Twelve Major Chords reviews Weezer's "Raditude", saving me the effort.

Update - I also agree with Undercover's review of Raditude. End Update

Weezer have tried all sorts of internet magic to promote "Raditude" including starting a meme based on the jumping-dog cover, selling the album for US$3.99 on Amazon MP3 and releasing Weezer branded Snuggies.

Personally I don't like the album (bought for AUS$19.99 at a real CD store), although I haven't yet given it a fair airing.

I have been hoping to find the time to listen through all of the band's albums again and give a brief review of each.

One day...

I think TMC hits the nail on the head, arguing that River's personal mission to perfect popular music was perhaps achieved with Weezer's first album (nicknamed "Blue"), making further attempts fun, but ultimately doomed to fail in comparison.

Notes to self:

• The differences between "copy right" (ie. the right to copy, publish, re-publish) and acknowledging authorship (ie. plagiarism, non-authors exploiting for gain, selling or signing over copyrights to others),
• trademarks are not "copy right", patents are not "copy right", privacy is not "copy right", secrets are not "copy right", libel is not "copy right",
• how copyright gets in the way of history (old newspapers, old photographs, "deleted" publications, censorship, "unpublication"),
• the realities of the internet, instant publication, instant free copying, and an instant potential audience of billions,
• how should be deal with public domain content being locked behind pay walls,
• and is there and should there be a difference between sharing for free and selling or using for gain?

Discuss?

Update: A great many of my questions are answered (in the context of current law) by the Caslon Analytics Intellectual Property Guide.

But not all.

I've gone off my idea of digital content needing it's own copyright amendment... I'm leaning more toward an amendment being required to cover the reality that the digital/internet world allows for easy copying. But I'll get to that later...

Some background.

From the abstract of Frames from the Framers: How America's Revolutionaries Imagined Intellectual Property by Lewis Hyde:

For some, the fruits of creativity should be "common stock," as free and general as air or water, and therefore the estate in question should not be a private holding but more like the old agricultural commons. For others, private estates were fine, but no one should monopolize their fruits. Copyright and patent were understood to be monopolies, and unchecked monopolies were understood as social evils.

I enjoyed reading this piece because unlike most commentary on the history of copyright, it starts much earlier, before the U.S. Constitution, and talks about copyright at its core. How do you offer protection to an idea? Once an idea is shared, how can you prevent its spreading without compensation to the "creator"?

So copyright is a monopoly provided to a creator to allow them to make the most of their creation.

But.

Frequently in the past monopolies were used to suppress ideas. Examples in the essay include the government/church in England using it's printing press monopoly to suppress ideas and huge taxes on learning and printing to prevent the poor from being educated.

Monopolies for these reasons were seen as a social evil and should always be avoided.

As such, copyright was always meant to be a limited monopoly, lasting about as long as the average life from the start of adulthood to death. Most initial copyright implementations allowed for a renewable after expiry if the creator was still alive. At the time of the U.S. Constitution, with the help of actuarial tables of standard life spans, this was decided to be 19 years.

For an overview of how copyright duration has changed over the years, particularly in the context of life-spans, see Duration of Copyright: Overview from Caslon Analytics, a company who appear to exist entirely to "[provide] expert advice about electronic publishing, marketing, commerce and regulation of the net."

The Caslon Analytics overview leans more toward copyright protection rather than "copyright is evil." It's important reading for those frequently flooded with anti-copyright messages.