Time To Move Beyond ‘Sharing’ and ‘Stealing’

Time To Move Beyond ‘Sharing’ And ‘Stealing’ in the Debate over Content http://t.co/qHR4XBSY Neither term helps the discussion.

Former Wired journalist, Robert Levine spoke at  at the Copyright Clearance Center’s OnCopyright 2012:

Levine called out the industry for invoking loaded terms like “stealing” and “child pornography” as a pretext to obtain draconian enforcement powers. But he also had choice words for those who frame any sort of copyright controls as inherently oppressive.

“It’s not stealing but it’s also not sharing,” said Levine. “There’s a difference between between curation and piracy. Megaupload is not curation, it’s massive illegal distribution.”

Skipping a bit further:

In practice, this means major content owners should stop trying to pass off legal sledgehammers as scalpels. To be taken seriously, they will also have argue the case for copyright controls without invoking crime and terrorism. Meanwhile, their critics will have to acknowledge that thugs like Megaupload’s Kim Dotcom aren’t paragons of civic expression and that some forms of intellectual property are acceptable.

Indeed.