As a professor, I write programs, papers and am currently working on a book. All these activities involve creating copyrighted content. The people of my State pay me to do this, as I work for a State university. So, you are probably thinking that my situation is a bit like Bono and the other 'creative' sorts? Nothing could be further from the truth.
Once I have written a paper, it needs to go through peer review, via the blind referee process. This is all good and stops me publishing silly stuff. The next step is where the copyright problem arises.
Once I have a paper accepted, it is necessary for me to assign the copyright to the publishers of the journal. No copyright assignment, no publication. It is as simple as that. So, who gets the fruits of my labors? Big multi-national corporations. What did they do to get this intellectual content? Absolutely bugger all, other than rigging the system! What about the people of my State who paid for my hard work? They get nothing. If they want to read my papers, they have to buy them from the journal (at $15 per paper and up), or visit a library. Libraries have to pay for a journal subscription ($750 per annum and up).
Thus, all this 'creativity' and copyright bleating is clearly bollocks. It is just a case of the powerful folks using rhetoric to fight for their monopoly 'rights'. I don't care to participate, but am forced to. Of course, I also run an e-journal where the authors retain copyright, but that is another story. My little act of subversion.
Don't fall for all this 'starving artist' rubbish. My bet is that we professors in our professional bondage produce more per year than the people represented by the members of both the RIAA and the MIAA, put together. I wonder what those crooks, or their mouth pieces, would have to say in response to that claim? I bet we will never hear.
"We are led by fools who waste our lives". Copyright is a good idea which has now been subverted into a scam and it sucks.
I often do something fairly similar. I'll go to pick up something and end up cruising in the stacks. There I will browse. When browsing I'll often see something I want to read. The question then is do we have it? With the Opera Browser loaded into my Nintendo DS, I can login to the WiFi link and pull up the catalog. When I'm done, I shut the DS, drop it into a pocket and move on. It works like a dream! Also, even if the kit is bought new, it is pretty cheap too. I bet with second hand equipment, it could be got for under $100. Oh yes, the few students who have seen me do this seem to think that it is pretty cool too.
I remember Muddog well. It was my first mud and burned up many hours of grad school there. Wells2k, thanks for many a good time there! I am still in touch with Kane, Labatt, Semtex, Taylor and a few of the old crew. Many of them moved on to VargonMud, when the place shut. Not only was it one of the funniest muds of all time, with some bizarre twists (who can forget the Spy shades, or the Bucket O'Love!), it was also an amazing community. This is one of the things that modern visual games lack.
Not only that, Muddog spawned a whole interest in muds for academic uses. The Maud (Multi-Academic User Domain) architecture came about from Muddog discussions. It was used for a while as a distance teaching tool. I'd love to hear from some of the Muddog old timers, should any be on here and not posting as anon.
Nomad of Muddog
1 + 1 = 3, for large values of 1.