Why Copyright Needs to Be Defended - Publishing Perspectives

One thing that hasn't changed about copyright is the sheer pretentiousness of the debate around it. On one side, authors argue for the integrity of their work and publishers for their right to profit from it in an orderly marketplace. On the other side, if one takes this debate at face value, is the public that needs affordable access to all of this work - only these arguments tend to be made by other businesses that use creative work for their own ends. Now, as then, such lofty arguments conceal cruder motives: Authors and their publishers want to get paid, as do the unauthorized distributors who hide behind the supposed desires of the public. Like all authors, I am hardly immune from self-interest in these matters: I need to make a living. But we also need to recognize that technology companies that want to offer consumers access to a wider range of works than current laws allow have more than their share of self-interest as well. That's why they spend so much money lobbying for looser copyright laws.