Re:Stop Downloading Crap Music? (Score 1)

I sell a painting for a couple of hundred bucks and someone sells the painting for a thousand - should I be getting a share because I'm the original painter? Should I get a share of what that painting goes for at every sale? "Intellectual property" the way the media companies want you to believe it to be is that the artist should be benefiting from every use of their intellectual property for the life of the artist.

I think you fail to see the difference between the physical object and the intellectual property. They are in fact separate. Transfer of the physical painting does not automatically transfer the rights to the intellectual property (the image). Sure, they are free to sell the physical painting for what ever value they can get someone to pay for it (I will kick myself for not selling it for more in the first place, but there is nothing I can do about that).

However, if the buyer were to scan the painting and distribute copies (physical or digital, for money or not, does not matter), you can bet I as the artist would have something to say about it and would have legal recourse. If for whatever reason I had transferred the rights to the image to someone else they would be perfectly in their rights to go after the person.