Curse of the Greedy Copyright Holders (opens in new tab)

Ken Bruen writes crime fiction. When I first discovered his work years ago, each of his chapters would begin with a quote from someone else's novel (attributed). I got introduced very quickly to a lot of other great writers. Then the effing lawyers moved in. This wasn't Fair Use -- so pay us. As you see in the WSJ article, the prices demanded have no relation to reality whatsoever. Ever since that time, Bruen has used public domain quotes. I can't think of a single writer who would have objected to Bruen's use. Because writers love what he did. But when publishers, lawyers, and agents get involved, the common well of culture is drained dry by their greed.

Then there are the copy-free positions that some people espouses, but ignored because people think such an idea is nuts.

A major libertarian think tank did think it's an alright idea, going as far as giving away free PDF and put their entire content empire under the Creative Common Attribution. Not exactly public domain, but they don't want people to claims copyright over it and prevent the institution from being able to publish it. I heard that they are even asking for bit torrent expert and seeders. In the end, they still managed to sell a healthy amount of books.

The copyfree position is a revolution that is taking place within libertarianism. IP was a controversy, but gradually, the anti-IP position has won out. To that extent, business models are changed, too.

It could be a precursor of things to come in mainstream society.

> When I asked to use a single line by songwriter Joe Henry, for example, his record label's parent company demanded $150 for every 7,500 copies of my book.

Not sure on what basis they are demanding that money as the record label does not hold any copyright over the lyrics of a song. Song lyrics copyrights belong to the songwriter and the publisher, if the song is published.