I've mentioned Plagiarism Today previously as a good source for copyright issues. In fact Digimarc hosted a webcast with Jonathan Bailey who writes at Plagiarism Today where he covered a lot of basics about copyright, it's still available if you missed it.

I've also mentioned I prefer an alternative approach to US copyright know as Creative Commons which I think fits contemporary society and internet usage more realistically.

THEN, I heard about a movie being given away, apparently to avoid copyrights and royalties due to the music sound track. Sita Sings the Blues appears to be turning a blind eye to copyright laws, but it's not quite that simple... The creator of the movie, Nina Paley, is an Artist in Residence of http://questioncopyright.org/, which puts forth some interesting ideas about copyright and the way it can restrict access to copyrighted materials and why we should think about changing the system. Sita Sings the Blues was released with only a Creative Common Attribution-Share Alike License to help make the case that the movie is "not for profit" and maybe not subject to copyright infringement.

It's always interesting to try and understand alternative views, and this one is well beyond what I currently understand about copyright. I’m going to have read through and see how I feel about Nina Paley's approach.

As for Sita Sings the Blues; love the style, it's cute, but not really my cup of tea.