Let’s be clear: copyright law is good, in general. At its core, the idea is very noble: to allow anyone to create something original and give it protection from being copied by anyone else. In practice, though, paranoia has ruined things for everyone else. A post from Videopia (thanks, Eric) titled “100 Years of Copyright Hysteria” and the associated link to Ars Technica titled “100 years of Big Content fearing technology–in its own words” are remarkable in that the nice (but paranoid) people from Hollywood and elsewhere have been fighting for a remarkably long time about copyright law.

Can you believe that John Philip Sousa, author of many a march, actually wrote a magazine article complaining about the uptake of player pianos and phonographs? And who can forget Jack Valenti’s remarkably pompous quote comparing the VCR to the Boston Strangler? (And, of course, if it wasn’t for the VCR, we at Videomaker probably wouldn’t be here; it was the miniaturization of the VCR and video cameras that led to this crazy little video revolution and the democratization of television.) Or the jaw-droppingly arrogant quote of Jamie Kellner, then-CEO of Turner, whose distaste of DVR users led him to classify anyone who even just has to use the bathroom during the commercials, as thieves?! And don’t get me started on the industry’s fights against DAT and the Diamond Rio, the granddaddy of all personal media players.

So, what will be the next innovative technology that the industry will be banding against? Why do we have to go through this every time something new comes out? Ugh. Unless this is the call to action for independent media (and really, I can’t remember the last time knowing what studio or record label put out a piece of media I was going to consume was actually a useful piece of information.)