It seems the author has just noticed copyright isn't as beneficial to society as the media moguls make out. It doesn't just effect documentaries. This government granted monopoly on creative ideas has been holding back the expression of new ideas in every endeavour for at least 1/2 a century now.

Copyright over the commercial life of the work (2 to 5 years, for the vast majority of works), is a definite win. It was created to encourage the publishing of more books, to allow the publishers to take greater risks on new material, and it worked. I vaguely recall the initial period being 7 years when introduced. Since then its been extended over and over again, so now from memory its lifetime of the author + 50 years. As far as I can tell, this has happened as a result of American publishing houses making donations to American politicians. The last extension was dubbed the "Micky Mouse Act", because it was extended at Disney's request when its copyrights on Mickey Mouse were about to expire.

The result is the perverse outcome that rather than enhancing creativity as it was meant to, it now does the reverse and holds it back. Publishers can make more money on re-publishing old works they have a monopoly over (sorry "copyright on"), than taking risks on finding new works to publish - the very thing copyright was meant to promote.

Personally, I have had enough of US politics to last me a lifetime.

yet another excuse to push the global warning de-bait ,

but the REAL issue im presuming is intellectual copyright,upon which i have an opinion

i have posted for three years [on numerous websites about 2 pages of INTELECTUAL copy per day FOR FREE]

im just one of those who dont get no copyright fees,and am flat out geting heard and not banned by some professional troll sent to shut my words down.

but lets get back to your dead planet
how is carbon credit going to save the plan-et?

you see money cant do nuthin but be lent and repaid in money
but as the intrest isnt created [only the debt]
how is this credit going to get repaid [we know by whom[the poor]

feel free to debate
but us working FOR money
and bankers not working got us here

then paying MONEY for us to work
[work needs power,if only to take me to work ,to build the factory etc]

so the carbon credit cant be used for production
[cause that is more co2]

so the money is for bribe
but bribe to who[to do what]

why shutdown industry of course[if we cut electricity supply for half a day [the carbon credit gets paid because we cut carbon]neat trick eh

so who sets the price on these new global tax franchise carbon credits
[the big buisness bankers of course]

who via fractional reserve lending, interbank securities trading and face value stock certificate or proisory note[and currency]exchanges of their 'equity'

WHO will leverage the tax take ten fold,and be made into securities while traders take their cut [bonus] and save the fine-ant-i-al sector[read bankers]who have bankrupted the credit markets to buy up the real economy ,with their various paper securities and credits for fiat paper

trouble is people expect logic in this world
,but cant reason things out

[thus my ideas should have some copy right as well, but im not holding my breath ,[all i have is a habit of getting banned once my posts get near the half thousand [500]

Of course, I agree.

However I would extend Nalaka's argument to all intellectual property.

As I have written elsewhere, we need a new business model that adequately remunerates people who produce any intellectual property of worth to others, particularly documentaries about the environment, without needlessly denying that material to millions of people.

In a nutshell, these should be paid for out of our taxes.

A good start would be to massively expand the budgets of publicly owned broadcasting networks such as the ABC and the BBC so they could either produce more documentaries or contract to other producers such as Nalaka Gunawardene to create documentaries.

Once produced they should be distributed freely.