Good Guys and Bad Guys in the Media Biz

I and some friends are trying to compile a list of various notable musicians, artists, and the like who are more or less good on copyright, and those who are particularly bad. For “good” we mean they explicitly oppose copyright or at least fight for their fans and against some of the excesses of draconian copyright. For the bad, we mean those who use the power of the state to attack their fans and/or hypocrites who pretend to be for peace and love and condemn capitalism and commercialism while greedily condoning the use of state copyright law to persecute innocent people. I’ll list a few on both sides below; other suggestions or comments are welcome as are any links documenting the good/bad IP status of individuals listed below; I’ll update this list from time to time.

Good

• Beastie Boys
• Ani DiFranco
• Cory Doctorow
• Neil Gaiman
• Don Henley
• Nina Paley
• OK Go
• Radiohead
• Nine Inch Nails/Trent Reznor
• Phish
• Weird Al Yankovich

Bad

• Greg Bear (Greg Bear, Others Cry Foul on Project Gutenberg Copyright Call)
• Bob Dylan (hypocrite)
• Disney
• John “Cougar” Mellencamp
• Metallica
• Bono/U2
• Gene Simmons
• Metallica

About Stephan Kinsella (201 Posts)

Stephan is an attorney and libertarian writer in Houston, Director of the Center for the Study of Innovative Freedom (C4SIF), and the founder and editor of Libertarian Papers. His most recent book is Property, Freedom, and Society: Essays in Honor of Hans-Hermann Hoppe (co-editor, with Jörg Guido Hülsmann; Mises Institute, 2009).

Tagged as: copyright, Cory Doctorow, Gene Simmons, music industry, U2