Egypt Loses Motherfucking Mind, Soul
News from the BBC is that the Egyptian government is going to try to copyright replicas of all its antiquities including (or especially, rather) the Pyramids and the Sphinx. Boo.
Correspondents say the law will deal a blow to themed resorts across the world where large-scale copies of Egyptian artefacts are a crowd-puller.
Mr Hawass said the law would apply to full-scale replicas of any object in any museum in Egypt.
You know, Egypt was ruled by Macedonians for hundreds of years (Cleopatra, for instance, was a Ptolemy), and they built a lot of shit. I wonder if good ol’ Macedon is going to see any of this filthy lucre.
“Even if it is for private use, they must have permission from the Egyptian government,” he added.
That’s just mean, but this is what happens when you create laws that equate “copying” with “stealing” and don’t put a time limit on them. Let’s say 3,000 years is the new cut-off. That should make Disney happy.
Thu., Dec. 27, 2007
Reader Comments (5)
In a job interview yesterday someone asked me about my "interest" in intellectual property law.
Five minutes of pure Santosis rank later, I could breathe again. Here's two strains of thought I remember coming out of my mouth:
"Hey, anyone remember when academic fair use was an important issue? Remember when the public was invited and expected to comment and repurpose cultural production? Remember when academics were allowed to reproduce cultural productions as a form of critical engagement? Kiss all that goodbye."
Here's another one:
"Why are we using laws that were invented before physical mediation to try and manage digital file-sharing? Our intellectual property standards were intended to protect sheet music! And now, instead of revising our laws to open materials to more people and to share our nearly unlimited resources, we have the Bono act attempting to lock things up for a hundred years rather than the 20 that the forefathers laid out. Ridiculous. I can't tell you how many multimedia projects I have in a box that I would love to share online and can't because students use a copyrighted song, or an image, or a brief video clip. Ridiculous. Sampling is not stealing: it is a creative repurposing, a critical activity, and more an more a central part of our postmodern culture."
And now you are trying to tell me that someone is trying to copyright simulacra of a wonder of the ancient world.
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Yeesh, somebody got up on the wrong side of Lawrence Lessig's bed this morning.
Big ups to Ptolemy. Every time I see his name in print I weep, get high, and then spank it a little.
Copyrighting the Pyramids would be just one dimension more ridiculous than copyrighting triangles, wouldn't it?
It's like copyrighting the concept of bricks. Can you imagine how much money you would make, while at the same time fucking up the rest of the world? That's the level of, "I don't give a fuck, I just want my money," that's operating here.