“Industries of Middlemen”
Another audience member said she worked at a small film studio, doing clearances for copyrighted works to appear in movies (simply having a movie on in the background of another movie requires a release, at least according to the MPAA) and most of the time the artists involved all said it was fine – it was the studio lawyers who stood in the way.
And that’s really the problem, isn’t it? There are these industries of middlemen – RIAA, MPAA – that claim to “protect artists” but what they’re really protecting is themselves. Artists (and I include myself in that word) need to rise up and tell these people to go get stuffed. We can decide when a mashup is perfectly fine with us. We can decide to embrace file traders to build awareness of our work. We don’t need you anymore. You’re just holding us back.
Via John Gruber.
Referenced in Protecting the artists.