14: Copyright

Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.
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[edit] Explanation

Following the copyright wars can be tiring and irritating, but faced with the beauty of nature, the importance of such matters withers away.

Copyright is a monopoly granted by governments to writers, artists, performers, or corporations to control the distribution, copying, and performance of their creative expression or the creative expression of artists under contract with them. Before the digital age, it allowed authors and publishers an opportunity to profit from their work without fear of someone making copies and selling them for their gain.


An early casualty in the copyright wars was Napster; a later casualty was the concept of DRM (Digital Rights Management) on recorded music. The wars have been going on since the early 1990s and show no sign of slowing down.

Slashdot and Boing Boing are two news aggregation websites that cover (among other things) the copyright wars in detail, usually biased against the RIAA, MPAA, and similar organizations.

[edit] Transcript

Cueball: Sometimes I just can't get outraged over copyright law

[edit] Trivia

  • This was the 12th comic originally posted to LiveJournal.
  • Original title: "Copyright Law"
  • One of the original drawings drawn on checkered paper.




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