Such a sweet story...

Once upon a time there were two large media compaines that were enemies.

And the lawyers made lots of money and lived happily ever after.

Why don't these companies get it?

I just don't understand why these entertainment companies don't get it.

Now yes, I do realize that there are no shortage of more-or-less illegally uploaded video clips out there. Don't get me wrong--I don't claim that Youtube or Google is 100% in the right on this. I am sure that a lot of the users who have uploaded the material in question didn't really intend to infringe anyone's rights--they did it because the material might be hard to find, really worth seeing or some other relatively good reason. (There I go again, always assuming the best. I also know that this is not 100% correct.)

I can't help but think that if the two sides weren't so busy swearing at one another, that Viacom could find a way to work with this, and learn from the experiences of the music industry here. I'd hope that there was some intelligent person at Viacom that could say "you know, swearing and suing our way through this is no way to do it". There has got to be a way to make all parties happy here.

The music industry has come around to the point of taking a few tentative steps out of their shell. How long will it take for the television and movie companies to do the same?

The question I /really/ want to ask, however, is this: when is someone going to pick up the muckrake and start giving copyright law the reform it so desperately needs? (It's actually the most seriously broken for those of us into vintage computing and the preservation of such, but that has little to do with this problem.)