent hundreds of years refining the rights of creators, whilst barely touching the rights of the consumers.

But worse, we have spent that time putting in place many consequences for abuse of the rights by consumers, without ever putting in similarly strict consequences for abuse of rights by creators.

Balance

All I want is balance.

If you're going to get a monopoly from society, you should behave yourself with it.

It seems that more and more who hold the creator's rights can't do that. So before we give them any more rights, we should put some balances in.

That's it, really.