The Copyright Amendment Blob/Congealed Wobbling Blob of Copyright has taken the world by storm. So it is time to put the blob through its paces. I applied my version of the infamous trivia game, Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, and here is what I came up with:

1. Kevin Bacon starred in the movie Sleepers alongside Robert De Niro.
2. Robert De Niro produced the movie Entropy which featured a special appearance from U2 front man-Bono.
3. Bono is one of many starving artists who were signatories to the full-page advertisement in the Financial Times pleading for a "fair play for musicians." Apparently, a 50 year term of protection for sound recordings isn't enough and the group of artists petitioned the government to extend the term to 95 years. In fact, the cause was so compelling that some artists managed to raise themselves up from the dead to put their name to the document. [Read more about the plight of Bono and like-minded artists in this article by Marina Hyde]
4. The advertisement, "fair play for musicians" was a response to the Gowers report which recommends (among other things) the copyright term for sound recordings be maintained and not extended. Andrew Gowers, author of the report, is quoted as saying that extension of the copyright term beyond 50 years would only benefit "an exceptional few stars who are already fabulously rich." [Excellent commentary on the report can be located on Weatherall's Law and TechnoLlama.]
5. The report prepared by Andrew Gowers simply follows Australia's lead on copyright. Well, such is the case if you ask our Attorney General Mr Philip Ruddock. I query why Gowers even bothered writing the 140 page report when apparently all that was required was "See Australian Copyright Law" (we housemates much prefer "See Blob"). [Read about the similarities in this post from Weatherall's Law]
6. As we all know, Mr Philip Ruddock is intimately acquainted with the Congealed Wobbling Blob of Copyright/Copyright Amendment Blob/ Copyright Amendment Act 2006. [Read more here in previous post by Catherine Bond (featuring the blob).]

And thus, it is demonstrated- Kevin Bacon is within six degrees of the Copyright Amendment Blob. Are you?

(Pictured: "a little more than six degrees of Kevin Bacon", Matt Leclair, available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommericial-ShareAlike 2.0 license)

Labels: abi, Fun