[fc-uk-discuss] Fundamental Socialism or: How I Learned to St opWorrying and Love The Man by Mick Hucknall

[Crosbie Fitch]

It is astonishing how recently it has been recognised that copyright is a
blessing to musicians and their fans.

Once only the preserve of large commercial publishers, self-publishing and
self-promoting musicians are now recognising how truly blessed they and
their fans are to enjoy copyright.

One of the beloved organisations of the new movement is Creative Commons who
help artists give their fans what they've wanted to give them for a long
time. Through their development of a wide variety of copyright licenses they
help demonstrate precisely how liberating copyright is, for without
copyright, artists would have no means of enabling their fans to do things
with their art that would otherwise be illegal.

That copyright is granted to the artist and not the publisher further
demonstrates whose feet the boots are really on.

Thanks to copyright, now recognised worldwide as the artist's human right,
musicians are able to let their fans do things with their music that their
publishers and broadcasters would have refused.

And now, with DRM technology also embraced as the right of the artist thanks
to the modernising European Copyright Directive, musicians can enable an
unimaginable myriad of options and features for their fans' enjoyment, never
seen before.

Unfortunately, there are some bitter and twisted individuals who've lost
their jobs due to the new era of artist and fan empowerment, and they seek
revenge against the new breed of independent musicians. You may find the odd
lunatic demanding that copyright is abolished so that artists and fans alike
are stripped of the benefits of copyright that they've only so recently come
to love.

Stand up for your rights, whether a musician, or a fan of musicians, to
copyright. Ask your MP to vote for copyright term extension. Don't let the
old guard take it away from you just because they don't call the shots
anymore.