Battleangel

Perhaps the most remarkable and repugnant twist in the intellectual property conflict in a long time.

Telegraph - The internet download wars hotted up this week with one of the world’s biggest music companies, Warner Chappell, leading a crackdown on websites that offer free song lyrics, scores and guitar licks.

Executives at Warner Chappell are fed up with internet entrepreneurs “ripping off” songs - from perennial favourites such as Happy Birthday and Rhapsody in Blue to the music of Madonna and Sir Elton John.

The firm has shut down a leading “freeware” operator, an Australian-based website called pearLyrics, by issuing a “cease and desist” letter from London, claiming it enabled people to copy and download copyrighted lyrics.

Again, it would be acceptable if people were clearly making money off of these lyrics but the precedent it sets by launching a volley against a known freeware developer in the field kind of tells us where this is going. We’ve been down this road and we know where is leads. One does not have to be too conspiratorial to envision a society where these trends have run their course and corporate culture entities have turned what little commons we have left into intellectual property. The only reason to allow this sort of market economy is precisely if the “rules” are not enforced so stringently.