The Rise Of “Illegal Art”

“Around the country, copyright concerns are fueling a grassroots movement that brings together artists frustrated by the corporate lock on popular-culture icons, musicians pondering the distribution of their work in the era of sampling and Napster, and technophiles worried about the ways that new digital copyright-protection technology is fencing in the formerly wide open electronic frontier. More than protecting those who create, this growing chorus of critics says, the current copyright system serves to enrich big corporations, stifle innovation, silence social criticism, and impoverish the culture.”