What goes around

[The Beatles]

The efforts of the RIAA and MPAA and the official governmental condemnation of the Chinese government by the U.S. government on copyright grounds only becomes ironic when you notice that the tables were quite the reverse a mere century ago.

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=963540#PaperDownload

That paper is a brief summary of the endless bother Gilbert & Sullivan (a smash late-Victorian opera-writing duo -- in fact, their names are still household names in many parts of the globe) had with unlicensed American productions (the term was called piracy even then) of their operas. They were never successful in getting many royalties out of America, despite most Americans knowing a few of their tunes, such was their exposure.

The situation is only reversed, of course, because America has overtaken Britain in volume of cultural output since then. So the profit is in the other direction.

For reference, I have much the same attitude to both claims, i.e. I do not side with them. The situation is only different in that the RIAA/MPAA's strong-arming tactics are unacceptable and ridiculous, while G&S actually tried to adapt -- for instance, premiering one of their operas in New York, a rather unusual solution at the time (and unsuccessful in curbing piracy) -- so while I sympathize with G&S more, I cannot fully support the merits of either pursuit.

[Yoman82]

Ooh. I love political debates. I'll have to read the article, for I don't even know what this is about, but... I'll be sure to get back to ya, Beatles.

[The Beatles]

Cheers!

Some notes to that effect are also on Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.M.S._Pinafore#Background

They reference the full article, which I linked above.

[Yoman82]

Hrm. I can't download, but I read the review. This issue is about.... copyrights on musical performances? So... royalties. Yeah. Couldn't they have airport-ish security to protect the performers from piracy of their works? Sorry if this sounds completely stupid, I can't read the actual article.

[The Beatles]

Here it is, for your pirated reading convenience.

http://tokaj.no-ip.org/~jbarbero/ssrn.pdf