ASCAP Claiming That Creative Commons Must Be Stopped

Found on Techdirt on Thursday, 24 June 2010
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We've actually noticed a growth in both the number of hilarious conspiracy-midned "attack blogs" from people tied to ASCAP, as well as an increase in the number of "anonymous" commenters on the site coming from IP addresses used by a few law firms that have connections to ASCAP.

Now it appears they're stepping things up to stage two: they've sent around fundraising emails that specifically ask for money to fight Creative Commons, EFF and Public Knowledge. What's amusing (but really sad) is that this proves that the rhetoric out of ASCAP about protecting "artists' rights" is bunk.

ASCAP's blatant attack on Creative Commons (and EFF and PK; both of whom focus on consumer rights, but not undermining artist's rights at all) shows their true colors. They're not about artists' rights at all.

The entertainment industry has of course no interest in giving more rights to artists. It's the same way the food industry talks about a better treatment of animals, but as soon as it can milk more out of the cow for less food, it will do so. If an artist decides to release works under the Creative Commons license, no industry has any right at all to question this.