As Internet and digital technologies make it easier to transfer media files from person to person, producers and consumers deserve to have a thoughtful, broad debate on artists' rights, freedom or information and fair use. Unfortunately, both public conversations and policy debates about copyright have been highly constricted. The act of copying is uncritically conflated with stealing, while media corporations asserting creators' or owners' rights which upend the traditional purpose of copyright law—-stifling, rather than supporting, a culture of creativity.

Multinational corporations are seeking to use international trade agreements to extend or create intellectual property rights over agricultural and pharmaceutical products, placing worldwide public health in the balance opposite their own profits.

Resources on intellectual property , artists' rights, copyright, and fair use:

• Center for Social Media
• Consumer Project on Technology
• Downhill Battle
• Fair Use Network
• Future of Music Coalition
• Negativland
• New Yorkers for Fair Use
• Union for the Public Domain
• Consumer Project on Technology