Guardian columnist Victor Keegan recently joined a growing chorus of forward-thinking people in calling for lawmakers to roll-back or at least counter-balance the ever-tightening regime of copyright law. Keegan laments the efforts of entrenched Hollywood interests to further extend the lifespan of copyright protection and calls for lawmakers to tip the balance of copyright law in favour of users and amateur creators.

Here’s an excerpt from what Keegan had to say in the Guardian:

We are now living in a digital age of instant and cheap availability, meshing and remixing and of mass creativity, with increasing numbers of creators prepared to give their services free (as in much of the open source movement). We need fresh regulations for a new age before we cave into the demands of the producers as they try to get draconian rules put in place before the shutters come down on the old world. . .

The creative economy is vitally important, but the way to nurture it is to follow the winds of the information revolution and not the desire of existing corporations to preserve a business model that has been turned upside down by the revolution taking place in virtually every creative industry.

Keegan’s right — we need a level playing field on which new forms of co-creation and innovation can flourish. If Hollywood titans succeed in locking up their vast archives of media content for a further twenty years it would certainly be a setback for open content initiatives, but it will most certainly not be a death knell. The regulatory measures deployed by incumbents amount to temporary stopgaps, not sources of enduring competitive advantage. In any case, a more balanced approached to the way we recognize, encourage, and reward knowledge production will be driven by viable new business models that can fuel value creation in intellectual property intensive industries, not by changes in the law.

Check out a longer version of my post for a deeper look at this issue.