Happy new year everyone…

I’m celebrating by disgarding my CD jewel cases. The way I see it, there’s no point in me paying to ship them anywhere, so I’m starting to crack them open, placing the inlays along with the disc in an individual bag (I bought 1000 of them from Bags Unlimited).

The coming of another year has also made people more aware that copyright law in Europe is different from copyright law in the USA. This interesting New York Times article includes a nice summation from Lawrence Lessig (who seems to say things in a way that is very quoteable):

“When works enter the public domain, the consequence is extraordinary variety and lower costs,” said Professor Lawrence Lessig of Stanford University Law School, who argued a challenge to a 1998 extension of the United States copyright law before the Supreme Court.

The Callas recordings, for example, “will be taken and put into a million different content spheres,” he said, adding, “they will be encouraged and sold in ways not done now.”

This is all the more true because of the Internet, he said. Once copyrighted works pass into the public domain, Professor Lessig said, “a wide range of copies — high quality and low — will quickly be available, always and for free.” He sees even this scenario as beneficial. “People ask, how could you ever compete with free?” he said. “Think: Perrier, or Poland Spring.”