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-- OriginalOwner_ [tinyurl.com] writes:

from the ahead-of-his-time dept.

TechDirt reports [techdirt.com]

As lawyer Cathy Gellis points out [twitter.com], at least in the US, it's likely against copyright law for many radio stations [to play nothing but Bowie's stuff for 24 hours straight as comedian Eddie Izzard suggested.]

[...]It's written directly into US Copyright law [cornell.edu] (at the bottom of the page)[1]. At some point, years ago, Congress (or, more likely, a recording industry lobbyist), wrote up rules that said online radio couldn't play too many songs in a row by a single [artist], because of the ridiculous fear that if they could, no one would buy music any more.

[...]Once again, it seems that copyright law is getting in the way of what sounds like a perfectly lovely idea: creating a day-long tribute to David Bowie. No wonder he was so keen on having copyright go away [techdirt.com] entirely.

In 2002, he gave an interview to the NY Times in which he predicted the end of copyright altogether [nytimes.com], [paywall [soylentnews.org]] as well as record labels, as they would no longer serve a useful purpose.

[1] Page does not degrade gracefully; content is invisible (without stylesheets, apparently).

Original Submission