I'll Take More Copyright Infringement, Please.
by Rebecca Kemp a.k.a. The Web Goddess

The revolution has a strange bedfellow: copyrights. Everywhere on the news you hear the latest "who's suing who" over copyright infringement. Well, speaking as an artist and designer, you all need to chill the fuck out.

Lemme explain...

Let's take Napster. How can I, as an artist, who creates original works and posts them on-line for all the world to see, go to bed at night with a clear conscience, after downloading some of the greatest hits of the 80's, for free and without permission from Wang Chung or Men Without Hats?

Easily.

For the same reason that since I've posted my work on-line for all the world to look at, for free, that my sales of my work has gone up. That's right. I said my sales have gone up.

Wanna know something else? The record sales industry has not reported any monetary losses since the start of Napster's popularity.

So what's with the law suits? Two words: Fear and Ignorance.

People are afraid of losing money. Not that that's actually happened mind you, but someone told them it could happen. People are uneducated in the ways of how the Internet works. Most sixty year old judges' experiences with the Net is what they've read in lawyers' reports.

This is how the Internet works, folks, in case you're one of the uneducated. Everything is based upon a global community of sharing ideas and expressing ourselves. The Internet is here to allow us to introduce ourselves, our companies, our products, our families and our cock-a-mamie ideas to the whole world. All of this is free. If it's not free, your website will perish, eventually.

So how does anything get sold on the Net? You hear of the dot-commers making millions out there. How do they do that when everything is supposed to be free?

This is where you come in, folks. It's your dollars that keep the Internet free.

Huh? Has the Goddess lost Her mind? Well, yeah, but Van Gogh was nuts, and he was also a genius.

Every time someone buys one of my prints, that gives me that good "third wine cooler feeling" to paint more and post more work on-line. Granted, for every print I sell, about a hundred people download the image for free and plaster it up as their computer screen wallpaper. That's copyright infringement. That's illegal (at least in the USA) and I would be lying if I said it didn't irk me a little. However, I'd gladly let a hundred more people download my work for free for more exposure because more exposure means more sales. Period. It's a mathematical fact.

Ok, so now millions of people are downloading songs for free at Napster. Songs that are no longer published by the record companies. Songs that will never be published by record companies. Songs that would never be heard are being heard. Artists that were ripped off by the record companies are now finding new fame, and even new fortunes.

I have not stopped buying the occasional CD. Have you? Probably not. Have you stopped buying books because we print stories for free? Not likely. Have you found a great story here that you never knew existed? I bet you have. If the author of that story published a book, would you buy it? I bet you would. I'd also bet the publishing industry hoped you wouldn't. That's why they are suing everyone. Don't they sound foolish to you now? That's because you are now an educated Internet user, and clearly, they are not.

Having said that the Internet is free, and having said that it's your dollars that keep it that way, please be a generous reader. If you find any story here that has moved you in some way, please encourage us to post more free stories by donating a couple bucks to the author. Coffee and booze costs money, y'know. We gotta keep fueling the authors somehow!

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