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- "The MPAA, RIAA, and every other entertainment industry body tells us how copyright enforcement is for the benefit of the artists. What they don't tell you is that nearly all musical art is based on other work, be it conscious or subconscious. The chase for money as a result of 2 bars from a folk song being used in a rock song led to the untimely and completely avoidable passing of a member of the band that recorded "Down Under". Congratulations to those that chase and enforce copyright — you ultimately brought about the passing of those whom you profess to serve through those very actions. Is it not yet time to rethink the purpose and pursuit of copyright? Or do we need to destroy the lives of more artists?"
I wonder if support groups for artist like this would have helped this man. Say if he could have gotten together with Biz Marque, Vanilla Ice and Rod Stewart to talk about their shared experiences with facing litigation for stealing other peoples melodies, maybe things wouldn't have turned out like they did.
I don't really thing this is one of the cases where MPAA or RIAA ran amok, but there are many such cases. If a court of law determines that you stole someone eases work, you should forfeit your profit to that work and pay the owner of that work, regardless weather you are conscious of the theft or not. I do think that copyright duration is longer then it really should be, but you see artist that have weathered the storm of copyright litigation and gone on to have careers and lives that were decent. This guy just couldn't weather that storm, it's sad, but it's not something that should have severed his desire to live.