Letters to the Editor

This letter is associated with the following article:
Read other letters about this article
Defendant owes $222,000 for illegal downloading
The worst possible outcome -- a fine too high to bear, but likely too low to cause much effort at reforming copyright laws.
By Farhad Manjoo [2007-10-04]

  • @had-enough: Reasonable copyright would not be a pirates heaven...

    "You write 24 original songs, and then see them stolen thousands of times, "

    Then why did you release it? If you don't want your song "stolen" why bother recording it at all?

    I'm the son of a ASCAP registered songwriter who got some royalties from Acuff-Rose published songs she wrote. I'm not saying songwriters shouldn't get royalties.

    For 20 years, no more. Stop this life-plus-70 year nonsense.

    And they shouldn't be able to sell the copyrights. A copyright should be tied to the author forever; they can have ASCAP manage royalty collection.

    Comments like the one you wrote usually come from people who dream of fast riches with a hit song, not journeymen writers who make a reasonable income from performance.

    American law shouldn't be written to ensure a continual stream of income from one act of production. It's your job to figure out how to make money from your writing, if you do any.

    -- grubert
    [Read grubert's other letters]
    Thursday, October 4, 2007 03:39 PM
Read other letters about this article

Letters Help