Is it a shame that there aren’t competing media agencies who innovate and render the MPAA/RIAA obsolete? Yes, and that’s because of *patent* law of which these agencies hold patents across almost every concept of media compression and force their release cycles and DRM through patent licensing. PLENTY OF PEOPLE ARE SCREWED OVER BY PATENT LAW (and trolling) because patent laws protect being allowed to use a concept, while copyright only affects *one specific story, or work.*

Consider that anyone who wants to make a nonlinear video editor, which is absolutely vital for making modern movies, MUST pay an “MPAA-tax” to be allowed to use MPEG formats. Also note that MPEG formats are the only ones supported by a lot of consumer hardware (I don’t mean a linux box running VideoLAN, I mean set top boxes that old people have), which means they’re still going to get paid even though all they did was buy the algorithm from someone else 5 years ago and stick it in a holding company.

Funny how in 1940s era USA, where non-commercial piracy was considered a minor (often ignored) offense there was no need to completely abolish all ideas of copyright. It simply wasn’t as big of a problem, because it focused on people who could be proven to cause actual economic theft (e.g. bootleggers selling pirate videos as their own.) Now that some cartels have used a myriad of ways to enact government corruption, we somehow need to ditch a tool they are using? Why do we not care about the laws (patents) which they abuse to actually gain enough inertia to start making copyright worse?

Consider that copyright allows competing ideas, just not *copied* ideas. Patents allow a holding company to buy up ideas and not allow anyone else to use it, akin to reserving the concept of plot twists to yourself. Suddenly, that sounds a hell of a lot more of a priority doesn’t it?

I am a poor writer that tries to sell what he can to make a living. If I let just anyone sell my book I’d not make any money to live on and they would be getting money for something they did not put any effort into. Someone please explain to me why this generation thinks they should have everything handed to them without having to lift a finger. Guess what? Your wrong. Stop trying to steal other peoples work and actually do some yourself.