Introduction

I'm superdave of the dis.org crew, and today I'm going to explain a little bit in generally layman's terms about what copyright law is, where copyright law is today, where it's going, almost as we sit here, and some of the more troubling effects of the current directions, especially as they apply to encryption, privacy, and electronic communication and creation in general.

I'm not a lawyer and I don't even play one on TV though I will be talking about laws and their interpretation, in particular just because I think you should be able to publish westlaw's entire oeuvre on the net since it's all public domain source anyway, doesn't mean the DA or the Judge will agree.

Hopefully this will be general without being simplistic, after all, copyright law, like speed limits, makes us all criminals. But most states don't nail you with half million dollar fines and 5 years in jail for absent minded speeding.