Michael Jackson, The Beatles, and You.

Certainly, the copyrights owned by Michael Jackson were extraordinarily valuable. This article from the New York Times discusses the possibility of MJ's estate selling off the rights to some amazing music.

The NYT has this cool feature on it, where you can buy the rights to an article, and this got me thinking: "Is what I'm doing, right now, a violation of the copyright?" As much as I think about this stuff, I had never even given linking a second thought. In my search for the answer, I found these two articles:

10 Big Myths About Copyright Explained
Copyright Issues Present Ongoing Dilemma: To Link or Not To Link?

I haven't done any legal research on it yet, but I feel it's important to note that the second article is from 2003, and the law may have changed significantly. I'll check back with updates as I find them.

"Why Do Good People Steal Intellectual Property?"

Here's an article about the reasons people steal intellectual property. It examines the subject from a cognitive perspective, and it asserts that the biology of it has legal implications (beyond the obvious ones).

Interesting, indeed.