Thomas de Groot <tho### [at] degrootorg> wrote:
> Thanks indeed for the info. This is very comprehensive. While the basis 
> for the copyright use may be sound and understandable in "normal" 
> circumstances, including the "Abmahnung" on internet for the protection 
> of private interest (I think Stephen was hinting in that direction), it 
> seems to me that excesses are prone to happen as is shown by a couple of 
> examples cited in the source. I am afraid that often either greed is the 
> real motive behind some of the actions, or simply misunderstanding of 
> the rules to sheer and blind enforcement of authority in the case of 
> anti-terrorism. My confidence in humankind is not excessively large...

One big problem with this whole issue is that many big companies are
claiming copyright on things that they do not really have a right to
(or even if they own the rights, they are trying to shut completely
fair use) and they are getting away with it, successfully.

The thing is, if a huge megacorporation sends a cease&desist demand to
an individual person, in 99.99% of cases that person will comply even
if he/she didn't have to, for the sole reason that they are too afraid
of legal action. Even if they would clearly win, going through a legal
process is very stressful (especially for someone who has zero experience
on that) and time-consuming. Worse still, there's always that tiny chance
that you will actually lose and have to pay big money to the corporation.
No sane person is going to take even that small risk just because of one
silly picture or video. Thus the big corporation gets away with it even
in cases where they would clearly lose the legal battle if it went that
far.

Basically, big corporations bully people into submission by spuriously
threatening legal action. And there's nothing that can be done about that,
and that's a big problem in today's world.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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